The Most Anticipated Turn-Based Tactics Strategy Games In 2024 & 2025

[@GamerZakh]

You asked me to split turn-based and real time, got a bunch of new one too! Click here: store.steampowered.com/app/2147380/Silence_of_the_Siren/? [ad] to check out Silence of the Siren. Thanks to Oxymoron Games for sponsoring.

[@TreseBrothersGames]

Awesome to see our game on your channel Zakh! Cyber Knights: Flashpoint is doing great in EA; we're having a lot of fun expanding the XCOM formula with more in-depth combat, extensive stealth options, and a whole new strategy layer. Hope you'll give it a play at some point! 😁

[@denniswiggins3816]

Awesome game so far. I was a backer and have had no regrets. I also enjoy Star traders and the constant support and updates for both games. You all are great developers. Your competitors may want to wake up and take notice.

[@TreseBrothersGames]

@@denniswiggins3816 Thanks Dennis, and thank you for being a backer!

[@dkyzar]

I'm all for covering the not 100% turn based games. I think I speak for more than myself when I say we want some different and unique elements in our strategy games. Thanks as usual for the list!

[@AndrewTrese]

Great to see Cyber Knights: Flashpoint on your list and hope you'll check it out at launch. We've just hit our 67th update in 5 months and our reviews are climbing as the word gets out. Thanks for cluing me in to Plague Lords and Hexxen Hunters! I love the visual style of these two, they're gorgeous and instantly wishlisted!

[@kriacaoverbal]

Thank you so much for this video. Dice Gambit Music Director here ❤ a big hug from Portugal

[@brandy1999]

Really well made video that avoids the typical pitfalls of these "compilation" type videos, such as lack of game names on chapters or not showing game title on screen at all times. Good job.

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! This is my 10th year making them, so pretty much everything is thought out now.

[@freelancershogun]

Another solid list. Thanks for taking the time to get these lists together!

[@trevorl.4332]

I downloaded Guild Saga: Vanished Worlds demo during some steam event a couple months ago and I REALLY like that game. Can't wait for the full release. This was a great YT video, as I hadn't heard of about half of these titles. Wishlisted all of them and bought a couple. Thanks @GamerZakh!

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! I do put a lot of work into finding lesser known but interesting games.

[@denniswiggins3816]

I am a fan of Battle Brothers and really looking forward to Menace.

[@Daalon4RPGs]

Classified: France ‘44 was already on my wishlist! Thanks the video! Definitely helped me add some to my list of things.

[@Somebody374-bv8cd]

I just want to mention this because you get comments from people who dislike lists, but I like your lists because I don't exactly have the time to comb through steam or gog to find interesting looking games - especially indie titles - so this is a good way for me to get a look at stuff I might be interested in. Plus this is a genre that I really love (especially the good old Heroes of might and magic kind) so thanks for the video. Wishlisted a couple from this video - just wondering if you could add gog links if they have a gog version, if possible. Thanks again!

[@GamerZakh]

Hey thank you so much for the support! And thanks for reminding me about GOG links, I'll check and see if any are on there.

[@matthewwhittington7722]

Love your channel/videos!! Really look forward to them.

[@markam67]

Great work as always Zakh. A bit of a different group of games here some look really interesting. Thanks for all the work.

[@Jasta85]

Thanks for this, added quite a few games to my wishlist.

[@GamerZakh]

Glad you found new ones!

[@kellysamuel3383]

Hey man really love these curated list videos It’s really make or break depending on your good taste Cheers to you

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! I'm glad you like them

[@Groaznic]

Man that Menace has an incredible atmosphere, they nailed the presentation, I got the District 9 chills from it.

[@brigbrizz]

"And now our video's sponsor..." (gets ready to fast forward) " a game that is actually really great looking, in a theme you really enjoy!" (whoa.... ) Silence of the Siren looks great! Wishlisted! A bunch of the games on this list looks amazing! So many wishlisted! Love these videos each year, unfortunately there's only so many turn-based games coming out every year or so. Thank you for putting this together Zach!

[@GamerZakh]

Glad you enjoyed it! And yeah the way I do sponsors for these lists is that they'd be games that would fit in the list anyway. Often I already have that game in my research when they approach me.

