If there’s anything I’ve learned from playing through the WarCraft 3: The Frozen Throne singleplayer campaign, then it’s that mission variety is a key aspect of real-time strategy games that’s far too often overlooked. The Frozen Throne’s singleplayer campaign is amongst the most enjoyable RTS campaigns I’ve ever played, which was entirely down to the widely varied missions.
The Frozen Throne didn’t go the classic route of a wealth of basic real-time strategy missions interspersed with hero missions that is still the most common format today. Instead Blizzard included a secret Tower Defense level, multi-base strategy levels, a Defense of the Ancients-inspired rescue mission and even an entire hack & slash RPG campaign! The result was a game that didn’t grow monotonous towards the end, but remained interesting and surprising all the way through.
It’s been nearly a decade since The Frozen Throne was released and it’s interesting to see that many developers have tried to innovate within the real-time strategy genre, but very few have tried to tackle the genre’s main problem: repetition.
Looking back at a few recent innovative strategy games like Command & Conquer 4, Company of Heroes, Dawn of War 1 & 2 and Red Alert 3, two things immediately come to mind. Their innovative gameplay that pushes the real-time strategy genre in new directions and their dreadfully dull singleplayer campaigns with a mission structure no more – and frequently less – varied than C&C: Tiberian Sun’s (1999).
This also holds true for iterative strategy games such as Anno 1404 and Supreme Commander 1 & 2. These games don’t truly innovate in any meaningful way, nor do they offer varied singleplayer experiences that will captivate the player until the end credits roll. Indeed, Supreme Commander easily ranks as one of the most monotonous singleplayer experiences in strategy gaming history, despite the excellent gameplay it has to offer.
So it’s hardly surprising that real-time strategy games are no longer as popular as they used to be. While game developers have been frantically trying to innovate in terms of gameplay mechanics, they seem to have forgotten that the idea behind the singleplayer campaign ought to be to hook the player into an entertaining experience. That’s impossible with a campaign structure as flat as a nuked skyscraper.
C&C 4 was just as repetitive as its predecessors, with terrible innovative gameplay mixed in for good measure
Only World in Conflict comes to mind as a relatively recent (2007) exception to this rule, with its engaging tale of Soviets invading the United States and hugely varied missions. It easily offers the most compelling singleplayer experience of the past few years and was widely praised for it. And no one seems to have taken notice as more recent real-time strategy games still provide the same old repetitive singleplayer experiences.
Yet there are many ways to tackle this problem, such as introducing different mission types than simple base building and hero control. An even better way to ensure a compelling singleplayer experience would be to have a non-linear campaign structure, similar to Battle Realms (2001). Allow players to choose between missions to directly influence the story being told and possibly even which units they unlock.
That may sound familiar, because it’s exactly what Blizzard is promising to do with StarCraft 2: Wings of Liberty. It may not introduce any brilliant innovative gameplay mechanics to the genre, but if it provides an engaging singleplayer experience then that hardly matters.
Would you rather play a repetitive game that innovates, or play through a mildly oldschool, but engaging singleplayer campaign?
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