Featured Studios

While conflict resolution, decision-making, long-term planning and resource management might not sound like a recipe for a relaxing gaming session to some, for others they’re the ideal concoction for a perfect game: something that tests patience, lateral thinking, empathy and ruthlessness all in one place.

We are, of course, talking about strategy games. Whether you’re into hyper-realistic management simulators, grand strategy, card-games or turn-based combat; strategy games offer a robust and interesting selection to choose from.

Two studios who are supremely stirred by strategy games are Auroch Digital and Lab42. Having worked on a range of own-IP strategy games, co-developed titles and porting projects, these two studios are always thinking five-steps ahead when it comes to the development of strategy games.

Here, they share their expertise on what makes a good strategy game, how developers looking to port them to new platforms can make the most, and their favourites of the genre.

A screenshot taken from The Sumerian Game on PC via Steam.
[Image credit: Haresoft. A screenshot from 1963s The Sumerian Game – which is widely considered to be the games industry’s first foray into strategy game development. Lost to time, this archive game was restored in 2024 and made available to play for free on Steam.]

THE CAMPAIGN ARCHIVE | A HISTORY OF STRATEGY GAMES

Strategy video games are unique in lots of ways, but notably it’s that they come from ancient origins. Many early boardgames were primarily strategy focussed and though they might not have been world-building, civilisation creating, graphically splendid creations like we see today, games like Senet [est. 2620 BCE], The Royal Game of Ur [est. 2600 – 2400 BC], Go [est. 548 BC] and Chess [est. 1475] all had strategic thinking and long-term planning in their premise – having entertained people all over the world long before the video games industry came on the scene.

Predating traditional video games, The Sumerian Game was created in the 1960s as part of a research project to test the use of computer-based simulations in schools. This text-based strategy game might have been rudimentary in design, but its resource-management and economic simulation was pioneering for what we know to be strategy games today. So groundbreaking was The Sumerian Game as one of the earliest examples of video games, in fact, that in 2024 it was rebuilt and made available to play for free on Steam.

The earliest ‘official’ recorded strategy title for home console was Invasion – a Risk-like, half boardgame, half video game which, according to the official instructions found on Internet Archive, tasked players to capture opposing enemy castles and protect their own – for the Magnavox Odyssey in 1972. Whilst many were released over the two decades that followed, it’s widely thought that 1992’s Dune II – released by Westwood Studios and Virgin Games – was the game which cemented the format of strategy games, and popularised the genre for the future. Dune II brought not only big sales for the genre (it’d shifted 250,000 copies by November 1996), but also a fog-war system, a fluid and responsive mouse and keyboard control system, and a perfect balance between complexity and innovation in its gameplay.

Fast forward to now, and strategy games have boomed within the games industry – with developers of all different shapes and sizes trying their hand at engaging players with strategic gameplay, complex systems and highly rewarding experiences.

A screenshot from Democracy 4: Console Edition. The information-heavy image shows the trustworthy score of a political leader and their performance as a strong and compassionate individual.
[In Democracy 4, players take on the role of a world leader and must make decisions about the future of their country. Each decision impacts the public opinion, the country’s economic climate and the change of re-election.]

THE GAMEPLAN | WHY WE LOVE STRATEGY GAMES

For many, picking up a video game is an escape. It’s a way to cut off from everyday life and immerse themselves in far off worlds, experience big and bold stories, or just enjoy some dopamine-driving gameplay to switch our brains off. But for some, they’re all too eager to leave behind their daily routine and boot-up their virtual grind: the strategy game.

So in a busy world, why do players seek solace in strategy gaming when they take time, patience and brain power?

Joao Pereira, a Designer at Leamington-based Lab42, says strategy games can present players with an opportunity for progress: “Strategy games are a great way to see your own improvements and development in real-time. Often, a strategy game will give you a challenge that might seem impossible but, with enough practice, time and experimentation, can be mastered by the player. This feeling of accomplishment is satisfying and there’s nothing like seeing a well-thought-out plan yield good results!”

Alix Briskham, UI/UX Director at Auroch Digital says the genre also offers a world of opportunities, with lots of room for do-overs: “Strategy games tend to not have the same game experience twice. Their replayability is one of their most appealing traits as you can go back and try something new or better, see how your decisions will impact the final result or just experiment with a new playstyle.”

