What happened to the turn based RPG and RTS genres?

I remember fondly the days of playing Heroes of Might and Magic II, never played HOMM3 or anything after, but as I looked at the latest and most “recent” heroes games… they’re all rated/reviewed SO harshly. Apparently, they never gained steam like the earlier titles. RTS seems to have the same issue, tapering off. Starcraft is basically dried up and dead, and we never got another Warcraft unfortunately. Even WC3 Reforged was a total flop/disaster, people were hoping one day to get Warcraft 4. Would’ve been nice, honestly… But it never happened. as of today, I can’t find a single RTS or RPG I actually enjoy that isn’t some old ‘classic’.

What happened to these genres?

They’re just not as popular as they used to be, and there are so many players on console nowadays. I can’t imagine playing an RTS with a controller.

Age of Empires seems to be doing really well though. The first 3 games got great remasters, and AoE 4 is well received from what I understand.

I’m pretty sure there’s a lot more gaming pcs now days, too. Consoles have been loosing out on the gaming market share since the 90’s. PC overtook consoles in both popularity and profits a bit over a decade ago.

Disheartening enough though, is that as far as profits are concerned, mobile games make $ more than pc and console combined.

Many fans of RTS and Halo swear on Halo Wars when it comes to RTS on a console. Apparently, they really figured out how to do it right, but I haven’t played it myself.

The unanimous game of the year last year is a turn-based RPG, and I can promise you Metaphor: ReFantazio this year will do well critically and commercially, just like Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth did earlier this year. There are plenty of turn-based RPGs to go around. If you meant turn-based tactics or strategy, same thing; plenty of those to go around as well.

RTS sort of peaked with StarCraft II, at least in terms of popularity, but you find some here and there. Battle Aces and Stormgate are both from ex-Blizzard devs chasing that high, and both are live service, so those two will soon be dead, but there are others out there that are less popular that come out from time to time.

For C&C fans, Tempest Rising is C&C in all but name. The most recent playtest felt like a hybrid of Tiberian Sun and Tiberium Wars. It’s not out yet, but I’m very excited about it.

Battle Aces and Stormgate are both from ex-Blizzard devs chasing that high, and both are live service, so those two will soon be dead

The curse 🥲

There’s a turn-based RPG sale/event happening on Steam right now. I can’t vouch for any of those games, but new ones do exist.

As for why they seem to have declined in popularity I can only guess - smartphones happened, removing the need for a home computer from many would-be RTS gamers.