The past 2020 has been very difficult for everyone, especially for the entertainment industry. Many planned films, games and TV series never came out, and many exhibitions and esports competitions were canceled.
Fortunately, in such a difficult time, a very ancient game genre of strategies, which was already in a half-dead state, was not completely killed – we present to your attention the TOP 5 best strategies for PC.
Desperados 3
The triumphant return of the famous tactical strategy series set in a Wild West setting. For those who are not in the know, it is worth explaining that the Desperados franchise is a kind of close analogue of the slightly more famous and popular Commandos series, designed in a completely different historical era. But in their gameplay they use the same, maybe slightly more advanced mechanics.
As a result, each game in the series (and the third part is no exception) turned out to be a kind of mixture of turn-based tactics, stealth and RPG, where the user controls a motley squad of heroes with unique abilities, performing different tasks on large interactive maps. It is interesting to note that in terms of the plot, Desperados 3 is not a sequel, but a prequel to the first part, educating players about what, after all, preceded the beginning of the grandiose adventures of the famous adventurer John Cooper and his associates.
The script and surroundings of the game turned out to be interesting, in the spirit of the notorious spaghetti westerns. But the gameplay itself, the set of missions and ways of passing them, as well as the design of the levels and their highest degree of interactivity turned out to be much more impressive. Each of the proposed levels and missions has its own characteristics and many tricky nuances that allow you to achieve the goal in a variety of, often completely unobvious ways. And this is the main beauty of this new game.
Crusader Kings 3
The long-awaited continuation of the famous historical strategy on the theme of medieval intrigue and battles, which is in fact an ideal symbiosis of several strategic genres at once, including global strategy, turn-based strategy and military-political strategy, related to the wargame category.
What’s more, many fans consider the Crusader Kings line so innovative that they attribute it to the founding of a whole new genre of PC games – the medieval dynasty simulator. Arguing on this score is a rather stupid exercise, but it is definitely worth noting that this new 2020 strategy was another revelation of the generalized strategy genre (like all strategies from Paradox Interactive).
The main feature of the series remained unchanged – not a separate power or even an army falls under the control of the user, but a historical dynasty, which in the future will develop in all sorts of unpredictable ways. The development path will be influenced not only by the player’s actions, but also by random events unfolding on the territory of virtual medieval Europe, as well as the actions of other dynasties and its individual representatives, determined by a fairly high-quality AI algorithm.
Among the pleasant innovations Crusader Kings 3 is a more convenient and intuitive interface and a noticeably lower entry threshold, which led to a series of masses of new players. Also worth noting is the prettier visual model of the global map and its individual objects.
Iron Harvest
One of the most original RTS of the past year, if you take into account the setting itself in the first place. And here he is based on a fictional universe of 1920+, created by a Polish artist as a motive for his works and which is a combination of an alternative history after 1920 with elements of such a well-known fantastic direction as dieselpunk.
The main feature of Iron Harvest is brutal real-time battles, in which, along with winged hussars and infantry shooters, huge walking robots on steam power take part. And all this is in the scenery of Europe after 1920, where the First World War never ended.
Gears Tactics
A smart tactical strategy game set in the fantasy universe of Gears, where, as you know, a squad of brave space special forces fights against the aggressive alien race of Locust. The brutal style inherent in the original Gears games has been adopted by the Gears Tactics spin-off in 2020. Moreover, it served as the basis not only for the visual, but also directly for the gameplay.
The characters in Gears Tactics are diverse, differing from each other in a set of weapons and abilities. The opponents are arrogant, tenacious and incredibly numerous. For this reason, the player is given much more action points than in other tactical games with turn-based battles. Otherwise, the detachment simply would not have had time to deal with enemies that were many times superior in number.
Well, the most important feature of the entire Gears series, namely the brutal massacre with obligatory dismemberment and rivers of blood, is also preserved here, which will certainly delight all fans of the franchise.
Partisans 1941
Historical military strategy about Soviet partisans, a kind of reincarnation of Commandos, combining turn-based battles and stealth missions where you need to think and carefully calculate your every step and every action.
A lot of attention in the gameplay of Partisans 1941 is devoted directly to the management of the partisans squad itself, which turned out to be very versatile and deep. Here you need to prudently distribute resources, select fighters and their equipment, swing their abilities and stats, taking into account the future perspective, and so on. All in all, this is an excellent, challenging, but soulful strategy game, designed primarily for those interested in World War II within the gaming industry.
