Dawn of the RTS Genre 

This genre and RPG are the ones that made me understand I really have become a gamer. Not more casual arcades 2 hours duration, I was really playing for weeks to the same game, and still returning time to time.

I still felt betrayed when they killed Command and Conquer Generals 2

RTS was always the best type of game genre.

Kane: “where to strike”? Jethild: community’s hearts, and minds Kane: good

Man, every time I see a video like this I'm reminded of Total Annihilation's existance and my crazy fondness for that game, back in the day, it's super well done and, even though C&C will always be my #1 RTS series, Total Annihilation was mind blowing and incredibly innovative at the time (eveything was interactable, and units that died would leave husks that could be reclaimed. The waypoint system was amazing for building those dream bases with patrol routes, etc, and the armies and weapons were massive). It also brings back memories of me sneaking floppy discs into school so I could download new units for the game, which were super easy to add in to it, as often at home our internet was too slow or unstable to do such things. The soundtrack in it is amazing too, and the way you presented it in this video gives me Transformers vibes, which I never really made the link to before, but oh yeah lol. Funny thing with Starcraft - around the time it was released, there was another ('me-too') RTS in the works making the rounds in the PC Gaming Magazine scene. I can't even remember what it was called now. Terrain Dominion, or Dominion 3, or something like that. I could be completely wrong. Either way, that was the RTS me and my brother were most looking forward too. But we couldn't get it in the end, for whatever reason, and had to settle on Starcraft instead. Happiest most lucky disappointment ever. I'm 100% sure we ended up with a better game, and it wasn't long before Starcraft made us forget the other game was even a thing we wanted. As for Brood War, it was a fucking nightmare of an expansion pack to find in stores. There was like a gazillion third-party companies releasing unofficial expansions (though we didn't realise at the time) to Starcraft, due it's crazy popularity. Every time our grandparents took us out to get Brood War, we'd always have to settle for one of those instead (some were decent enough, others, not so much. They were all built using the excellent Mission Editor that was available to everyone though). I actually never got a chance to play Brood War till many, many years later. I never understood the hate for Dune 2000. In particular I just liked the feel of the UI, unit and sounds in the game. It was snappy. It was a nicely done remaster, and added some much needed depth to the game balance in Dune 2. It didn't innovate, sure, but that's not what it set out to do - and what it set out to do, it did very well, IMO. It also benefited from being the best balanced RTS at the time (though that was likely due to mostly identical sides - before anybody says - "but Starcraft!" - it had only just released and had to be patched several times to get to that point). I guess when people were comparing it to Starcraft, released the same year, it was no wonder it fell a bit short though. I think to Westwood, it was just a quick easy side project to get some extra needed money for that Tiberian Sun development anyway, which had a notoriously super troubled and resource-consuming development cycle. Speaking of Tiberian Sun - yeah, that music - that environment. Chills. Nailed that atmosphere, that's for sure. Another game that was notoriously difficult to get hold of on release, my father saw how much we had adored C&C/RA though and really, REALLY, went out of his way to get us a copy, paying well above the RRP for it (when my parents had always been notoriously tight with money and buying us things in general) bless him. The beauty of the C&C games was the dual-CD releases, Meant with only a single copy of it, both me and my brother could play the game. Looking back, I think my father really appreciated that about the Westwood titles too, which is why he probably didn't mind going to all that trouble and paying extra to get us Tiberian Sun in the end. Never really got into Age of Empires or Homeworld, but my older brother was very fond of both of them. My little brother ended up being more a Blizzard-style RTS kind of guy, eventually moving onto DOTAs (ewww) for a while before reverting. I myself stayed firmly in the Westwood-style RTS camp though. All of us appreciated most of these golden age titles though. Anyway, thanks for the memories, look forward to part 2!

this is some trip down the memory lane! Excellent Video! I was there, from Dune 2 until the end...each word of every intro movie burned into memory. each sound evokes smells and images... thank you

muh childhood i played 95% of these

this needs a Part 2 !

I hope at some point once you get all the main well known strategy games out of the way, i do hope to see a video that tackles some lesser known games even if its like a minute per game , lots of strategy games out there that have been kind of interesting but left in the dust sadly (one of my favorites being the likes of Para World )

Total Annihilation just made my heart stop, cause the surge of really good memories about childish times. Excellent video, I think we need de second part of this awesome video, "The fall of RTS"

"I need shoes" ~the rts with most memorable quotes, guess it 🙂

I'm absolutely salivating for Part 2, as what will come next is Red Alert 2, the Zenith of Westwood's Command and Conquer.

This is the most underrated channel I've ever seen. Keep up the awesome work.

One thing I notice is how badass these games were. (themes, music, and so on) It's like somewhere in the 2000s they forgot what cool was.

