How to write...a Strategy game

Multiplayer and Mass Audiences

One of the main strengths of an RTS story-wise comes not from the singleplayer experience, but the multiplayer experience.

Think about it. In a FPS multiplayer game players often struggle to come away with meaningful stories of their exploits because they are essentially running through the same routes and tactics that everyone else is. In FPS games with a strategy bent – Counter-Strike, Battlefield or Team Fortress 2, for example – stories are easier to create. Players can talk about teamplay, pincer movements, chosen weapons and capture points.

RTS games often take that to the next level, allowing players to form formal yet fluid alliances which can play key roles in deciding a match. Players don't need to be restricted to the Terrorist or Counter-Terrorist teams. They can team up with other gamers, form nation-like clans and betray one another spectacularly. There are more tools at the players disposal for creating their own dramas in multiplayer games.

When I broached this idea with Magnus though, he seemed to think that RTS games are at the back of the queue in this regard. He pointed out that MMO games are even better at proving that concept and that no matter how much community building features were integrated in the game players would always prefer MMOs for player generated stories.

With a number of developers looking to bring the success of an MMO format to the large, more casual console market though, another thought popped into my head. What about RTS games on a console? C-RTS games are trying to kick off more properly now, with Supreme Commander and a few other franchises attempt to bring the genre to a wider and not as pirated format. Does a change in platform cause a change in style, or just inputs?


With an Xbox 360 version of World in Conflict set for a 2008 release, I asked Magnus how he felt on the matter.

"There should be very little difference in story design. I can't think of anything major we’re doing, anyway, when it comes to the Xbox version. Design-wise though, the standard RTS is a poor fit for consoles. A lot of the concepts were born and raised in an environment where the mouse was your main input device."

Magnus went on to outline a few of the key differences in the overall design of the game – no fog of war and FPS controls for the camera – and it occurred to me that a lot of the challenge lay in simplifying the genre enough. Whether it was being simplified for the gamepad control system or simplified for the more casual gamer console audiences wasn't something I wanted to hazard a guess about. That said, I think the desire for quicker and more casual games in mainstream audiences is pretty obvious. Looking forward into the future of the genre then, I wanted to know Magnus' predictions. Would the genre go the way of the point and click, or would it undergo a casual revolution?


"I think that we'll see very few new RTS games (new concepts) from the big players that are built around the mouse being its primary input device. This of course due to the economical fact that PC sales alone have a hard time carrying a AAA game," said Magnus.

I raised the idea of possible genre fusions and hybrid games in the future as the boundaries between games broke down more. One of the things which seemed unique to me was an RTS/RPG, but Magnus saw the birth of truly persistent online worlds as being more interesting and possibly having a massive effect on the future of RTS games. Could an MMO/RTS be on the horizon?

Well, maybe. Magnus didn't give anything away on that front and I didn't want to press the issue. What was clear though was that not only had the RTS genre come a long way in recent years thanks to the high quality of key strategy games like Supreme Commander and World in Conflict, but Magnus also saw a bright and interesting future for the genre.

"While I'd like to claim brilliance on our part (and I do think we've pushed the RTS genre forward), it's probably got more to do with the general maturing of the industry. Compare the complexity in personality and motives of a villain from 1998 with that of a villain from 2007 in pretty much any genre with story and you'll usually find improvements across the board."

---------
Thanks for reading. In the next part of this on-going series we’ll be moving on from strategy games to tackle a wildly different type of game: RPG. How are RPG games designed and written? How are the complex rule-sets used to complement plot and narrative? Those are the questions we'll be answering.

If you think there’s a specific title we should look at or if you want to see a specific issue or question raised in the next feature then just drop into the bit-tech community and let us know.