Age of Empires designer believes RTS games need to finally evolve after decades of stagnation

As Microsoft continues to remaster its now-expanded library of RTS games with re-releases of Starcraft, Warcraft and Age of Empires, there is a sense that the PC-staple gaming genre is stagnating. RTS veteran Dave Pottinger, who worked across Age of Empires, Age of Mythology and Halo Wars, believes the genre needs a big shakeup—as well as the old foundations—to keep players interested.

Speaking in a new episode of the VideoGamer Podcast, Pottinger explained that the RTS classics are still amazing, but something new is needed for the genre to truly move forward. Working on a mysterious new IP, Project Citadel, Pottinger hopes his new studio Last Keep Games will be able to move the needle, at least a little bit.

Age of Empires is great, but can RTS games move past it?

Speaking to VideoGamer, Pottinger explained that every developer working on Project Citadel was given a copy of Microsoft’s recent Age of Mythology remake to play through when it released. After replaying a host of RTS greats—including Pottinger’s Halo Wars—the team were convinced that the genre has failed to move forward.

“We bought it for everybody at Last Keep, and we play games together once a week, and it was the thing we played for a month or so,” Pottinger explained. “It was a big nostalgia trip to go back… it was heartwarming to go back and see those [missions] again and see how universal and popular that strategy gameplay is. I think it reinforced our decisions to innovate with Project Citadel.”

“You’re still playing the same game we’re playing 20 years ago and looking at some of these new games—Stormgate and others like that—and they’re still really largely based on that formula.”

AGE OF EMPIRES 3 LEAD DESIGNER DAVE POTTINGER

Pottinger explained that he still “loves the strategy genre” and owes his career to the fundamentals he helped build, but in replaying through the genre’s greatest hits, it was clear just how much has stayed the same over decades of new releases.

“It hasn’t changed much,” the Age of Empires veteran said. “You know, you’re still playing the same game we’re playing 20 years ago and looking at some of these new games—Stormgate and others like that—and they’re still really largely based on that formula. It works, it’s an old, golden set of rules, because they were good back then and they’re still good now, and it’s nice to see that stuff still works but at the same time I want to do something new, we want to do something new.”

Innovation is hard… and scary

Pottinger explained that the current wave of RTS “resurgence” is still fun, entertaining and great, but they “have a very interesting chance” to try and push forward. However, in trying to create something new in an existing genre, one with a very vocal fanbase, it can be scary.

The developer’s mind returned to Age of Empires 3 and the creation of Formations, a feature that was removed from the game mid-development. As the developer recalls, adding something so game-changing into the established formula was scary, especially as the game was already doing so many new things.

“There were some some times on the Age franchise where we flew a little too close to the sun,” he recalled. “We had to pull back and take some very innovative things out of the game, I’m talking particularly about formation-based combat in Age of Empires 3. Hell, we demoed that at E3, and took that out of the game because we were afraid it was going to alienate too many of the existing Age fans.”

With Project Citadel, Pottinger believes that Last Keep Games have a chance to do something interesting. With a new IP and a small, focused beginning, a lot of ideas, and a planned Early Access period to iron out some of those new ideas, Last Keep’s new RTS could be the innovation the genre needs, or at least the team wants to see.