Real-time strategy game
A strategy video game in which players gather resources, build forces, and make decisions simultaneously rather than taking turns.
Resource management: The allocation and replenishment of limited resources to meet competing needs. Resource income constrains which units and structures can be produced and when.
Warcraft: Orcs & Humans: A 1994 fantasy strategy game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. It brought the emerging formula into a fantasy setting with two playable factions.
Turn-based strategy: A strategy-game format in which players take turns making moves or issuing orders. Alternating turns replace the simultaneous decisions that define this genre.
Strategy video game: A video game in which players make decisions to achieve objectives through planning and resource allocation. Real-time strategy is one branch of this broader game family.
Esports: Organized competitive video gaming, including leagues, tournaments, and professional players. Real-time strategy became one of esports’ early competitive formats.
Real-time tactics: A strategy-game approach focused on battlefield decisions, usually without base construction or resource gathering. It shares simultaneous combat but shifts attention away from economic development.
Command & Conquer: A 1995 science-fiction strategy game developed by Westwood Studios. Its campaigns, interface, and faction conflict helped popularize the genre.
4X: A strategy-game genre organized around exploring, expanding, exploiting, and exterminating. 4X games usually emphasize long-term empire development over rapid battlefield execution.
Utopia (video game): A 1981 Intellivision game combining economic development, military action, and direct competition. It anticipated some real-time strategy ideas without using the later genre’s standard format.
StarCraft: Brood War: A 1998 expansion to StarCraft that became a major competitive game, especially in South Korea. Its long-lived professional scene helped establish televised esports competition.