I’m a huge strategy game lover, and always have been. My obsession started when I was just a small kid staying up late on school nights playing Age of Empires and playing hot seat Civilization with my Dad for hours and hours. Strategy games have always been such a big part of my life, and followed me into adulthood where I still spend hours playing. Strategy games even had an amazing influence on my marriage where one of the first games I introduced to my wife was Civilization 5 on my crappy laptop. We played it during the many storms that plagued central France as we traveled around, and where I would eventually propose to her. Slight flex alert…
I truly believe that strategy games influenced my life to the point where I credit them in helping me become the leader I am today. Growing up playing simulation games where I had to manage vast empires in Civ or complex resource trains like in Tropico helped me develop the skill I would later use in my successful coffee career which I am benefitting from today. I hope to one day pass on the love I have for this genre to my kids, and hopefully I can convince my wife to branch out to more amazing strategy games, so please help me convince her in the comments below!
Anyway, there’s a very disappointing trend I’ve noticed recently in the realm of strategy games that’s been bugging me to the core. So, I’m a console gamer through and through. Don’t judge, we’re all on the same side here PC peeps, and I know strategy games are better on PC, but just hear me out. Literally ALL of the greatest Total War war games are on mobile phones, but not consoles. Now, I don’t know the specifics on porting a game like that to the PS5, but come on… Mobiles can get one of the GREATEST strategy franchises in gaming history, but the consoles can’t? That’s simply silly and frustrating to a strategy game enthusiast like myself.

The strange thing about it is that other franchises with equally to more complex systems have made the jump to consoles, so why not Total War? I mean we have Civilization, Age of Empires, Stellaris, Tropico, Sudden Strike, Anno, Age of Wonders, and dozens of others, but Total War decided not to make the correct step and bring the older games to consoles? It simply doesn’t make any sense. The strategy game community on PS5 alone would be absolutely thrilled to have those games available to them, and would pay handsomely for the opportunity, so why the delay? To me it seems like a no brainer to maximize your reach to other platforms allowing more streams of revenue, especially for those older games that are essentially collecting dust on PC and Mobile.
There is some good news, however. With the announcement of the new Total War Warhammer 40k game coming soon, they also announced the creation of a new system that would allow them to properly port Total War games to console in the future. This was such a relief to hear, and I know the mounting pressure to get their games on console was becoming too big to ignore. I’m excited for the prospect of future games to be brought to the PS5, but my eyes are currently on the past games. Will this system be able to bring the legendary games in their franchise to the modern console audience? Man, I would drop good money for the chance to play Empire: Total War. I have ALWAYS wanted to play that, and even to this day I will still watch a playthrough as I’m folding laundry.

We’ve had some great strides in recent years to bring the great strategy game franchises onto consoles, but we still have a long way to go. My hope is that my developer pals will glance over this article and think twice before making their games PC exclusives, because there’s one thing I can say for certain: Console gamers love strategy games too!
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