Strategising, plotting, diplomacy - these are the staples of multiplayer RTS games. You are no longer competing with the AI - there are real commanders on the battlefield you must face.
If you are looking for a fun arena to enter into and face your friends - or internet strangers - here are some of the most fun Multiplayer RTS games to play:
10. Red Alert 3
Red Alert 3 Launch Trailer
As with its cousin, Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3 hosts a similar contemporary competitive scene. The alternate history gameplay is far simpler than the Tiberium series, and creates instead of long-waging tactical sessions, a faster paced, combat-oriented strategic engagement.
With the diversity of unit abilities across the three factions, the Soviets, the Allieds and the Empire of the Rising Sun, a world of unlimited tactical opportunities greets you as you enter into the multiplayer arenas.
This simplified gameplay experience allows for a natural ebb and flow of combat tension and resource management, as you strategise, build up an army and lay on an assault, or defend, retreat, and rebuild.
The gameplay is much more dynamic than any other in the C&C series, and you’re more often required to respond to the state of the battlefield, seizing opportunities to cripple your opponents, or strategising with your allies to pick off key strategic points.
9. Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition - Announce Trailer
Age of Empires 3 introduced the concept of civilisation cards - unique bonuses that you can confer to your in-game RTS colony while battling for the new lands.
This gives you an interesting opportunity to customise your card deck, and gear your civilisation to meet your needs on the battlefield. Though, of course, it isn’t always clear, and a lot of the choices you make will be anticipatory. That’s the allure - It brings strategy off the battlefield as well. You need to plan the shipments, resources and troops you want to send long before the battle begins, after which you must tactically manage these shipments while duking it out against your foes.
It makes for a novel gameplay experience, having an ace up your sleeve, or reacting to an unexpected influx of troops and having to adapt your own strategies. You never know what your opponents might have in their shipment deck, and neither do they know yours. It’s a strategy game that involves so much more than just battle tactics.
8. Starcraft 2
StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm Opening Cinematic
Starcraft 2 can be considered a monument of multiplayer RTS games, still maintaining a huge presence in the hearts of RTS fans and in online multiplayer arenas. Besides the in-depth campaigns and the co-op mode, the most significant addition in Starcraft 2 is the Automated Tournament Mode, in which all types of players, at any skill level, can battle it out in a tournament for the title of Grand Master.
The addition comes with Blizzard’s 2015 statement:
“One of the major reasons we're developing tournaments is because we heard the demand from the community for them, and we wanted to deliver on that. Another reason is that StarCraft II is a competitive game at its core, and tournaments are the ultimate expression of the StarCraft competitive experience. We want everyone to experience the eSports competitive scene for themselves and to feel the joy of bringing home a trophy.”
Tournaments are held frequently, and you are automatically matched with players of a similar skill level, allowing you to participate from the comfort of your home. You can go ahead and play any of the game’s other modes while waiting for your bracket match, and when your number comes up, you play your game, and are either eliminated or move on to the next round. The matchmaking is highly accurate, never matching you out of your skill level, and always making sure you are contending in a competitive game.
7. Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
Age of Empires II: HD Edition Trailer
The Definitive Edition of Age of Empires II brings a vigour to the ageless classic. With its release on Steam in 2019, its multiplayer aspects saw a surge. Many of us who had previously only partaken in its multiplayer functionality over the LAN cable with friends and siblings on Saturday afternoons, only to see that online presence die out over the years, joined into this influx of the online community.
The multiplayer lobbies are always active, and you could easily discover games that match your ELO ratings, the expansions you have installed, and the gametype you wish to play. Should you be unable to find one, it’s incredibly easy to host your own game and before long it would be filled up with players.
The competitive play community has seen its rise of legends over the years, with active and reigning champions such as TheViper, Liereyy, DauT and Hera still frequently competing in casual and tournament games. These are the top-ranked players globally, but there are other legends who have made names for themselves.
With AoE2 allowing you to make recordings of the games and share them, we’ve seen those hidden gems, such as perfectly timed assassinations in regicide, or the outlandish strategies in forest games, or the biggest naval assault you could imagine.
The beauty of Age of Empires 2’s multiplayer is that you don’t need to be a world-class champion to play it competitively. You get to choose the games you want to play, and have fun playing them in your own way.
6. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars and Kane’s Wrath
C&C 3 Tiberium Wars Launch Trailer
Command & Conquer 3 hails the arrival of the Scrin, a new faction in the Tiberium Wars that poses a threat for both long standing sides, the Global Defence Initiative and The Brotherhood of Nod.
Introducing this third faction, and then two additional subfactions for each group in its expansion, Kane’s Wrath, gives the most delicious multiplayer experience. Your play style becomes unique to you and your faction, and when you compete against others, it does away with the rock-paper-scissors and instead focuses more on strategy and countermeasures.
The competitive scene sees frequent events, even in 2022, where new-comers and standing champions still compete for cash prizes, dig up dead strategies and develop ones so outlandish they may actually work.
