Starcraft II

Starcraft 2 came out 10 years ago. And yet it remains the best RTS experience by a wide margin.

Not only does it still have a thriving competitive scene (with Starcraft I which is still chugging along), but it has several ways to play casually. They have the arcade, co-op, and the campaign.

The arcade is filled with cutesy community made games and campaigns. I’ve tried a bunch and there’s just a lot of fun stuff in there.

Co-op is a continually supported mode where you have a minor faction from the game and take on challenge maps with a friend (or match with someone else). The maps are all well designed and there’s also weekly mutations that add randomized challenges.

The campaign is hands down the best RTS campaign ever. Every mission pushes you forward ensuring that you do everything under a clock. It’s REAL-TIME strategy, and nearly every mission pushes you to play fast and multitask.

Each campaign has a variety of upgrades and arsenal-choices means there’s tons of replayability, both self-imposed challenges and just trying different crazy strategies. And each campaign has totally different upgrade and progression styles. It’s a total blast.

Starcraft II is awesome. Ten years later, there is no RTS that competes with it.