A new game studio plans to redefine the real-time strategy genre

RTSes were a genre that rose to popularity in the 90's and were a staple of PC gaming. As home consoles expanded the medium towards the turn of the century, it was a style of play that saw less prevalence in demand. Uncapped Games is a studio led by former StarCraft II multiplayer developer David Kim, along with other talents from Relic Entertainment (Warhammer: Dawn of War) and Blackbird Studios (Hardspace: Shipbreaker) to work on a new project that is teased to be revealed at this year's Summer Game Fest. Created by Tencent in 2021, Uncapped Games, they released a documentary on their official YouTube channel and social media platforms detailing their goal to trigger a "paradigm shift" in real-time strategy games.

"Our mission is to develop a next-generation RTS for PC by refining core principles and introducing groundbreaking innovations to the genre," the team speaks. "This allows players to customize their army, expand their economy, and advance their technology, all while enjoying infinite replayability."

Once considered a genre for the hardcore with legacy franchises like Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, and WarCraft, Uncapped Games certainly have quite the task ahead of themselves to shape how real-time strategy games are approached. The intricate and complex layers of the modern RTS, along with the meta of having to build and assign units as quickly as possible, could use readjusting to make the genre more user-friendly. Do you risk alienating the experts? 

We shall find out later this summer when this yet-to-be-named project is potentially revealed to the world, after spending three years in planning. Stay tuned.