Thanks for reminding me that I'm still waiting for the sequel of Emperor: Battle for Dune for 20 years now.

This is a journey back through my childhood. My father was playing Dune 2 and that was the first game I'd be fascinated by. And then Warcraft, Warcraft 2, Command & Conquer, Red Alert, StarCraft, Age of Empires... I lived it all and would choose to do so again.

Ah dune 1 and 2, my childhood. Populous too Supreme Commander was the game that got me in the proper mind-set for rts, with c&c being the more relaxed rts games

This is really an excellent video! Thanks for taking the time to make it!

yeah you featured TA in your video. this game was a gem and the forefather of the greatest RTS every: supreme commander :) good there are so many titles to talk about... i played nearly everyone of these games... glad you did this video its great

Good one, despite some minor flaws. What I'm missing is _Bullfrog._ Populous, Powermonger and most importantly Dungeon Keeper are too important to ignore.

you deserve way more views on quality videos like this!

thank you for taking me down a walk through my entire childhood. I feel grateful I played every single one of these (and more) at their release and the at their height of their popularity. The intro song from Total Antihalation gives me goose bumps.

Awesome video! Thank you Jethild. You really mapped out the beginnings of this great genre. I'll be keeping my eye on future updates from you.

Thank you for this amazing video :)! Cannot believe how many details you included. Very good job!

never seen your channel before, but i really enjoyed this doc style video! my frist PC game was Redalert and much of my young gaming memory's are with Tiberium Sun and Redalert 2, i cant wait for part 2 of this video! :D

Awesome work. I agree that the first RTS game that started defining the genre is the first Dune from 1992. But the first Strategy game that i have played is North & South for the Nintendo Entertaintment system, a game that first came out for Commodore Amiga and Atari ST. Still i miss a very important RTS game in the 90's that it is "Dungeon Keeper" from Bullfrog Studios, that combined many aspects ofr rpg genre with a Dungeon builder Strategy Game. Also had very good graphics for it´s time, combining a 3D view for the map and 2D for the unit models, with a very unique and interesting function, that you can "possess" your own units and control them directly in a first person view. Keep up the good work, i want to see the second part with amazing games like Warcraft III, Warhammer 40.000 Dawn of War, Command & Conquer 3 or Company of heroes.

anyone here use to play 2 games called Warzone 2100 and KKND:Krossfire? these two games was just as important to my childhood as the command and conquer series, it's a shame that i don't see any videos made about these two games... i say they was rather underrated

3:04 gave me goosebumps

Warcraft , Starcraft and Command and Conquer is a master tier game for me, i don't care about others opinion. RTS always got underratd because of flashy game like doom, csgo, COD ( i played all of it too ) and it's actually make me feel sad about it

Highly enjoying your C&C content and this overview of RTS in general. I'll stick around for more.

the funny thing is age of empires is the first game i ever played when i was 7. dident understand english at all but it was fun

Very comprehensive and impressive

Still play Dune II and D2K every now and then. Dune II was the first game I ever played, starting when I was 3 years old, after having watched my dad and older brother play it for a few months before I was finally allowed to. To this day they hold their place as my favorite games ever of all time, and I can't overstate just how much I absolutely LOVE Frank Klepacki's work in both of them

love sc and rts history ty

Wow, I must say that I'm very impressed by this documentary about RTS. You really showed the pioneers of the genre with C&C, AoE, Warcraft and Starcraft, your analysis is totally on point. You deserve a lot more views, keep your high quality standard !

omg my whole childhood in a video..if you added in civ 2 and colonisation it would be complete. Also lemmings.

We need part 2! Come on!

Nicely made, I hope you make more!

I was linked this video in my Discord server and instantly subscribed. I am super excited for part 2 as I'm modding Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge as I'm watching this. I'm playing the game to this day, still.

Couldn't have explained RTS History as well as You did Bro. Well Done! Lived and Researched! Dune II so much personal history I wouldn't even want to explain pubically. However it involved a photocopier and some flippy disks.

@03:05 Not gonna lie... That sound immediately warmed my cold heart for a moment or two 😮

8:41 That's a spice bloom, not a sand worm... 12:11 That's actually the 1997 Win95 port of C&C, not the original 1995 game. 13:15 You forgot the biggest improvement of all... the context sensitive mouse click unit commands, instead of sidebar command buttons, a feature originally developed for the Megadrive port of Dune II. 13:50 Internet play over modem was already possible in the DOS version, though. And, as far as I know, C&C95 was only released in 1997; it's built on upgraded UI engine of Red Alert, and RA was already from November in 1996. 15:51 The Fog of war was a simple UI option in Warcraft II though; you could just disable it. 28:31 Dune 2000 was not actually made by Westwood Studios; it was outsourced to the British company Intelligent Games. Westwood only did the videos and music. 30:11 Uh, C&C games never had a population cap. The only Westwood game with a noticeable cap was Dune II. 37:15 And KKND.

