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Yeah, I played C&C a bit too back in the day though that series just got more and more ridiculous as it went, and then it just sort of deteriorated to the point where nothing of quality was showing up, which I suspect was largely EA's fault as a meddling publisher. [RIP Westwood] I'm not sure why Starcraft 2 didn't do better - it was certainly well-designed in most respects but not popular enough to avert Blizzard's wholesale shift into the MMORPG category and away from doing anything more with the RTSs with (Starcraft/Warcraft). Basically the genre's been dormant or dead for 13 years now, following the release of SC2, aside from the occasional throwbacks embracing nostalgia like mobile port of C&C or the HD remaster of the original Starcraft and the first two Homeworld titles. (If you don't recall Homeworld, well, it was pretty noteworthy being an RTS circa 2000 with a true 3d map where combat and navigation were in sectors of fully 3-dimensional space, not just built off of a 2d terrain. Better executed and more genuinely 3d UI than, say, Star Trek: Armada 2 which was essentially still a 2d game in mechanics sense but running in a 3d engine and given a sense of depth)

And I'm really sort of unsure why this genre is gone but the 4x category, or at least the Civ series in particular, continues to hold out, even thrive.

There've been actual occasional attempts - not especially high-budget, but legit attempts - to revive it since SC2. Look at Cossacks 3, or Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. Neither got much attention from the gaming public. But the genre isn't entirely gone. It's just niche.