[@brigbrizz]

@@GamerZakh I'm getting so jaded over F2P nonsense that masquerades as a "turn-based strategy game" that I forgot which channel I was on. Thanks for the continuing the integrity!

[@zenithquasar9623]

Omg, thanks for bringing Silence of the Siren to my attention!

[@maverickstclare3756]

"everything has fishing in it" - me an OG Everquest Fishing Expert yay!

[@greyroo]

The first one - Guild Saga: Vanished Worlds is now unfortunately due for release 9th August.

[@GamerZakh]

Ah that sucks, and right before I published this video too haha.

[@spear_song_game]

Hey, Zakh! Thanks for noticing Spear Song!

[@funkwolf]

MENACE HYPE!!!! Let's go Battle Brothers Devs!

[@ElfWord]

Cyber Knights and Menace, let's go!!!

[@adhyperdad3027]

These made me remember about Rise to Ruins and start playing again. If any spiritual successors to that show up, PLEASE make a video.

[@zacharybecker8228]

Songs of conquest is absolutely worth it, one of the best strategy games ive played in years

[@mrt6349]

Was on humble bundle months ago

[@noneofyourbuisness2539]

​@@mrt6349and?

[@milanstevic8424]

Can't wait for Mars Tactics, which looks to be a true continuation of the { Laser Squad -> UFO -> XCOM -> Jagged Alliance } subgenre for me. Nothing really came close to that open-world sandbox feel opened up by UFO and further explored by JA2 (which was actually heavily influenced by the original Fallout). I also adored Silent Storm, but it was less sandboxy so it didn't truly fit the subgenre (it was in effect very similar to modern XCOM in how the narrative developed).

[@adhyperdad3027]

Honey wake up. New battle brothers in space just dropped.

[@B4rricade83]

Really nice List!

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks!

[@tdcsguy]

Hi Zakh, out of curiosity: have you transitioned into mainly making list videos, or is this more like a phase? I love your actual gameplay videos much, much more - these list videos sadly are just not for me... I'm currently re-watching lots of your older long-plays. I love your work, and actually you are like 90% of the youtube I consume these days. I don't have that much free time anymore, but I will always watch a GamerZakh gameplay video 🙂

[@GamerZakh]

I'm doing both but also I've set up a second channel where I'll be posting more raw gameplay. Main series will still be on this channel along with 'curated' content like this. Having said that, I kind of went way too hard the last 6 months and I'm on a semi-break right now. I plan to stream and do more gameplay in April. If you haven't seen the second channel, it's here: www.youtube.com/@GamerZakhXL It's currently a mix of old streams and some new ones, but also when I live stream I'm live on that KZbin channel too along with Twitch.

[@tdcsguy]

@@GamerZakh Oh that is good to know, subscribed immediately! I also just saw your post on discord about 2023 being a tough year, and on the other channel the thing about you getting a strike? what the hell? Sorry for missing all this, and I wish you all the best for your endeavors. You have my support

[@GamerZakh]

@@tdcsguy Thank you! I'm really glad you're enjoying it all. Yeah 2023 was the roughest year since 2018 but also I moved to the UK, so 2018 earnings with UK living costs was not comfortable. And yes, KZbin has started giving strikes to anyone showing where to download 'abandonware' games, so I got a strike for that even though it's legal. It was a community guideline strike, so it's not about legality to KZbin exactly, they just don't want the risk since they can't check legality.

[@noneofyourbuisness2539]

Well actually I much prefer to see the list videos and I'm sure others do too. But most of all I like to see creators given the freedom to choose what they want to make, without pressurising comments.

[@tristanmenzies3592]

Hey Zakh, just want to say I love this content you my number one go to to find out what's up and coming and give great info about each games. Love all your work and progress take it easy, lots of love from ZA

[@sachad964]

menace has visuals that are from the movie aliens Thats the 2nd movie in the aliens franchise for anybody that hasnt seen them

[@nikodimus86]

Arc Seed, gameplay reminds me of Evangelion, but the visual representation of the angels reminds me more of the Rah Xephon anime, which has a similar plot like Evangelion. Boy doesn't want to pilot the robot, but does in the end and that leads to the... Not gonna spoil the ending. :P

[@NASAnaut]

Thanks for this!

