Close search results
SEARCH
DATABASE Search
:
Layout - grid Layout - list

Best Strategy Games

While many video games have a strategic element, some use this as the central point of the play. This can be organising armies before heading in for an offensive, planting a farm to generate the best crops, planning a network of roads or laying out an amusement park.

Strategy games have in common the focus on making premeditated decisions to gain the outcome you need. Some games like Civilization do this by providing the player with all the information they need. Other games, like Kingdom Two Crowns force the player to make a strategic decision on limited knowledge.

These games are further divided between those that are turn-based and allow the player as much time as they need to make decisions, or real-time where you have to make decisions with limited delay. Some strategy games, like Disintegration put you right in the action, so you are fighting in the ranks of your forces as well as commanding oversight.

Finally, you find strategy gameplay in a lesser way in competitive games like Fortnite. This is strategy on the go, so you have to make snap decisions about whether to go on the offensive or retreat.

DetailsGenre Details

Era: 1935 - 2023
Total Games: 486
Total Likes: 6,725
 

 

Don't Starve

Release Date: 23/04/2013, updated in 2017

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Switch, Wii U, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Blocks, Day and Night, Hand-Made and Open World

Don't Starve is an open-world survival game. Here it’s the environment and enemies, rather than other players, that you work with. You need to find and develop food, weapons and shelter to survive. It’s enjoyable because it’s hard, so repeat-plays...

Style Boutique / Savvy Style (Series)

Release Date: 23/10/2008, updated in 2017

Out Now: 3DS and 2DS and DS

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Cartoon

Style Boutique / Savvy Style is a role-playing game where you play a fashion shop owner. You work on the style of your fashion collection as well as your own clothes, makeup and so on.

Terraria

Release Date: 25/11/2013, updated in 2019

Out Now: 3DS and 2DS, Amazon Fire, Android, Mac, PC, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, Stadia, Switch, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Blocks, Day and Night, Pixels and Weather

Terraria looks like a 2D, lesser, version of Minecraft. However, this is a game every bit as complex and creative as the better-known block-building game. To the world-crafting and survival, it adds hundreds of items to collect, characters to defeat and...

Apico

Release Date: 20/05/2022, updated in 2022

Out Now: Mac, PC, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Grid and Pixels

Apico is a simulation game where you play a beekeeper and conservationist. You explore environments, breed rare bees and release them into the wild while growing your business. There are no enemies, time constraints or set objectives so you can focus on...

Dorfromantik

Release Date: 25/03/2021, updated in 2022

Out Now: PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Grid and Hand-Made

Dorfromantik is a peaceful village-building strategy puzzle game for one player inspired by tile-based board games like Carcassonne. You have a stack of hexagonal tiles and work to match their edges while creating areas of towns, forests and fields to...

Mini Metro

Release Date: 06/01/2015

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Mini Metro is a sequencing strategy game where you create an ordered, efficient underground train system. It sounds like hard work, but the simple Tube-map visuals, calm music, and streamlined interactions make this relaxing, like sudoku. Dip your toe...

Mini Motorways

Release Date: 04/03/2019

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac, PC, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Mini Motorways is a sequencing strategy game by the same developer as Mini Metro but tasks you with planning a road network rather than a subway. You lay down roads, traffic lights and motorways to ensure enough cars can get to the buildings that pop up...

Graveyard Keeper

Release Date: 15/08/2018

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Grid, Open World and Pixels

Graveyard Keeper is a funeral-themed role-playing game where you are the caretaker of a local cemetery. You make choices about how to lay out the plot, what services to offer and generally how to make money from your unusual enterprise. The pixilated...

Loop Hero

Release Date: 03/02/2021, updated in 2022

Out Now: PC, Switch, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Cards, Grid, Hand-Made and Pixels

Loop Hero is a dungeon exploring adventure game where you use cards to create a world for your character to survive. Rather than control the hero yourself, you take the role of designer (or Dungeon Master) who use cards to create a world that is hard...

Age of Empires IV

Release Date: 02/02/1998, updated in 2023

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS2, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Grid and Open World

Age of Empires IV is a strategy game where you command an ancient civilisation in real-time and must develop from hunter-gatherers to advanced forms of defence and war. This is similar territory to Civilization but focuses on...

Kingdom (Series)

Release Date: 21/10/2015

Out Now: Amazon Fire, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Day and Night and Pixels

Kingdom is a retro-look strategy game where you must defend your town from the nightly attack of zombies as you develop your technology and civilisation day by day. But unlike other tower-defence games – where you set up defences and fend off waves of...

Terra Nil

Release Date: 28/03/2023

Out Now: Mac, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Grid and Open World

Terra Nil is a strategy game where you use clean technology to bring back life to a barren world. It's a city-building game where you aren't building a city at all, but a clean thriving ecology. It raises interesting themes of how humanity plays an...