One example is Democracy 4 – a game recently ported to console by the team at Auroch Digital. In this strategy simulation game, the player is elected as the leader of a country and it’s up to them to decide what kind of leader they want to be, what laws they wish to instate or abolish, how they want to run the economy and more, with the end result being entirely decided by the players’ actions. Alix says the endless possibilities of strategy games is part of what makes them so alluring: “There are some strategy games, like Civilization, which teases the player upon completion to either ‘Quit’ or give it ‘One More Turn’ – knowing full well that the temptation to try again will more than likely win players over to give it another go.”

Joao is a lifelong strategy game fan and was part of the team who worked to bring Paradox Interactive’s acclaimed title Crusader Kings III to console in 2021. He says the game is a quintessential example of players taking control to succeed: “Crusader Kings is great at putting the player in full control right from the start. It offers a brief introduction to the basic game mechanics, and leaves it up to the player to find the rest of the information they need to figure it out – which is a great way to appeal to a wide range of playstyles and adds to its replayability as you become more knowledgeable and experienced.

“I’ve had saves of Crusader Kings III where I’ve gone for brute force to overturn and succeed the monarchy, and I’ve had attempts (which have been more successful!) where I’ve used patience and diplomacy in my approach to power. Only through trying different approaches was I able to master it, and the accomplishment of learning the systems to make them work for me is at the core of a successful strategy game.”

Not only are strategy games great for our brains, but they are able to transport players to bygone eras, mighty kingdoms or far-off worlds. From the medieval to the futuristic, the sci-fi to the realism: strategy games are able to operate in a myriad of settings which put players into positions of power they would never normally find themselves in. Joao says the range of settings is a huge part of the genres’ success: “Ultimately, it comes down to what kind of fantasy a player is looking to fulfil. Are they looking to embody a great ruler conquering their way through Europe, or to improve the quality of life for their town and citizens and become beloved by all… or are they simply looking to build and operate a highly successful theme park filled with cool rollercoasters?”

A screenshot from Mars Horizon. In this image, players have sent a device onto a planet - you can see the Earth in the star-studded sky in the background. Information is being presented to the player about the success of their device planting including positional triangulation, atmospheric sampling and antenna alignment.
[Screenshot from Mars Horizon. Making strategy games isn’t rocket science… there are ways game developers can convey lots of information to a player without it being an inaccessible wall of text. Keywords, icons and menu styling can make a huge difference when getting vital game information across.]

BASE BUILDING | COMMUNICATION IN STRATEGY GAMES

Strategy games by their nature are often incredibly complex, and can have multiple gameplay mechanics and systems running at any time. In order to give the player the best chance of success, they must convey huge amounts of information – whether that’s real-time updates about the state of the game, instructions, context or dialogue. Developers must ensure that players have all the information they need about a particular event or scenario readily available, whilst pacing the delivery of information to ensure they don’t get overwhelmed and miss crucial details.

Dylan Samra, Game Designer at Lab42, who is currently working with the Auroch Digital teams on Mars Horizon 2, says that there are ways to get your information across without flooding the screen with text: Keywords, videos or icons are all great ways to lessen walls of text and present information concisely and efficiently. There are snippets of information that can be delivered through Tooltips throughout the game, which provide essential details without cluttering the screen with heaps of text – plus, by having them respond to a cursor or control hover, they offer the player the opportunity to access the information rather than forcing them to read it.”

Echoing this, Joao says a tutorial is a great way to introduce players to your game’s concept quickly: “Once you’ve identified what is crucial info for your game, you can introduce beginner scenarios or tutorials. Whilst these aren’t unique to the genre, strategy games are given a unique challenge of having to get players to experiment and explore, and get them into habits of learning the complexities, where information is stored should they need it, and how the mechanics work.”

Dylan added: “Players always learn better through repetition. If you’re able to efficiently teach them how a mechanic works by first showing them and then making them repeat it a few times, they’ll be able to recall this series of actions for the future.”

