From fighting onthe front lines in WW2to sword-fighting on bloodied battlegrounds in medieval combat, strategy games feature a variety of thematic combat systems. While there are plenty of historical strategy games, some of the biggest and most successful titles in the genre have players fighting off alien threats.
The most obvious example may be somewhere amid theXCOMseries, with its unforgiving gameplay and brutal turn-based tactics, but games such asWarhammer 40,000: Dawn Of WarandAliens: Dark Descentare also frequently fun and highly thematic strategy games that give players plenty of opportunities to blast away aliens.
6Starship Troopers: Terran Command
Real-Time Strategy And Iconic Satire
Based on directorPaul Verhoeven’s cult-classicStarship Troopers,Starship Troopers: Terran Commandis a bombastic real-time strategy game that takes place on the desert planet of Kwalasha. In the game, players command chunky squads of gung-ho marines as they fend off massive hordes of alien bugs.
Success inStarship Troopers: Terran Commandis all about tactical positioning, line of sight, and making use of the terrain. It’s far from the twitchy play-style of games such asStarCraft 2, offering gameplay that’s both action-packed and methodical. The only good bug is a dead bug, and thankfully,Terran Commandgives players a variety of units to enforce such a mantra.
5Creeper World 4
A Unique, Cult-Classic Indie Strategy Game
This real-time strategytower defense gametasks players with building and maintaining a base while fighting off an aggressive, oppressive alien foe known as the Creeper. This cult-classic indie series, developed by Knuckle Cracker, has long been a 2D franchise, butCreeper World 4brings everything into the realm of 3D with tremendous success.
Creeper World 4and its predecessors are known for their unique selling point: a liquid enemy that constantly crashes against the player, slowly creeping into their territory in an effort to overwhelm them. This presents a distinct strategic challenge, offering an addictive gameplay loop and an enemy that’s always fun to battle against.
Combining elements of real-time strategy andsurvival-horror gameplay,Aliens: Dark Descentis an incredibly unique and addictively dark strategy game that has players leading a squad of the iconic Colonial Marines through claustrophobic, Xenomorph-infested environments. Although the Colonial Marines are also known for their appearance in the infamousAliens: Colonial Marines,Aliens: Dark Descent- thankfully - uses them to much greater effect.
The gameplay ofAliens: Dark Descentlends itself to the squad-based structure, tasking players with commanding their squad as one unit and making individual orders. The game also throws in a healthy amount of resource management and features a strategic layer somewhat akin toXCOMthat deepens the gameplay. For fans of James Cameron’s 1986 classic,Aliens,Dark Descentis worth a look.
The universe ofWarhammer: 40,000is a long and storied one, featuring worlds that have been painstakingly detailed over years of careful world-building. This rich, patently grim-dark setting has beenthe canvas for many video games, but unfortunately, the massive IP has been somewhat of a mixed bag when it comes to digital games.
Thankfully,Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of Warand its immediate sequel are exceptions, featuring stellar real-time strategy gameplay across a variety of missions, as well as the skirmish and multiplayer modes. It’s no surprise thatDawn Of Warwas a success, though, with Relic Entertainment - the developers of the acclaimedHomeworld- behind the wheel.
Featuring unforgiving combat and a gameplay loop that combines deeply tactical encounters with a strategic layer,XCOM 2is aneasy-to-learn but hard-to-masterstrategy game that tasks players with defending Earth from an overwhelming alien threat.
This often brutal title isn’t afraid to punish its players for making mistakes, and the defense of Earth is implemented in a truly thematic way across a variety of systems. The aliens themselves are tremendously fun to fight against until they bump off your favorite soldier, that is.XCOM 2won’t be for everyone, and its campaigns can drag on for a good while, but it can be a truly addictive and thematic strategy game for fans of sci-fi.
Thisturn-based strategy game, developed by Subset Games (the team behindFTL: Faster Than Light), is an easy-to-learn but hard-to-master strategic puzzle box packed with variety and satisfying mechanics.Into The Breachexcels with its replay value and incredibly well-telegraphed enemies, the Vek, an alien threat that stands to wipe out humanity.
In the game, players take control of an elite squad of mechs, piloted by unique individuals with their own unique strengths. These mechs have powerful abilities that the player needs to use effectively in order to efficiently defend civilians from alien attacks. If the player allows the Vek to destroy too many civilian buildings, the game is lost. This rogue-like structure, as well as the abundance of alternate mech squads that players can command, allowsInto The Breachto offer a tremendous amount of replay value.