The Tomorrow Children

Release Date: 06/09/2016, updated in 2022

Out Now: PS4 and PS5

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Day and Night, Open World and Weather

The Tomorrow Children is an online strategy game where you collaborate with other players to build, explore and develop communities. Unusually, it uses social economics and a Soviet Union-themed post-apocalyptic dystopia as the setting. You play a clone...

Carcassonne

Release Date: 27/06/2007

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: Bag, Figures, Placeables and Tokens

Carcassonne is a strategy game where you lay tiles to create a medieval landscape of farms, rivers and cities. Each new tile must match the roads, rivers, farms and cities of those around it. As you place it you can claim one of these elements that...

Ancestree

Release Date: 01/01/2017

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: Placeables, Score Board and Tokens

Ancestree is a collecting and sequencing game where you compete to build the strongest family tree. You select and link tiles, building your family person by person, scoring points for marriages, wealth and continuous generations. It is a strategic game...

Santorini

Release Date: 01/01/2003, updated in 2020

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: Board, Cards and Placeables

Santorini is a strategy game where you place buildings on a Greek island in an effort to get your character to the top. This creates a chess-like three-dimensional competitive puzzle that changes as each player adds pieces to the village. It's unusual...

Splendor

Release Date: 01/01/2014

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: Cards and Tokens

Splendor is a trading-up strategy game where you play a global trader during the European Renaissance. Nobles once content with large castles and fur robes, now seek dark sapphires and glittering diamonds. You must balance accruing currency or investing...

Iris and the Giant

Release Date: 27/02/2020, updated in 2023

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Cards and Cartoon

Iris and the Giant is a narrative strategy card game about a young girl named Iris who braves an imaginary world to tackle her inner demons and face her fears. It's a game about depression and anxiety where Iris uses escapism to cope with her life. More...

Pikmin 4

Release Date: 21/07/2023

Out Now: Switch

Skill Rating: 6+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person and Day and Night

Pikmin 4 is the latest in a series of puzzle games where you direct hordes of titular plant-like creatures to navigate garden locations. Different colour Pikmins have different abilities so the challenge is to get enough of the right ones to destroy...

Valkyria Chronicles 4

Release Date: 21/03/2018, updated in 2020

Out Now: Android, PC, PS Vita, PS4, PSP, Stadia, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D First-Person, 3D Third-Person, Grid, Hand-Made and Weather

Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a turn-based strategy game where you take command of a squad of soldiers and use your wits and tactics to plan and lead them to battle. You play as Commander Claude Wallace and the soldiers of Squad E and experience a gripping...

Advance Wars (Series)

Release Date: 10/09/2001, updated in 2023

Out Now: 3DS and 2DS, DS, GBA, Switch, Wii and Wii U

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Advance Wars is a classic turn-based strategy game re-released as Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp on Nintendo Switch. You take charge of an army in strategic, turn-based combat. With land, air, and naval units across the battlefield, you work to take...

Blokus

Release Date: 01/01/2000

Skill Rating: 5+ year-olds

Components: Placeables

Blokus is a strategy game where you compete to have the fewest unplayed tiles. You add Tetris-shaped tiles to a shared board that is split into 400 small squares. It is a game about choosing to play the right tile at the right moment, be too slow to get...

Pocket Card Jockey

Release Date: 05/05/2016, updated in 2023

Out Now: 3DS and 2DS, Apple TV, Mac and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Cards and Grid

Pocket Card Jockey is a horse racing game you participate in by playing a series of Solitaire card games. You race, breed and nurture a stable of horses for a range of owners, trainers and other interesting individuals. It stands out as both a brilliant...

Azul

Release Date: 01/01/2017

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Azul is a tile-laying collection and sequencing game where you help the king decorate their palace with Portuguese tiles. You aim to gain tiles on your game card that form patterns to score the most points. What makes it unique is its balance between...

King Of The Castle

Release Date: 02/03/2023

Out Now: PC

Skill Rating: 12+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Cartoon

King Of The Castle is a narrative strategy game where you play a monarch battling nobles for power in a kingdom. The twist is that the nobles are controlled by other players who also have their own factions and objectives. You play by making decisions...

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes

Release Date: 01/12/2009, updated in 2011

Out Now: DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Grid and Pixels

Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes is a strategic battle puzzle where you position units to form patterns that determine how they behave. The play combines the simple matching of Candy Crush with the complex strategy of Advance Wars or Fire Emblem. It...

Qwirkle

Release Date: 01/01/2006

Skill Rating: 5+ year-olds

Components: Placeables

Qwirkle is an abstract sequencing puzzle game where you compete to create rows of matching (or series of) colours and shapes. You score more points by matching multiple directions but need to be careful not to leave points for other players to...