[@bolicob]

I like the more frequent lists videos

[@GamerZakh]

I've been trying to figure out how to make them more consistently, I kind of have something going this year.

[@SAS1122334455]

6 added to wl, thanks!

[@GamerZakh]

Glad you found new ones!

[@signalspacelab]

Wow! Thank you Zakh for recognizing our tactical shooter Every Day We Fight! So many great games on your list. We can't wait for you to take ours for a spin... SOON!

[@sriharirajan8906]

In which store Forgotten but Unbroken is available for demo?. I checked steam but its not there

[@skyknight2003]

Well will give Songs of Conquest a whirl, got that Guilds one on wishlist so thanks for the video!

[@dot2562]

is that the hunchback of Notre Dame @ 34:00

[@igavinwood]

A bit of everything for anyone here. Nice overview of some interesting games in the genre. My only wish is that XCom is remade and not owned by 2K. I literally stopped playing two of my favourite games due to the greed monkey's in charge placing a secondary game launcher on top of the Steam launcher just so they could data mine players. I had until then a completely stable experience with the games and mods, but as soon as I denied the data mining my games crashed or just didn't load. I can't prove it was down to the 2K secondary launcher but it sure as hell seems suspicious. I'll no longer buy these games or any from 2K. I'm not the only one sick of publishers.

[@RyanCaden-w4m]

Great list. I really appreciate you putting these together. Another public release I’m really looking forward to is Gates of Pyre. I had a blast with the last playtest and can’t wait to dive back in.

[@Bauschaumbruder]

Zakh, will you play Laysara?

[@GamerZakh]

I want to but there's so much to play and I've been on a bit of a break.

[@Bauschaumbruder]

@@GamerZakh ok, I see. Take a break and we'll see you again soon with renewed energy. :)

[@duedman-alleswasknallt5775]

Menace needs to get insanely bad early reviews for me not to insta buy it

[@DogtheNog]

Good video

[@GamerZakh]

Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying the recent ones

[@jaredchappell2318]

Demon school has nice art, but man the characters are unpleasant to look at.

[@Zyzyx442]

Just played a lot of songs of conquest with my brother on hotseat and the game is great as they have finally fixed the AI, the AI is tough as nails whereas 2 years ago it was really derp. The only problem is only 4 factions compared to Heroes3 Horn of the Abyss which now has 11 factions with the latest update, so after a few games trying out the different synergies the game does become stale quickly because of lack of varation.

[@drwhave]

dice gambit looks like one of those crappier NFT scams

[@GamerZakh]

What makes you say that? I kind of ignored most of NFTs so I'm not sure what's looking similar.

[@conwaybelleroseblais469]

You must of researched alot Godblessyou brother onelovemuchlove believe 🙏

[@Kataash]

Old world is the best fucking turn base game

[@GamerZakh]

Sure but it's not a tactics game, that's over in the Civ-like 4X games.

[@edersonnico]

Idk about multiplayer. But playing vs AI, old world is a quite bad experience.

[@ClockworkEngineer]

Capes is strictly a puzzle game. Makes me doubt the rest of this list.

[@GamerZakh]

Capes is tagged by users on Steam as 'Turn-based tactics' and 'Turn-based strategy' as the top 2 user defined tags. You'll have to explain why you think it's strictly a puzzle game but also know that you're in the vast minority considering it so. You don't have to doubt the list, just look at the games and judge them. If you don't know what's in the list then you can doubt or not doubt, but you'll never know.

[@kapuzzemaa24]

I just need a X-Com 3

[@Neyreyan]

You missed one, the Dead Await wich is better than 75% of the games it the list...well, at least it's more promising

[@milanstevic8424]

I'm sorry but it's pretty meh

[@GamerZakh]

There are thousands of tactics games in development, no list will include them all. Having said that, Dead Await is more of a deck-building RPG as they are pretty clear with how they call themselves that. I wouldn't include it in a tactics list like this one. Of course lines between genres as blurry but I would curate that into a different list.

