Red Alert 2 in web browser

Red Alert 2 in web browser (chronodivide.com)

nsoonhui

483 points

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warpspin

I loved Red Alert 2 so much at release. Always was the pinnacle of (single player) RTS for me. The over-the-top characters, the cheesy story, the terrain interactions...

Everything afterwards felt lame and was geared too much towards multiplayer balance, which does not interest me the least.

ecshafer

2 days ago

Starcraft becoming uber popular in Korea I think really hurt the RTS genre. I did play RTS games online when I was younger. But I think you're right, Everything went from lets make a fun game with a cool campaign, to lets make an Esport. Company of Heroes 1 to 3, Dawn of War 1 to 2, Age of Empires 1,2,3 vs 4. You can really see this.

emaro

2 days ago

I think the campaigns of StarCraft II are amazing (never played Broodwar unfortunately). However I kinda agree that StarCraft's success hurt the RTS genre, because it's just so freaking good. 15 years since release and there are still tournaments played, it's fun to watch and projects like Stormgate have a really hard time, because SC2 is the bar and it's super difficult to reach. In terms of unit legibility, responsiveness, balance, etc. The bad thing is, it's not an approachable game at all, it mainly is interesting in the competitive/eSport scene.

If I watch YT videos a la "New RTS games 2025/2026" there are very interesting projects which give me hope that SC2 is not the end of RTS games.

ecshafer

2 days ago

A lot of the new RTS games I think just end up trying to be StarCraft but not. Grey Goo for example was one that came out a few years ago and it was just Starcraft with a new skin. I am not saying Starcraft is a bad game, its a fantastic game (though I do prefer Warcraft). But it kind of sucks the air out of the genre.

Starcraft and Starcraft II, and Warcraft I,II,III had great campaigns. So it is kind of ironic that a lot of the games copying them cut the campaigns for the esports focus.

npteljes

2 days ago

Genres also come and go. Arena shooters are also out for a long time, compared to 95-2005. Or point and click adventure games. I think there are a huge amount of players who are genre agnostic, or, not even "gamers", and just jump from one type of fun to the next.

iamacyborg

2 days ago

DoW 2 is great, DoW 3 on the other hand…

teeray

2 days ago

> The over-the-top characters, the cheesy story

I love that they don't take themselves too seriously in this series. RA3 had some hilarious cutscenes with characters barely holding it together (the Soviet Premier was an underrated Tim Curry role IMO).

jayd16

2 days ago

There's a lot of things going against the RTS genre.

They're technically challenging to make and creatively hard to balance.

The public doesn't want to pay $60 upfront for a campaign when fun freemium games exist.

The UX does not work well on controller so a huge amount of console players will be out of reach.

Games tend to be quite long and because it's not team play matchmaking matters a lot. This push multiplayer into being highly competitive and not pushes out the casual players.

Seems like Clash Royale likes are the best we've come up with to modernize the genre but of course its very different.

tshaddox

2 days ago

It was so fun even just as a sandbox. Like Age of Empires 2, they somehow just got the feel of everything so perfect. Deploying G.I.'s in sandbags and getting them promoted to veteran, so fun! Chaining prism towers, how delightful!

nkrisc

2 days ago

RA2 was loads of fun played with a friend over LAN against many computer opponents.

We’d start the game up in one computer, then pop the CD out and start it up in the next one, and so on.