I know you requested steam, but beyond all reason is legitimately good and free. Runs on all major OS’s, has a good user base and excellent development.
Yup, that’s awesome. The first time I played it, I was using a steam deck as a daily driver while waiting for a new laptop to ship. Grabbed the app image and it just worked!
As far as RTS in general goes (C&C Generals), I really enjoy Age of Empires IV. There is argueably more diversity as there are more civs (15ish) than there are in Star Craft. And each civ has several viable builds.
I still enjoy a game of Planetary Annihilation every other time, might not float your boat if you’re looking for a much more classic RTS. But smashing moons to the enemy’s base has never felt so awesome.
Stormgate should be out soon. It made its rounds already with SC2 streamers, so there are a few videos of beta gameplay out there. (It appears to be a modern SC2) From what I can see, it looks good but I honestly have no idea.
Early access is almost/already over? The full unlock is on the 30th, I assume. I dunno if all the streamers showing it were on pre-early release or not.
So excited for this. A few friends and I are going through all the SC2 campaigns (3pl coop mod) and having a blast. We played a ton of SC1 back in the day. I remember playing til 3-4am some sessions.
I played for a bit during the beta a few months ago (before the third race was in the game) and it was quite fun but clearly very far from finished. It should be in a better state when early access starts in a couple weeks, but I’m sure there will still be many rough edges.
You are asking about a game that is widely considered the best in a genre. Everything else will feel different if not inferior.
With that disclaimer out of the way, Battle Aces and Stormgate are worth a look. A new take on the genre and a spiritual successor made by some of the developers that made StarCraft.
Yeah, Stormgate is definitely very Starcraft like, the team’s connection to old SC shows through clearly. There are a few nice quality of life updates though in terms of hot keys for unit creation and such.
So that’s a pretty interesting question, because you’re asking for a modern RTS which doesn’t quite exist. It’s not that the RTS genre died, it’s just kind of evolved into two separate paths based on what people enjoyed from those games.
For those that liked the fast action, APM, control of units, MOBAs have mostly filled that role.
For those that liked planning out and building a huge base, there are a bunch of indie base/empire building games.