Alix says these fundamentals of strategy games are essential when it comes to keeping players engaged: “There are some very good strategy games for people to go and revisit if yours doesn’t manage to hook them and keep their attention. Developers of strategy games have the advantage that their players expect a high level of text and information from a strategy game, but that doesn’t mean we should take their time or attention for granted.”

A screenshot from Crusader Kings III on console. The image shows a radial menu for the map - allowing players to easily navigate between realms, governments, terrain and houses.
[Crusader Kings III: Console Edition from Lab42 and Paradox Interactive. Radial menus are a great way for strategy game developers to give players an easy-to-navigate system which conveys essential information through a series of icons and keywords. Making information easy to find and accessible.]

THE TAKEOVER | BRINGING STRATEGY GAMES TO ALL AUDIENCES

Most often, a strategy game will release for PC before dropping to any other platforms. The capabilities of gaming PCs, the precision of a mouse and keyboard and the screen size are all contributing factors into why PC is the #1 platform for games in the genre.

But when it comes to taking those games and bringing them to new platforms – like PlayStation 4 | 5, Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch or even Mobile –  all of these PC-specific features need to be reconsidered. Here, Alix, Joao and Dylan share some of their top tips for porting strategy games to console and mobile:

Controls:Mouse and keyboard controls offer precision, and a wider range of buttons and inputs compared to a gamepad controller. When you’re porting any game, but particularly a strategy game which is often designed for point and click controls, it’s important to adapt the controls for the gamepad at hand; there have to be multiple uses for the buttons (and easy ways to make the switch for each), and very responsive analogue sticks for maximum control. Keep it consistent – every player deserves to feel like the platform they’re using is the best.” – Dylan

Accessibility: “It might be really tempting to throw accessibility to the wayside when you’re trying to port a game that has previously only existed for larger screens to smaller, non-conventionally sized ones… but when everyone can enjoy a game, we all win. Some of my recommendations for accessibility in strategy games are keeping fonts at 16pts or higher with resize options for players to further customise, ensuring colour tones are on opposite sides of the spectrum to ensure elements are easily visible, and adding optional visual paths to waypoints for easier navigation. We’re also working to include logs into games for tutorials to help with cognitive load, so you can look back at the tutorial at any point in the game and remind yourself of how things work with no time pressure.” – Alix

Menus and Layout: “When porting a game from PC to console, it’s important to consider where in the room players are picking the game up. For PC, they are likely at a desk in close proximity to the screen, whereas console is a more relaxed environment with more distance between the screen and the player. You have to ensure that players can see and read the menus from further away, and are still able to navigate them without the use of a mouse and cursor. For Crusader Kings III, we grouped menus together into Radial Menus to improve access, navigation and readability. This helped to de-clutter the HUD of the game, and by having two radials – Character Radial and Map Radial – players can easily find the information they need about a specific subject.” – Joao

A screenshot from Mars Horizon 2. Shows the red, sandy terrain of a planet and the player planning their traversals of a rover vehicle across the surface.
[Coming soon from Auroch Digital and Secret Mode, Mars Horizon 2 sets players on an interstellar mission to investigate the solar system and collect evidence of life. You must manage base building, rocket designing, launches and mission planning to Mars and beyond.]

OUR FAVOURITE STRATEGY GAMES

If it isn’t obvious, these three love strategy games. Whether it’s the challenge of creating one, or the mastery of playing one, they are bursting with passion for this genre and are thrilled to share some of their favourites.

Alix:

I love strategy games which force you to slow down and think tactically about your next move. Even though they seem complex, they are actually quite chill and relaxing, and the addition of fun 3D art or beautiful UI makes them even more engaging. A lot of my favourite strategy games are 90s or early 2000s games that I grew up with, which all have a distinctive style, heart and sense of humour. Two of my top picks are:

— Civilization: My dad is a big strategy game fan, and he put a lot of hours into the Civilization franchise, which exposed me to it from a young age. I like being in a high position, creating and looking after my civilization, but also being able to zoom in to see all the little details as the game goes on.

— Manor Lords: Predominantly built by one person over many years, Manor Lords is a lovingly crafted experience that has a lot of detail, and you can really feel the passion come through when you’re playing it.