[@Neyreyan]

@@GamerZakh good point, i thought it would be there becuase it also leans more into strategy wich is your favourite genre( i think?). But more importantly, it will release next month, i think half of the games in the list dont have concrete release dates(i think, i did check a few of them). Sadly these days people dont have much to play so we get invested in upcoming titles. We search for info about the game, play a demo, look at videos for it, discuss on forums... and then the games doesn't come out for years or never😩 example:Urban Strife

[@Neyreyan]

@@milanstevic8424 it reminds me of home behind 2 so i can't really say no to it. The turn based combat art style seems to be the worst part of the game. But also inside the house of the leader, it had a very creepy atmosphere, like darkwood has

[@milanstevic8424]

@@Neyreyan Ok fair enough. If you can truly compare any of it with Darkwood, then I'm guessing it does something right. Will try to explore it some more.

[@mariotraxler1486]

Why dont mention the system, where this games will be released???? PC?? Switch??? XBOX??? Sega Master System????? 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[@ulas-yalcin]

Not one of these games seem to have any form of PvP T_T

[@ФеофанЭтополедолжнобытьзаполне]

Third reich: sends 95% of its troops to eastern front. Every WWII gamedev: USSR? Never heard of it.

[@Tro.g]

Much talks and replays, few gameplay, much thank for knowing about so many trash games...

[@GamerZakh]

@@Tro.g Haha everyone is always "trash games" and then they release and there's just massively popular and well-liked successes. Every year, for over 10 years that I've made these lists. Same comment every time.

[@Tro.g]

@@GamerZakh I didn't say they were all trash though, just too much attention in this quicky world and no so much gameplay

[@GamerZakh]

@@Tro.g This is an upcoming games list, as in for games not yet released or still in development. Most of these haven't released yet, so of course no gameplay. Many are releasing in the next 2 months, so then there will be gameplay.

[@Tro.g]

@@GamerZakh ok ok for me it's just emty words, no offence, I realise some people like talks about known franchise to be released, but wasting so much time on noname games without much gameplay, thats too tough imho 🙂

[@GamerZakh]

@@Tro.g I didn't take offence, like you say some people just like talks haha. I like talks, which is why I run a KZbin channel. There are lots of videos out there which only talk about the popular ones that you've already heard about. I make more detailed lists that cover the whole top 10% of upcoming games (this is only the top 10% yes, I don't talk about 90% of upcoming games). Many of these noname games blow up into very popular games. For example, the week before Valheim released, it didn't even have a proper trailer on the Steam page. No one knew about it or cared. Then it released and sold 1 million copies every week.

[@dot2562]

.

[@troy5370]

Capes is horrific

[@GamerZakh]

What don't you like about it?

[@reinierdash9020]

rising lords doens't even have a story its just a boring sandbox pass

[@GamerZakh]

Okay

[@reinierdash9020]

@@GamerZakh dont meant like offence to you Zakh i tried rising lords its just boring if theres no objective besides fighting another ai for the map...

[@GamerZakh]

@@reinierdash9020 I didn't take any offence, I'm just acknowledging

[@samseed666]

These look like games made by students.

[@GamerZakh]

I studied game design in uni and I didn't have a single classmate that made anything close to these. If students can make these they should, many are already huge successes.

[@iCanHasRandomness]

Spear Song is developed by russians, so don't even think about buying that crap

[@empireempire3545]

there is no such thing as 'tactical strategy whatever' . Those two terms are mutually exclusive, it's either-or. Call them tactical combat games or strategy games.

[@GamerZakh]

If we're going into semantics, you have to start by providing your definitions of the words involved. Also, keep in mind dictionary definitions of the words don't apply to genre labels. Plus, etymologically words shift meaning over time with popular usage and exact meanings are contextual in many cases. I've been making these lists for a decade, I have a lot of experience with discussing genre meanings and semantics. 10 years of talking about it gives me a lot of insight.

[@whisky3412]

You must be fun at parties

[@canuck64]

Why do they keep making these turn-based games? They're garbage!

[@GamerZakh]

Because tons of people love them. Some of these are already successes. You think they're all objectively garbage? You just don't like the genre. No one likes every genre.