Why are there no recent fantasy RTS games?

The only thing which made PC games special were the RTS games, and now they're mostly gone. The last good one was Starcraft 2, and then all we have ever had were first person shooter, RPGs or modern open worlds. What happened to the RTS genre, especially the fantasy part? We'd so many great ones last decade, like Age of Mythology, BFME 2 and Warcraft 3. What happened to all those developers man, and which are some recent RTS games that you've enjoyed?

One word: Consoles.

I agree, I was looking forward to the new Command and Conquer, going back to the General days and they some how f'd that up. I was just looking at Supreme Commander 2 on humble store, debating to pick it up since I never got it.

Starcraft 2 was the last good RTS game.

I'm not sure... :( It's a shame.

There are still RTS games just look outside big publishers catalog . Planetery annihilation for instance is bound to be great. There is of course the always great Anno series . Also a new age of wonders is coming . Finally the newly released banished seems to be really good .

It seems this year to be really food for RTS gamers

Company of Heroes 2 is really good, It got a lot of hate for vague reasons when it came out, but since then its been updated nicely. Lag in multiplayer games is gone, and a new patch that came out yesterday totally overhauled infantry combat to make it more tactical. I prefer it to SC2 but I'm sure I'm in the minority there.

I agree about the lack of fantasy RTS games, I have fond memories of Battle for Middle Earth 1/2. Dawn of War 2 + its expansions are pretty good and basically fantasty, but are more RTT than RTS.

Consoles were around back then, too.

Planetary Annihilation

just saying. it's still in beta (or gamma, as they call their post-beta pre-release version), but will be out soon. made by the masterminds behind Supreme Commander, and it really looks like it's gonna be epic.

Consoles make more money than PC games, on a multiplatform games I mean, that's why developers almost don't touch this genre.

It's a damn shame, I agree. There is an open source RTS engine made to recreate Total Annihilation. It's called Spring RTS and also has a ton of mods. I haven;t checked the progress on it in a while but a few years ago it was pretty cool.

This is literally the shortest, most straightforward and accurate answer.

In more than one word - due to the higher volume of game copies being sold (if we calculate difference in piracy too), consoles bring forward a higher income to publishers and developers. As a result of this, more and more developers turn away from genres which can't be sold on both both primitive (slave) and master races and thus relocate their resources to the development of "multiplatform" nonsense ... unfortunately, RTS is not that kind of a "multiplatform" genre.

The only thing close to a decent RTS (debatable) currently is the War Game:*random name* which (in my opinion) is just a modern version of RUSE with more shit and tinkering in it. With CoH 2 being the biggest RTS flop in a while (new Total War is debatable), my only ray of hope in the RTS genre currently is the Men of War: Assault Squad 2. It really feels as if the RTS genre is becoming a niche market ... *insert a very, very sad face here*

EDIT: Regarding fantasy RTS - that thing no longer exists outside of TBS like Warlock of whatever that nonsense was ... trying to copy mechanics of Civ.

Speaking from a development side. It is pretty hard to make an RTS profitable, and unless you are an avid fan of RTS and are actually good at RTS it would be near impossible to make one that would be successful by any means.

Oh...and mobas.

I've been patiently waiting for Warcraft 4 for many years now, and I will continue to wait until it comes out!

Yeah because there are no RTSs anymore...

Moving away from the ignorance and short sightedness of that response, fantasy RTSs have always been the minority in the RTS genre. The market has always responded better to the historical, military, and sci-fi RTSs than the fantasy RTSs. There were outliers as you mentioned, but the real big ones were always historical, military, or sci-fi.

This year we've got a lot of great RTSs coming out. The genre hasn't died at all, it's just dominated by one series and nobody bothers to try to compete.

MobAs have also taken a large chunk of the RTS market. The rise of LoL and DotA 2 have pushed a lot of devs into making MobA like games instead of straight up RTSs.

This

Yeah, I miss playing games like Command and Conquer. The latest RTS game I played is Company of Heroes.

Anno.

I'm currently playing Company of Heroes 2. It's improved a lot since launch. Also, I think Age of Wonders III is a new fantasy RTS that's just come out. I don't think it's like your traditional base building RTS though. I do miss the day when there were lots and lots of RTS being released. 2000-2005 was the golden years of RTS for me.

Settlers 7 and Majesty 2 are worth a look. Neither are your traditional RTS, but do carry the elements of pace and micromanagement RTS games carry. Each game has their drawbacks, but they are enjoyable games in their own right.

Shogun 2 is epic . Rome 2 was disappointment though on launch . I heard they fixed the issues with new update , will check it out at some point this year . On other hand Company of Heroes , War Game , Men of War etc are great . Men of War : Assault Squad 2 is going to launch this year along with new expansion of WarGame .

Actually games targeted for PC audience are more profitable on PC (Diablo 3 , Half Life 2 , Witcher 2 , Portal 2 and so on). Sales figure shared by different websites doesn't include digital sales and huge part of profit also goes to Sony and M$ in case of console release . On PC most of the profit goes straight to developers . The reason why devs don't make complex games anymore is because they have seen a easier way to earn more cash : Sign a deal with console makers . Advertise the game by spending hundreds of dollars . Dumb it down for casual users . BOOM ! Lot of cash .

I loved Settlers 2 back in the day and always wanted to try 7, but I understand it has some really horrendous always-online DRM that kept me away. The reason I hate Ubisoft more than EA.

Also, its old (2004), but I haven't seen Spellforce 1 mentioned in here. It not only is a Fantasy RTS to the T, it allows you build your own character, level up, and change equipment like a normal RPG. Still has decent graphics too, I suggest anyone here starved for FRTS check it out on steam or GOG.