Rootown

Release Date: Coming soon

Coming Soon: Android, Mac, PC and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On and Pixels

Rootown is a traversal strategy game where you guide tree roots down through the soil. You play by planting a tree and then steering its roots to find good soil and avoid stones. The better you do the bigger the tree and the more resources you have to...

Station To Station

Release Date: 03/10/2023

Coming Soon: PC

Skill Rating: 7+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Blocks and Pixels

Station to Station is a railway-building puzzle game about connecting commerce and community to create a beautiful rail network. Play is about making connections between buildings to move materials and people around the world efficiently. It stands out...

The Pale Beyond

Release Date: 24/02/2023

Out Now: Mac, PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, 2D Side-On and Day and Night

The Pale Beyond is a narrative simulation game where you captain an exploration ship stranded in the frozen Antarctic waters. You carefully manage and gather resources and keep your crew in good health to hopefully survive until the summer. It stands...

Sunshine Shuffle

Release Date: 24/05/2023

Out Now: PC and Switch

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 3D Third-Person, Cards and Cartoon

Sunshine Shuffle is a narrative game where you play poker with talking animals who each have a criminal past. It's based around the group's regular Texas Hold 'Em poker game. It stands out for the endearing Robin Hood story and the unusual blend of...

Wingspan

Release Date: 17/09/2020

Out Now: PC, Switch and Xbox One

Components: 2D Side-On

Wingspan is a relaxing, award-winning strategy card game about birds for one to five players. You create flocks of birds to extend a chain of powerful combinations in one of your three habitats. Your goal is to discover and attract the best birds to...

Sid Meier's Civilization (Series)

Release Date: 21/10/2016, updated in 2019

Out Now: PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Day and Night, Grid and Open World

Sid Meier's Civilization is a long-running strategy game where you develop a society from hunter-gatherer to space travel. There are many ways to approach this challenge; socially, militarily, politically or perhaps by building wonders to impress other...

Catan

Release Date: 01/01/1995, updated in 2013

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: Bag, Cards, Dice, Figures, Placeables, Score Board and Tokens

Catan is a strategy game set on an uninhabited island where you accumulate, spend and trade resources to build the biggest kingdom. Players must compete for space, resources and ultimately for ten victory points to be crowned the winner. What starts as...

Dicey Dungeons

Release Date: 13/08/2019, updated in 2020

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S and iOS

Skill Rating: 11+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Cards and Dice

Dicey Dungeons is a video game adventure where you build a deck of cards to represent characters, attacks and weapons. Here the novelty is that these cards combine with dice rolls to determine who wins battles.

Into The Breach

Release Date: 27/02/2018, updated in 2020

Out Now: Android, Mac, PC, Stadia, Switch and iOS

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: 2D Overhead, Grid, Hand-Made and Pixels

Into the Breach is a fantasy turn-based battle. It's set in a future where humanity fights an army of giant monsters. You control mechs equipped with a variety of weapons and armour in carefully coordinated actions played out on super-small tile-based...

Slay the Spire

Release Date: 15/11/2017, updated in 2019

Out Now: Apple TV, Mac, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One and iOS

Skill Rating: 9+ year-olds

Components: 2D Side-On, Cards and Hand-Made

Slay the Spire is an adventure battle card game. You play one of four characters attempting to ascend a spire of multiple floors. You fight enemies and bosses by playing cards you have collected. You gain new cards as rewards from combat. With 100's to...

Invisible Inc

Release Date: 12/05/2015, updated in 2020

Out Now: Mac, PC, PS4, Switch and iOS

Components: 2D Overhead and Grid

Invisible Inc is a tactical adventure where you direct espionage agents in covert missions to acquire resources and support to relocate your agency's computer system to a safe haven within a limited amount of time.

Kingdom Builder

Release Date: 01/01/2011

Skill Rating: 8+ year-olds

Components: Board, Dice, Placeables, Score Board and Tokens

Kingdom Builder is a strategy world-building game where you create a kingdom by placing settlers' houses. You work to build settlements with positions and orientations that meet three specific criteria chosen at the start. This, along with special...

7 Wonders

Release Date: 01/01/2010, updated in 2020

Skill Rating: 10+ year-olds

Components: Cards, Placeables and Tokens

7 Wonders is a card collecting game where players compete to build one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. You play by collecting and playing cards to perform different actions. It is a strategic game of building and trading, where you need to...

Taming Gaming Book Written by parents for parents, the database complements the in-depth discussion about video game addiction, violence, spending and online safety in the Taming Gaming book. We are an editorially independent, free resource without adverts that is supported by partnerships.

Subscribe to our free newsletter

Subscribe
Carina Initiatives
PlayStation
HSBC
GameOpedia
Xbox
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Discord
Contact Us
About