Thx for this video your channel is so great!

"This is not just Warcraft in space. It's much more sophisticated."

This is a great video mate, really enjoyed it! should have way more subs

If you can please cover a RTS game called Battle Realms it would be great, because it is an underrated classic that should get more exposure.

Even knowing it was coming from the comments, the Total Annihilation intro still caught me by surprise with a sucker punch in the feels. Loved that game. Hell, 20 minutes in and the only game on the list so far that I didn't (don't think anyway) play was dune 2, due to timing. Feeling like I learned a lot while simultaneously being reminded of so much I already knew. Good video.

Great vids buddy, keep it up!

I played Dune 2 many times, but never bothered to build slabs under my buildings. Sometimes I used slabs to build all he way to enemy base to discover it though. Also don't forget Earth 2140

I want more rts so bad. Boss man your channel would get big fast if you keep up the good work

Omg this got me hooked up til the end, i grew up playing strategy games all the time, kinda sad so few people that still care.

Fun fact: starcraft was presented to games workshop as they were looking for designs for 40K. They didn't make the cut and went ahead a made their own game with it.

YOOOO DUDE THIS IS SO UNDERRATED

I remember playing this game a lot called Dark Planet battle for natrolis it had 3 races and it was pretty similar to starcraft with the tech humans, another mystical race like the protoss and an insect like race like the zerg. It had pretty good graphics for its time.

Dune 2000 was my first game, let along RTS game. The graphics still hold up.

Yoooo this video was great brought me back to my childhood.

Thank you for this informative video.

Great video, thank you!

Fantastic video, really well done and deserves a lot more views! Only critique would be that it may have been worth mentioning 'The Settlers' series

Very informative Video. Good work

Literally grew up by playing all these games XD. Good ol times.

Hoping to see such forgotten gems as Black & White and Cossacks in your part 2.

I do hope you revisit this series when you feel ready, It's very well done.

Auto-captions accidently spelled out "nano-stalling" as "nano Stalin" which, in my opinion, is the best name for a future Red Alert 4

This is an amazing video

Starcraft is the biggest RTS that is single handhandedly making the genre relative today. Starcraft Brood war is still kicking internet in the Korean competitive scene (I don’t think it very much s a staple e-sport over there) Star Craft II still draws crowds globally and is like the 4-5th largest pc Esport game still. It’s just all the other RTS games from the 90s have died or being held by the likes of E.A. Perhaps pushing for and support for a lot more new RTS games on both PC and consoles would re-invigorate the genre to a new age?

I'm ready for that part two!

great video. great job. you rock

Nice video dude, my RTS games growing up for KKND, Red Alert, Warcraft 2 and Starcraft - Great times! Big into the SC2 competative scene now, but I hate how low my APM is so I never play outside the campaign haha.

How about KKND? It maybe didn't introduce some new concepts, but the atmosphere and the advanced AI made it a unique and great game! Very tough to beat at that time. And units, maaan, the units, absolutely awesome!

If im still a bad gamer, and still a gamer, its just coz of the fun I get in RTS, and this video is just the fact that good gamers are just not hard to find, but the best games are always in stratergy games, I loved this video btw, very nicely detailed and researched work

I find it interesting that, back then, 500,000 units in 3 months was a big thing. I guess it was still the time when PC's were bought to do work on, and playing games on them was still a novelty. I imagine it was easier to pitch management heavy games to people at that time, since most people using a computer would've been used to spreadsheet software anyway. As much as I love RTS, I can totally see why it's a niche genre now. We still get some greats, though. Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak was fantastic in my opinion, I quite enjoyed Planetary Annihilation and I'm enjoying Iron Harvest atm. Niche is, arguably, kind of good for RTS. It means only teams passionate about the genre attempt it.

Is it time for me to cry again because no Command and Conquer sequel in 8 years?

Great video, looking forward to part2! Aside from Dune, Warcraft and Startcraft, I also really enjoyed 'Z' and 'Beasts & Bumpkins'.

Bloody hell, 1999 was a golden year for RTS!

C&C didnt have a skirmished so I’m pretty sure I played TA more than any of them combined. What a perfect fucking game that was. The score too, how it would tell the situation and play something for it... amazing.

