Games

The Best Strategy Games With A Focus On Realism

Published

14 hours ago

January 8, 2025

Christoph Rediske

Summary

Table of Contents

Strategy games offer a wide range of settings and styles to suit any player’s aesthetic preferences.
Some strategy games focus on punishing realism, simulating factors like lines of communication, fuel, and ammunition.
Realistic strategy games like Men of War: Assault Squad 2 and Steel Division 2 prioritize accurate unit modeling and tactical gameplay.

Strategy games have branched out from a niche genre in gaming, covering a wide range of settings and styles. From epic sci-fi RTS like Starcraft to isometric fantasy games like Might & Magic, there’s a strategy game for any aesthetic. Some players are looking for a more down-to-earth, grounded approach to their strategy games, though.

For players who only want their strategy games with at least some attempt at realism, there are still plenty of options. From games that simulate lines of communication and fog of war, to games that will have standing armies suffering from starvation and attrition, strategy developers certainly enjoy their punishing realism too. These games all value realism either in their moment-to-moment combat or their grand-strategy elements, making them the genre’s most realistic games.

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8

Men Of War: Assault Squad 2

Direct Control

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Men of War: Assault Squad 2

Real-Time Strategy

War & Military

Systems

Released: May 15, 2014
Publisher(s): Fulqrum Publishing
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Men of War: Assault Squad 2 doesn’t go quite as far with hyper-realistic depictions of real-life scenarios as some games in this list. Yet, the RTS gameplay has a number of realistic strategic factors to take into account. As well as genre standards like line of sight, the game tracks fuel and ammunition for units and simulates inventories for each individual unit on the field.

The player is free to take control of any unit in combat directly, giving them the ability to fine-tune actions like grenade throws. This makes the simulated inventories of the units important, as that determines exactly what the player will be able to do with any given unit. That’s in addition to the real-time tactics system, whereby the player can give orders to units and groups like a standard RTS.

7

Steel Division 2

WW2 In Minute Detail

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Steel Division 2

Systems

Released: June 20, 2019
Developer(s): Eugen Systems
Publisher(s): Advertisement

Eugen Systems

Eugen Systems’ 2019 follow-up to Steel Division: Normandy 44, Steel Division 2, focuses on a small but significant portion of WW2 in minute detail. Known as “Operation Bagration”, this was a key offensive by Russia’s Red Army against the German positions in Belarussia, leading to a huge rout that culminated in the Red Army taking back Warsaw.

The game recreates this campaign faithfully, with 25 maps recreated at 1:1 scale and covering 150×100 km each. The game uses a unique hybrid turn-based strategy system. Turns involve giving commands to a player’s whole army, but the combat itself happens in real-time with additional control options for the player. Units are accurately modeled based on their real-life counterparts, and even battalions are based on actual unit compositions of the time. The commitment to realism and attention to detail is high in Steel Division 2.

6

Combat Mission: Black Sea

CMX2 2.0 Brings Realism To Fictional Conflict

Released: January 21st, 2021
Developer: Battlefront

All the Combat Mission games have had an admirable take on realistically simulated warfare. The CMX engine is capable of some incredibly complex real-time calculations, like relative line of sight, where spotter units can identify targets outside regular units’ sight range. Combat Mission: Black Sea, in particular, allows for complex tactical mapping – like UAV thermal imaging in real-time.

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The conflict in the game might be fictional, but it’s a highly realistic depiction of modern warfare all the same. The fact that the fictional conflict here takes place between Russia and NATO over territory in Ukraine, gives it a realistic grounding in light of recent world events. Modern players should remember, though, that the game was developed in 2014, and was always intended to be a fictional depiction of a semi-realistic scenario.

5

Warno

Alternate History, Realistic Strategy

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WARNO

Real-Time Strategy

War

Action

Simulation

Indie Games

Systems

Released: January 20, 2022
OpenCritic Rating: Advertisement

Strong

The setting of Warno takes the Cold War along a different and disastrous path that leads to World War 3 breaking out in 1989. Despite the alternate history twist, the real-time strategy gameplay remains grounded and realistic, taking units and troop compositions from what would have been available to any given nation at the time.