C&C, throughout the series, has been simply satisfying to play, when two well-prepared armies clash on the battlefield, and tensions rise as oppressors and defenders vie for victory. Tiberium Wars and Kane’s Wrath only heightens that satisfaction when you play against real humans across the globe.
5. Offworld Trading Company
Offworld Trading Company - Gameplay Trailer
Offworld trading Company is a satisfying game. It quickly becomes rewarding when you disrupt key supply chains and can watch your competitor's share prices plummet for an easy buy-out. That feeling you get, being a dastardly and despicable evil genius, when orchestrating a competitor's downfall by artificially inflating stock prices before underhandedly causing a mutiny in their production facilities, forcing them to buy at skyrocketed prices, is unparalleled, especially when you're the one selling power to them!
This elaborate industrial and corporate sabotage is at the heart of Offworld Trading Company's gameplay, making for an exciting combination of managing your own company while keeping an even closer eye on the affairs of your competitors.
Every match begins with a randomised set of Black Market attacks you can use, promising that every game is unique, and forcing you to re-evaluate your options and strategies to do the best you can with what you have. The payoff is incredibly satisfying when a plan comes together, and blossoms into the corporate and financial ruin of your foes.
4. Empire Earth
Empire Earth Gold Edition - Intro Trailer
For a game released in 2001 it holds up surprisingly well in 2022, over two decades later. The graphics might be a little dated, but the primogenitor of the series holds up far better than its successors.
It has many key appeals that make it an incredible RTS game, such as the ability to define your own custom civilisation in a point-buy system where you determine your civilisation benefits, and the fact that it spans so many in-game eras, from prehistoric neanderthals fighting with clubs to the nano age where robots wage warfare.
That makes this an incredible multi-layered multiplayer game. You not only battle for resources, and land, but also partake in a race for technological advancement. Having that one-up on your enemies, where you have aerial units while they’re still bound to the ground, or developing the first automated combat robot to send into battle against their elite gunmen, is a minor victory not to be overlooked.
In addition, being able to define your own civilisation from a massive list of benefits you can buy allows you specialise in the strangest ways to outmatch your foes on a particular front, or become a sturdy all-rounder that stands as a bastion against enemies.
Empire Earth still has an online multiplayer presence, with unofficial fan-run servers still hosting games in 2022.
3. Defense of the Ancients 2
DOTA 2 - Official Trailer (Mac, PC)
A massively popular multiplayer team combat-RTS, MOBA style, and with National Qualifiers ending in June 2022, DotA2 is a title for the International ESports Federation’s 2022 World Championships in Bali this year.
Needless to say, there is a massive online player presence for this competitive game.
It is widely considered to be a game that has no ultimately unvarying correct way to play. The process of discovery and development, adapting to meta-strategies, sharing knowledge and tactical opinions - all that makes this game more than an online multiplayer experience. It is a rewarding community to be a part of.
You are allowed an inherent flexibility when it comes to the game, with an astonishing range of playstyles it allows, and the consistent emergence of new tactics from the community. You are allowed to be creative, explore and discover, and ultimately, learn and be rewarded.
The international games are a sight to behold. Once you know the metagame, it’s a thrill to see newcomers battle it out against reigning champions, and turn the meta upside down. You aren’t punished for testing the limits.
… and it’s free to play. Right now.
2. Stellaris
Stellaris - Three Year Anniversary Trailer
Stellaris is by far the largest RTS arena you’ll step into. Largely geared towards solo play versus AI opponents, everything can be done in multiplayer as well. Up to 32 players can compete for dominance over the galaxy, although smaller groups can always work together in co-op as well to take on the other AI-driven empires.
Stellaris is the Empire Earth of the galaxy. Once again you define the values of your civilisation, but combine that with the heightened diplomatic play we saw in Rise of Nations, and you have a contender for perhaps the most fun multiplayer experience to date.
1. Rise of Nations: Extended Edition
Rise of Nations Extended Edition Trailer
This review on Steam:
“The ability to move through the ages and advance higher and faster than other nations within the game's main story alone is brilliant. However, the multiplayer would be my personal favourite as it allows me to play with my old friends who now live [much farther than they] used to, and work in a co-operative state to overcome enemies and win each time, vs A.I. or other players.
10/10 highly recommended for all strategy gamers and newcomers alike.”
- Big Guy, April 9th 2022
This review is essentially a universal experience for Rise of Nations. The remaster of the old classic opens doors for previously unavailable multiplayer experiences, and it’s fun.
There’s a whole lot of civilisations to choose from, each unique, and each shining in different aspects of the gameplay experience. In multiplayer, unlike the single player skirmishes, it's about more than just the fight for resources and land control. It becomes a game of diplomacy, an additional and often overlooked component in other multiplayer RTS games.
And that’s a very satisfying component at its core. It places trust and paranoia, and schemes and plots, and dynamic strategising and execution into the core gameplay loop. You are in charge, and you’re up against others who want what you want. The question is always, who can get it first.
