ESSENTIALLY, YOU WERE A
DUNGEON MASTER, SENDING
HEROES OUT ON ADVENTURESapocalyptic spells and summon all sorts of colorful,
magical units. The summoned creatures followed the
wizard around, and could be given orders or put into
formations. Instead of fussing with resources, buildings,
and large armies, all of your concerns were right there
in front of you: the wizard and their crew of weird
minions. And it looked incredible for the time. It was a
surreal, broken dreamscape that looked like it leaked
out of the brain of Salvador Dalí or Hieronymus Bosch.
The unit design was just as strange, featuring a large
menagerie of outlandish beasties that could be thrown
into battle.
These new strategy games were posing interesting
questions about what ingredients the genre really
needed to succeed, and what could be thrown away
or reconsidered. Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim,
for instance, asked if we really needed direct control
at all. Instead of commanding units, players had to
tempt heroes to set up shop in their town by providing
the appropriate facilities, and then encourage them
to go and solve nearby problems by creating quests
and rewards. Essentially, you were a Dungeon Master,
sending heroes out on adventures to explore a new par
of the world or murder some pesky monsters.
Established franchises were getting smaller, but
still notable, shake-ups. Age of Mythology applied the
Age of Empires formula to ancient myths and legends,
throwing monsters, magic, gods, and heroes into the
GET CARDED
rtLike the wargames of
the ’70s and ’80s,
collectible card games
have increasingly been
going digital. Some, like
the wildly popular
Magic: The Gathering,
started out as physical
games before digital
spin-offs cropped up,
while others, like
Hearthstone, were
developed as
videogames from the
ground up. While the
settings, rules andmechanics often differ a
great deal between
them, these strategy-
adjacent games task
players with creating
decks of armies, heroes,
buildings, spells, or just
broad concepts.
Hybrids have been
appearing too, like Card
Hunter, which mixed
tabletop RPGs with
CCGs and tactical
combat, and Valve’s
upcoming Artifact,
inspired by Dota 2.Westwood was
gone, but Command
& Conquer was still
kicking about.