Dylan:

Not all games are able to engage, challenge and reward their players in the same way as strategy games can. By keeping me constantly thinking and planning about my next move, strategy games are really rewarding to both play and work on. My favourites are:

— Total War: Warhammer III: When it comes to real-time simulator games, the Total War franchise has some of the best. Combining turn-based strategy and economy control with real-time battles on a huge scale, plus a fantasy setting, Warhammer III is one of my all-time favourites.

— Magic the Gathering: Both the online and physical versions of the game offer a highly customisable experience with limitless possibilities. I’m relatively new to the game, but I love creating new decks centred around a theme or mechanic – like Ninjas or resurrecting creatures from a graveyard.

Joao:

The sense of exploration, experimentation and study that can lead to mastery of a strategy game are what keep me coming back to the genre. The ability to create emergent stories using the game’s different systems and mechanics offer high-replayability, and makes every run feel unique. I’m a big fan of:

— Crusader Kings III: This grand strategy game set in medieval Europe boasts a variety of deep systems and mechanics that allow for customisation of every part of my realm, ruler, culture, dynasty and more. This tailored experience means I can have ‘serious’ sessions with clear objectives and an end goal, or ‘goofy’ sessions where I can experiment and have fun with outlandish scenarios.

— XCom/XCom 2: Turn-based combat, abilities, buffs and special attacks are what keep me engaged in a strategy game, and I love getting to try new squad variations and ability combinations to see what the result will be. It’s a masterclass in emergent storytelling, as I’m able to uncover all the different short stories of my soldiers as they train and fight together, or watch with pride as they develop into an A team… and feel the crushing sense of disappointment when they are decimated by a hoard of chrysalids.

A screenshot of a graph taken from SteamDB. It shows Strategy Game Releases by Year from 2006 - 2025 - with 2024 being a particular peak (3,900 releases).
[Screenshot taken January 2024. Strategy games releasing on PC have been steadily increasing over the last 19 years, and 2024 was a bumper year for launches in the genre.]

THE NEXT MOVE | THE FUTURE OF STRATEGY GAMES

A 2024 report from Quantic Foundry found that gamers have become less interested in strategic thinking, with a clear decreasing trend line for strategy being a key motivator for picking up games. This seems to have happened in parallel with a general reduction in attention spans observed by researchers in other fields, with more people seeking out short, sharp bursts of content that can be quickly digested, scrolled past and forgotten.

Strategy games are renowned for having hundreds of potential gameplay hours, multiple scenarios, lots of replayability and a need to concentrate on the task at hand. If we look at the top-selling strategy games from the last five years [according to Strategy & Wargaming], they – on average – take around 90 hours to complete. This number considers the average between time taken to complete the main campaign, to complete the main and some extras, and completionist – as surveyed by How Long to Beat. In a recent report, Statista estimated that the global average for # of hours spent gaming each week was 8.45 – which would mean it would take the average gamer 10 weeks to see their strategy game to completion.

Surely then, with ever-decreasing appetite for longform content, games that take weeks, even months, to complete would be headed for the great games graveyard? Well, no. According to SteamDB, almost 4,000 games tagged with ‘strategy’ were released in 2024 – not including sub-categories like turn-based strategy [922], grand strategy [184] or strategy RPG [552]. This high number of releases is up +1000 from the previous year, and almost double that of 5 years ago.

And strategy games show no sign of slowing in 2025, with key titles already climbing their way up the Steam wishlist charts, including the hotly anticipated Sid Meier’s Civilization VII, espionage grand strategy game Espiocracy, galactic strategy simulation game Mars Horizon 2 and cinema studio simulator Hollywood Animal.

Developers all over the world are hard at work on bringing their next strategy game to life, and we’re looking forward to seeing how they take the genre to the next level in 2025.


Busy planning your next move in strategy games? Why not speak to our expert teams about conquering the genre and supporting its development. Find out more information about working with Sumo Digital on Full-Dev, Co-Dev, Porting and Game Development Services on the Services Page.

23rd January 2025 News

EXPLORE OUR GAME DEV SERVICES

We have over 20 years of game development experience, from full game development or co-development to services such as concept art, tech art, porting, engineering, post-release support and more.

FULL GAME DEVELOPMENT

CO-GAME DEVELOPMENT

GAME DEV SERVICES