This unexpected sequel is evolutionary, rather than a departure from the original idea, refining the strangely workable controller-based inputs that made a reasonably serious RTS possible on a console. And now, in 2017, for whatever reason, Microsoft and Halo stewards 343 have worked with RTS legend and Total War developer Creative Assembly to build Halo Wars 2, a sequel that feels positively anachronistic.
But since Halo Wars’ 2009 debut, the series has remained content to play in its own first-person sandbox as the RTS genre faded.
The original Halo Wars also came at a time when it seemed like an offshoot of Halo into new arenas outside the FPS was natural, even inevitable. RTS games spawned the current 500-ton gorillas of modern free-to-play gaming in the form of League of Legends and DOTA 2, but the more traditional model of base-and-army-building games largely languishes On the one side you'd find the real-time strategy genre, a collection of games that found a brief period of big-budget dominance on the PC and occasionally ventured onto consoles.
Halo Wars 2 feels like the relic of two different histories.