The game’s single-player campaign introduces an overarching turn-based strategy mode, where players must make wide-scale tactical decisions affecting pre-combat orders and rules of engagement. The combat takes place in real-time, and Warno offers one of the most graphically detailed RTS simulations out there, with over 1000 units based on real-life military tech.

4

Medieval 2: Total War

Grand Medieval Warfare

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Medieval 2: Total War

Real-Time Strategy

Tactical

Systems

Released: November 14, 2006

Medieval 2: Total War is often cited as the peak of the franchise, for its time at least. Both the grand strategy and real-time unit strategy elements are well-developed and highly focused on period-authenticity. The game’s long-form campaign spans over five centuries, starting in 1080, meaning it covers Medieval conflict both before and after the invention of gunpowder.

That’s not the only way the game’s campaign map evolves to fit historical events, either. The game covers the Mongol expansion and invasions of the 13th century, the Timurid invasion of the 14th century, and even the spread of the black plague as a campaign develops.

Medieval 2 also puts a period-appropriate focus on religion in its grand strategy layer. All factions are associated with a certain religion, mainly Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, or Islam, and may have to act based on the whims of those religions to avoid losing favor. This also affects populations and can even cause civil unrest. This gives players a lot to think about in a campaign, but it’s certainly a realistic depiction of leadership at the time.

3

Graviteam Tactics: Mius Front

Summer Of ’43

Released: March 5th, 2016
Developer: Graviteam

Graviteam Tactics is a series of indie RTS games that focus on hyper-realism in simulating both battalion-level combat orders and real-time battles. Mius Front focuses on a small and relatively unknown WW2 conflict that took place in the summer of 1943 in the Mius River region between the Red Army and the Wehrmacht.

The game painstakingly recreates around 140 sq.km. of land from topographical maps and photo/video materials available from the period. The attention to detail shows in the maps themselves. The operation is relatively short, with four major scenarios for players to play through, but the minutiae of working out battle groups and determining orders of battle is highly immersive.

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The level of detail carries across to the real-time battles as well, with troops each being simulated with factors like fatigue and morale being taken into account. Vehicles are equally complex, with a parts-based damage system that can affect engines, treads, and more. Factors like destructible environments, the ability to dig trenches, and terrain effects and debris staying in place throughout a campaign, all add to the immersion of the simulation.

2

Hearts of Iron 4

WW2 On A Grand Scale

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Hearts of Iron 4

Systems

Released: June 6, 2016
OpenCritic Rating: Strong

Paradox Interactive is well known for its grand strategy titles, but Hearts of Iron 4 takes its unique approach to diplomacy and war on a worldwide scale and applies it to the familiar time period of WW2. The complex geopolitical relationships between nations are incredibly well-recreated, whether players follow a nation’s historical path or create their own story.

While the game doesn’t focus on the real-time combat elements that other entries in the genre do, war is instead simulated on a large scale. Conflicts representing entire armies are played out mostly as a numbers game. The strategy element instead occurs on the grand level, with players using both war and diplomacy as tools to advance their nation’s territory and prosperity. That helps make Hearts of Iron 4 one of the most realistic simulations of national-level relations out there.

1

Total War: Shogun 2

Japanese Warlord Simulator

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Total War: Shogun 2

Systems

The Total War series has mixed realism with fantasy over the years, but Total War: Shogun 2 takes a historically accurate approach that takes few creative liberties. The game takes place in 16th-century Japan, as the shogunate breaks apart. Players start as a Daimyo of their chosen clan and their objective is to unite Japan under their own banner.

The grand strategy game features a blend of large-scale diplomacy and tactical maneuvering, and the detailed real-time battles that the series is known for. As well as various ranged and close-combat troops, players can build siege weaponry to bring down castle walls and engage in naval battles by building fleets.

The level of detail of both the battle layer and the grand strategy layer helps highlight the realism of the game. Standing armies have to worry about supply lines, road networks, and weather conditions when moving around the map. Similarly, players have to negotiate an evolving diplomatic landscape, with alliances, betrayals, spying, and even familial matters to consider. The game covers realism and strategy on all fronts.