Age of Empires IV and Real-Time Strategy Games' Rocky History

Real-time strategy is having a moment. And gaming's largest companies, including Microsoft and Tencent, are bankrolling studios behind new RTS entries like Age of Empires IV, which is set for release on October 28. This resurgence is good news for fans of real-time strategy games, but the genre must adapt to tastes of modern gamers. Fortunately, the developers behind tomorrow's blockbuster real-time strategy games are mindful of the genre's past mistakes. The seed of the real-time strategy genre was planted when Chris Crawford published a treatise on the future of real-time gaming, titled "The Future of Computer Wargaming," in the debut winter 1981 issue of Computer Gaming World.