“Halo Wars 2 is the RTS for everyone,” claims Dan Ayoub, studio head of strategy games at 343, and a man who has taken on a Herculean task. “I grew up playing RTSes on PC. How do we get more people to play this genre that we love? There’s so much magic with RTS and we really want to bring that to everybody.”

Graeme Jennings, Halo Wars 2’s executive producer, says the first step to getting more Halo fans into the RTS mindset is to make it feel categorically part of the wider universe. “One thing we worked on was to contextualise every building we bring in, so we made it so the firebase [the heart of a UNSC base] is dropped by Pelican dropships. Hellbringers are recognisable to fans but are new for Halo Wars 2, useless against air but good at clearing out groups of infantry units. Everything’s contextualised within the universe.”

Ayoub tells us that Halo Wars 2 also has a stronger action drive. “You’ll see us turning Halo Wars into an action RTS. Lots of very cool explosions really bring the battleground to life.” Some juicy explosion effects got a good response in the beta, but our first taste wasn’t a huge departure from the original. Just how reflective is the beta of the final game? “It was a true development beta, a snapshot of where we are today,” explains Ayoub. “We’d rather put that out there now and get feedback. A demo beta will come closer to launch.”

If the goal is to make an RTS that’s accessible to everyone, why include settlement building and resource management? Are they not tempted to just give us two armies of classic Halo foes to throw at each other? “I feel like you and I are going to have good conversations in the coming months!” says Ayoub, hinting we might be close to the truth of some unannounced modes. “Where we’re aiming to push the genre forward is making something that everyone can jump in and play. You’re going to see some other modes which completely change things. It’s a different way to play, while still being an RTS.

“In real-time strategy games there are defined mechanics for resource collection and building dependencies. To try and make it more accessible, you tweak, remove and refine to make it faster. That’s what’s happening at the dev studio and as we talk more about multiplayer you’re going to see different takes on how you shake that recipe up.” So don’t be put off by the RTS label if you’re a die-hard Halo fan. 343 and Creative Assembly’s strategy might just convert you yet. Halo Wars 2 will fill your Xbox One with microscopic carnage in February 2017.

This article originally appeared in Xbox: The Official Magazine. For more great Xbox coverage, you can subscribe here (opens in new tab).

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And, at face value, that’s just what End of Nations looks like – a fairly typical RTS, with tanks, infantry, helicopters, and everything else you’ve come to expect from games like Command & Conquer. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Beneath the surface lies a massive persistent strategy game, and one we had a chance to see at a recent event.

Above: The developers promise the free-to-play model isn’t “pay-for-power”

The first map we played didn’t do much in terms of flexing End of Nations’ massively persistent muscle. Instead, it taught us the fundamentals by having us hold out against waves of enemies while our opponent did the same. We couldn’t directly interact with our foe, but we could spend money to send extra units their way, making their “Horde mode” even more difficult. It wasn’t all that remarkable in and of itself, but it did a serviceable job of teaching us the mechanics by allowing us to experiment with our different units and learn how to use their unique abilities. Every unit type has its own skill that can be activated by clicking the appropriate icon, and using the infantry’s grenade or the tank’s heavy shot at the right time was essential to turning the tide of a battle.

But for as much fun as the one on one level was, it wasn’t until we saw a big map that we finally realized what End of Nations really was.

This time we were put on teams of twelve. Yes, that’s right, twelve on twelve in an RTS. Overall there were 24 players, each controlling their own arms of dozens of units, marching all over the map. It felt more… familiar than we expected. We thought it would play unlike anything we’d ever experienced, but in reality, it just ended up feeling like a massive game of League of Legends/Heroes of Newerth/Dota 2/Demigod/etc. It was a MOBA, even if it didn’t realize it.

Above: This is a “small” battle in End of Nations

And once we realized this, we started to notice the key tenants of the MOBA genre: there were a few different clearly-defined lanes, there were capturable bases that gave bonuses to our team, there were turrets placed in strategic locations, and there was an enemy base that needed to be destroyed. Our cluster of units, hand-picked and designed before the game started, serve as our Champion, marching around the map in one large clump. Each unit type’s unique ability ended up acting like our MOBA Champion’s ability – we’d find a group of foes and start taking them down, coordinating with our allies to come help gank the enemy.

In fact, after we began to get used to the gameplay we started thinking about all of the different ways that it actually moves the MOBA genre forward. In small-scale games we were using a point-buy system to make an RTS army. In big games, we were customizing several different MOBA Champions that we could switch between during a match. The customization options are robust, letting us not only paint and skin our company of units (with skins ranging from robotic to patriotic to bacon), but create a few different companies of units that we could switch around during the match. Getting beat up by the guy with a bunch of helicopters? It’s cool, just switch to your anti-air group once your current group is taken out.

Above: We prefer the “bacon” skin to this blue one

There weren’t nonstop waves of minions causing the constant stalemate in the center of the map because there didn’t need to be. We were essentially filling that role from time to time, attacking enemies in the middle of the map to draw attention away from our allies’ actions. And it… worked. It really did.

At this scale – the scale End of Nations is meant to be played at – everything fell into place surprisingly well. It suddenly made sense why there weren’t any absurdly deep mechanics. It made sense why there weren’t tank physics or cover. End of Nations isn’t about the micro, it’s all about the macro, because your army isn’t really a bunch of different units, even if it looks like that. It’s one big, fat, customizable unit masquerading as an army, and we can’t wait to dig in more when the game releases.

End of Nations is due out later this year, with a release scheduled for the fall. You’ll get a chance to play before that, however as an open beta is scheduled for the summer, giving you a chance to check out the free-to-play massive persistent strategy game yourself.

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