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New Horizons, New Market?
Incubation, X-Com, and their ilk, have done their share of branching, and at least in X-Com's case, been financially rewarded for going out on their gaming limb. On the other hand, I nearly cried when I discovered that Combat Mission: Beyond Overlord (my nomination for that dubious "Game of the Year" title) would visit World War II's Russian front in its sequel. Puhlease!  That's been done to death -- the Russians won, it's over, let's drop it!

My point is that there will always be a given segment that will buy East Front wargames, Civilization games and galactic conquest games, but it's a diminishing segment. Folks tire of the same old wine in a graphically new bottle. Let's be different, perhaps a game on gang wars, evolution, or one depicting the famous science fiction armored mercenaries, Hammer's Slammer's saga. I don't know. Nevertheless, although I'm not sure what the next big turn-based strategy game will be, I'm sure it won't be wargame about the Russian front, a galactic conquest game with mind-numbing minutia, or a Civilization clone (unless Sid Meier designs it).

Innovation's third face is the game engine itself. Many turn-based games are simple "I-move-then-you-move" affairs. The system works well, and it's one that I often enjoy. But to pull in new gamers, developers must design new innovative takes on turn-based gaming. Combat Mission's system is one of the best examples (see my article on it here).  Battle Isle --The Andosia War's real-time turn-based system may be another, as was Semper Fi's phased activation, and as I've said before, Squaresofts' Active Time Battle system is just begging for a strategy game adaptation. Finally, the Continuous Turn-Based mode of the upcoming Fallout Tactics looks sweet.

Turn-Based = Dated Graphics?
That brings us to the second word... immersion. People want to live inside their games. They want to be blinded when lasers flash and smell gunpowder when muskets fire. They want to brag to fellow gamers of their troop's heroic deeds and grimace when they die in battle. One of the best ways to immerse people is by making them care, and one of the best ways to do that is blending strategy with RPG. The original Panzer General gave us the first taste of that RPG/strategy formula and it went on to sell gobs of games. Look for Fallout Tactics --which digs even deeper into the RPG/strategy blending  -- to do the same.

Sound and graphics --when employed properly-- are another way to immerse the player. That doesn't mean slapping some 3D models on a hex grid, as Talonsoft did with The Operational Art of War, but rather using a computer's capabilities to create that "you are there" feeling. Again, Combat Mission's 3D graphics put you at ground zero, wondering when that Tiger tank will crest the ridge and lay its gun on your puny Wolverine tank destroyer. But Combat Mission isn't alone.  Long before that game’s release, Incubation's 3D polygonal monsters were enough to give pause to all but the most jaded gamer.

And that, in a sentence, is what turn-based strategy games need to do -- give pause. They need to shake up what has come before in order to survive. Part of that shaking is adapting a new sales model.  Part is learning to innovate through topic and engine.  And part is devising new ways to immerse gamers in their games. If developers/publishers can do that, the genre will not just survive but thrive.

Read Mark’s Article on Combat Mission >

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