Awesome Strategy

2K’s intense and addictive turn-based tactical strategy game is finally coming to Xbox One and PS4. XCOM 2 turns both the series’ story and gameplay upside down and has new classes, aliens and more. Drops 9/6/16.

Advance Wars for iOS. Warbits scratches your tactical turn-based strategy itch with 20 campaign missions and local or online multiplayer, all wrapped in a colorful and lighthearted aesthetic. You can play with up to three other players and customize matches.

If you like FTL or dice-rolling games, check out Tharsis. It’s a digital board game where you’ll manage a crew of astronauts trying to reach Mars. Assign dice to complete tasks and activate your astronaut’s and ship’s abilities. Coming to Windows, Mac and PS4.

The Windows port of the underrated tactical turn-based game is coming to the PS4 in 2016. If you’ve never played this game and you have a PS4, buy it. If you have played it, consider buying it again so Sega will consider porting the sequels as well.

A tactical turn-based RPG from the creator of X-COM. Like its predecessor, Chaos Reborn adds bluffing to combat: you can try to summon a creature or merely conjure its illusion. Mana lets you increase the chances of summoning, making illusions believable. Demo here.

The latest trailer for XCOM 2 shows off the game’s new weapons, classes, enemies and the mobile command center. For a second there we thought we were watching an Honest XCOM Trailer. Check out Eurogamer’s hour-long gameplay demo for more.

Planetbase is a resource management sim about colonizing planets. Start with a handful of settlers, then gather resources, build facilities and robots and survive the occasional solar flare and meteor strikes to grow your community.

An extended look at the hardcore space sim Star Citizen sees three players in two different ships take on a couple of missions, seeking and engaging with enemies in dogfights and on foot. We hope you can turn off the voice of the ships’ virtual assistant.

Renowned Explorers is a humorous strategy game about adventurers seeking fame and fortune. Aside from the usual combat, science and thieving skills, you can also defeat enemies using emotional attacks, e.g. making them sad, angry or infatuated.

Like Endless Legend, Sorcerer King is a streamlined 4X strategy game with RPG elements. Its relatively simple and focused gameplay makes it a great entry point for those new to 4X games.

This modified tutorial mission for XCOM 2 shows us just how much has changed in this sequel. The new character classes, abilities, objectives and enemy reinforcements force players into more aggressive and fast-paced battles.

Set 20 years after XCOM: Enemy Unknown, XCOM 2 sees the elite force become invaders on their own planet. The new game will have procedurally generated maps, mod support and new classes and aliens.

The hype is real. The latest trailer for Star Citizen goes for the jugular with an inspirational slant and a visual showcase that will hook even casual sci-fi fans. It’s as if it hasn’t already raised enough money.

Enemy Starfighter is a mix of real time strategy and space combat sim, and will support the Oculus Rift. It may not be as pretty as other upcoming space shooters, but it’s promising considering it’s being made by one man.

Peter Griffin’s Chris Roberts’ 2014 PAX East presentation of his upcoming space combat simulation game Star Citizen. Skip to 11:20 for gameplay footage, featuring dogfighting and asteroid ramming.

A fast paced strategy game for iOS and Android tablets. First Strike pits you against other nations in a nuclear arms race that quickly escalates to all out war, all presented through a simple but slick interface. More here.

From the makers of Frozen Synapse comes Frozen Endzone. It’s a simultaneous turn-based game – the game is divided into turns, but both players’ orders are executed at the same time. It has similarities to American football, but with robots.

This look at Star Citizen shows off one of the game’s more agile and lethal spaceships, the Hornet. It’s running in the game’s engine, though we’re not sure if it’s representative of gameplay. Watch it in 4K if you can.

We were hoping it was a bromance simulator, but The Mandate is equally ambitious. It’s an open world RPG set in space, with real-time ship combat, turn-based boarding combat, crew management, ship designing and more.

Alpha gameplay of Halfway, an upcoming turn-based strategy game where you play a group of soldiers trying to take back their ship from deadly aliens. It will be released this year on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

From the superb and versatile indie developer Klei Entertainment (Shank, Mark of the Ninja, Don’t Starve) comes Incognita, a tactical turn-based stealth game inspired by modern classics like XCOM, FTL and Frozen Synapse. More here.

Fed up with SimCity, Luke Hodorowicz decided to make his own city-building game. Banished lets you take your time building quaint pre-Industrial Revolution towns in randomly generated environments. Out for PC in 2013.

A glimpse at the new enemies and soldier upgrades that will be in the XCOM: Enemy Unknown expansion. Use a new alien resource to modify your soldier’s genes or turn them into a new soldier class: the cyborg Mec Trooper.