The gorgeously illustrated Synergy is about what comes next, when all that extraction has finally led the earth to say “enough” and swallow up those neatly arranged roads once and for all. Ecological collapse and rising temperatures have left humanity scattered, afraid, and on the verge of extinction. That increasingly close-to-reality premise has formed the backbone of countless post-apocalypse stories, often tinted a muted brown and focused on harsh battles for survival. But a new post-apocalyptic city builder that exited Early Access in April puts a more hopeful and colorful spin on life after the end of the world, and it’s been slowly gobbling up my spare evenings for the past month. The biggest one is that the campaign you’ll embark on will have you start at the very beginnings of human civilization.
The 10 best strategy games on PC worth playing
You can concentrate on building a single style of unit for your army, such as planes or tanks, or use a diverse range of units that cover land, sea, and air. Or, if you prefer, you could skip the pleasantries and start lobbing nukes across the map like they were going out of style. The flexibility of what you can use viably in Total Annihilation was considered ground-breaking at the time and would still stand tall with RTS juggernauts even today.
A game where you control groups of whimsical-looking animal people might seem lighthearted on the surface. However, beneath its charming exterior, Against the Storm is a grueling strategy experience, standing proudly amongst the best PC strategy games. You play as a powerful figure called the Viceroy and, under orders from the Scorched Queen, you must lay claim to the wilderness to rebuild the Smoldering City – your last hope against an impending natural disaster known as the Blightstorm. The Civilization series ranks highly amongst the best PC strategy games, and Civilization 6 is no exception. Like its predecessors, Civ 6 grounds the stakes and spectacle of its grand strategy in our own reality, ensuring that any who play it instantly have a frame of reference for what’s going on. If you’re at all into Norse mythology, then Northgard might be the strategy game you’ve been looking for.
Eventually, I earned an MA in magazine journalism at Cardiff University, and soon after got my first official role in the industry as a content editor for Stuff magazine. After writing about all things tech and games-related, I then did a brief stint as a freelancer before I landed my role as a staff writer here at GamesRadar+. Now I get to write features, previews, and reviews, and when I’m not doing that, you can usually find me lost in any one of the Dragon Age or Mass Effect games, tucking into another delightful indie, or drinking far too much tea for my own good. There are games that just turn out to be pillars of the genre, oft-copied but never quite reached.
Civilization 6 allows you to tinker with the past, letting you stick key elements from human history into a blender and encouraging you to happily imbibe what comes out. Combine that with robust, moreish turn-based mechanics, and you’ve got something special. Naturally, you’re always on the lookout for spice, which is the key resource you need to gather all over the planet. However, you can also come across villages and other points of interest that hold additional resources and information to gather. Spice Wars has support for four-player multiplayer as well, so you can take on Arrakis with some friends. While Hearts of Iron IV is historically accurate for the most part, there are also different paths you can follow that change the course of history.
Better still, the base/strategy layer breaks the choke-hold of both XCOM and XCOM 2’s single golden path of upgrades, allowing multiple different ways of staving off a slow death by resource drain. It is, admittedly, very, very silly, and attempts to maintain about nine different tones at once. Picking between Desperados III and Shadow Tactics took an afternoon of beard stroking; but if Mimimi’s real-time stealth tactics adventures have taught us anything, it’s the value of carefully considered actions. Add an elegant, communicative interface and smart, interlocking character abilities and it’s the best the genre has been. It’s the viability/necessity of stealth that gives Mutant Year Zero its distinct flavour, as you study awareness ranges, split and slink your party of three into ambush points and pray that probability is on your side.
When units are dead, the points gradually return to the player’s balance, so that new units can be acquired. This game can be appealing to those who normally prefer RPGs, as players to level up, and some units can be equipped with scavenged weaponry and armor. This is a good crossover game for any die-hard RPG fans who are interested in experiencing a strategy game without completely unfamiliar elements. Based on Relic’s experience with Dawn of War, the World War II era realtime strategy game Company of Heroes was widely regarded as the ultimate toy soldier game when it arrived to both commercial success and critical acclaim back in 2006.
Sid Meier’s Civilization 6
Paradox has made a name for itself by creating high quality and innovative grand strategy games, due to the real-time approach to such large-scale games. While many games set in history have used their settings for brownie points and to pull at people’s heartstrings, it’s simulation wargames that are most successful at authentically recreating life throughout the ages. Whether they are turn-based or real-time, strategy games occupy a unique niche within gaming.
Company of Heroes 3
Lastly, visuals and overall in-game mechanics were also considered while curating this list as these factors can truly make or break the game. This meticulous remaster preserves two of the most innovative strategy games ever made. Homeworld and its sequel revolutionized the genre by introducing true three-dimensional movement in space, where fleet positioning and formation are critical.
Apparently, The Creative Assembly’s much lauded Total War series is stuck in a groundhog day like cycle now. Everything ends with Empire, the last era that featured the kind of mass unit warfare the series handles so well, and goes back to the start, back to the Shogun era. With upgraded visuals and new things to do outside of the campaign, you’ll be busy with this title. What if the world had a “dark secret,” and you were one of the few people who could help save the world from that secret?
Against the Storm is a roguelite city-builder that employs a similar formula to other games, but does it with some extra flair. Most notably, the graphics in Against the Storm are cartoonish, set against a dark fantasy backdrop that makes every scene a pleasure to look at from every angle. The civilization’s survivors consist of humans as well as animals, such as lizards, foxes, and beavers, among others. Each class of survivor can accomplish different jobs throughout the settlement, so placing them in their area of expertise is going to vastly improve your production and growth. Anno is another long-running strategy franchise that peaked with Anno 1800. Set in the Industrial Age of the world, you begin the game with a large fortune and the choice to become whoever you want to be.
The grand scale of Crusader Kings III demonstrates the versatility of war strategy games as you travel back to the Middle Ages to take command of your own dynasty and explore a medieval world consisting of knights, peasants, spies, and jesters. Homeworld 3 revives the legendary Homeworld game quiz series with breathtaking 3D space battles and deep strategic mechanics. Building on the success of its predecessors, this installment introduces a fully physics-based simulation where positioning, fleet composition, and resource management dictate victory. With seven full-length campaigns, multiple distinct races that bring their own playstyle, and rich lore to delve into, you can easily find yourself completely immersed in the game for months at a time. Warcraft III’s hero system, where characters can learn abilities through experience that awards them powerful moves, results in a compelling mechanic.
As for the map you play on, you can pick a different realm to explore every time you begin a new playthrough. However, there’s also an option to create your own realm, adding another layer of customization. Sneaky tactics doesn’t come in a slicker package than Invisible, Inc., Klei’s exceptional stealth-em-up. It’s a sexy cyberpunk espionage romp blessed with so much tension that you’ll be sweating buckets as you slink through corporate strongholds and try very hard to not get caught. It’s tricky, sometimes dauntingly so, but there’s a chance you can fix your terrible mistakes by rewinding time, adding some welcome accessibility to the proceedings.