Quite surprised you didn't mention the introduction of the "Skirmish" mode as for me it really was the big BIG game changer. The idea that you can make a map where the factions start off at the same level and grow to take over the map like a multiplayer game but with bots was HUGE. It really is a genre defining gameplay change. For example, The difference between C&C and Red Alert was if I wanted to play C&C against A.I. I had to load up a campaign mission, that was it, Red alert had the Skirmish mode which gave so SO much more playability. It really did completely change the genre. Every RTS has it now, as standard, many people forgoing the campaign just to play skirmish.

It was one of my main Genres in the 90s and 2000s!

90's and early 2000's was such a rich time to be a gamer, just like being a movie enthusiast was in the 70's, the directors had control, now sadly like the movie industrie it's the studios and marketing teams that run the industries to their detriment.

you just run me trough memory line of my childhood !.. damn son ... good times , good fun !!

Omg....Dune 2... Man. I grew up on that... Brb...Nostalgia Overload...

great channel

I still play dawn of war and starcraft !

with the exception of Herzog Zwei and Homeworld, I've played these games for much too many hours during my teenage years. I have all these games purchased one way or another and even have some of them installed on my laptop this very moment. this just shows the dedication put into these games by their developers and the long-term gratification they provide to users. I'm glad I grew up playing these RTS games, today's strategy games look more like a neverending grind to me riddled with DLC's and so on. btw, thanks for the hint, I'm gonna get Homeworld and give it a good try!

You got a few things wrong in this video. The original C&C had no unit caps and you could produce units until your game crashed but was unlikely to happen do map size and limited max resources on the map. You would have to go out of your way to make that happen. Also food was a managed resource in the first Warcraft game just like it was in the second game.

Empire Earth, Dark Reign, Battle Realm, Supreme Commander, Warzone 2100, are some of my favourite RTS.

Very nice video!!!

I really love RTS genre, sadly it doesn't developed to it fullest. Btw anyone play battle realms here. Such a cool concept and unique

From this video i wish that we can have new RTS game, nowadays game is only about Battle Royale,Moba ,Battlepass, and high quality Graphic without good gameplay Its unfortunate that new RTS Iron Harvest have bad mechanics Hope they can improve Iron Harvest more

Let's see... The entire Command & Conquer franchise, Age of Empires 1, 2 and 3, Total Annihilation, Warcraft 3 and FT, the Dune games, Homeworld, some StarCraft, Earth 2150... Man, I've played a lot of RTS games over the decades...

Uh ! What an amazing video ❤ It felt like it was only 15 minutes long when it reached the end. One game I was expecting 100% was Z. Although not classic RTS model but it gave C&C & Warcraft real kickin ! This definitely needs more parts, 1. One focused on the very beginnings of strategy games: Hertzog Zwei, Stronghold and some others that laid basics to the genre, 2. One dedicated to lesser known games of the golden age: KKnD, M.A.X., Dominion, 7th Legion, War Wind, Tbh, I was surprised I didn't see Earth 2150 in the video as it was very inovative game. 3. Dawn of RTS, 4. Games that came after. Excellent video really, its shame when quality hard work is not appreciated when stupid vlogs are getting millions of views. Shame I found it only now. Best wishes mate ❤ Btw, I never had PC in the golden era and mostly fed on reviews and articles in magazines. Only got computer in early 2000s. And nowadays I can't find time to spend on games.

Starcraft 2 released on 2010 is basically alive and kickin'

Bro hello from Russia and Thanks you for that video! The best of all !

The problem with the RTS genre is that nee video games have to be produced every few years. These come new and more complicated mechanics in order to give the existing audience something new. This alienates newcomers to the genre who feel overwhelmed. Imagine every decade a sequel to Chess came out with new pieces. It would be a nightmare.

no 2nd part coming? :(

Thank you.

Ooof that Warcraft 1 gameplay is so fast. Most times I see gameplay for it it's super sped up because that's how the game engine was designed. I remember playing it in slow motion basically on my old PC when it first came out in it's shareware form. I rarely see it's actual game speed in videos.

Jarrid Mendelson is a genius who made Ordos OST for the legendary Emperor: Battle for Dune game, David Arkenstones' Harkonnens OST also a cult classic. The game is legendary for a surprising reasons. Balance between factions was pretty uneven, story was for a checkmark, but But excellent music and amazing atmosphere what's made it epic. Gameplay was very solid and dynamic. Graphics where unseen for the time. They're inherited Lynches brilliant aesthetic of Dune and nailed it with their rendition. Sub-factions are very important new addition to the old formula, it was fresh wind into the genre. It was a pinnacle of Westwood RTS at the time (Of course Generals further pushed the genre for the greater heights).

Starcraft was my 1st rts on that time before jumping to red alert2 ,battlerealms,command and conquer zero hour ohh i forgot warcraft

I'm sure most people know this, but Age of Empires 2 has experienced a very strong reniassance.