2025 edition of the future of turn-based games
An evolution of my most wanted features
Hello JOMT Reader!
What a year it has been for the small slice of the gaming industry that I keep my eye on. I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t keep up with all of the happenings in the industry, which is why I appreciate publications like
, , , , and to stay in the loop. I’ll also admit that I haven’t been able to play as many games as I’d like especially the back half of this year. So being able to live vicariously through play reports published on , , , and makes me feel like I’m still part of it all.Looking back at some of the standout games I played this year, I wanted to end the year with this year’s version of the future of turn-based games. It’s my wishlist for developers that I hope will be incorporated into the genre of games that I play the most. If you’re interested in my thoughts from last year, see the post below!
Action-packed turns
I’ve noticed a lot more game devs experimenting with trying to pack action into turn-based games. Enter the Chronosphere is a perfect example of what I call a real-time with micro-pause action game: you plan your move and execute it at the same time as all of the enemies on the screen.
Games like this address one of the key drawbacks of turn-based games: pacing. Speeding up analysis paralysis by giving players a smaller number of things to worry about does wonders for pacing.
All Quiet in the Trenches is a different example of how turn-based games can pack a lot of action in a turn. It isn’t nearly as fast-paced as Enter the Chronosphere, but All Quiet in the Trenches does a fantastic job of creating a sense of urgency on the battlefield. It’s easily one of the most intense turn-based games I’ve ever played.
Finally, Sea of Stars takes a more traditional approach of incorporating timed button presses, which affects combat. It may not be as innovative as other approaches to infusing action into turn-based games, but it works to keep the turns fun.
Turn-based games that allow you to make a decision and then change it with minimal consequence have a built-in mechanism to keep the game feeling as action-packed as possible. The flip-side to action-packed turn-taking is best illustrated looking at a game like XCOM 2.
When you decide where to move your squad on the battlefield in XCOM, there is no opportunity to change that decision. Even if your unit spots an enemy, they’ll keep moving, revealing potentially even more enemies. It artificially creates difficulty by forcing you to remember enemy behaviours and in some cases, be really good at guessing where the enemies might be hiding.
Unfortunately, that kind of decision-making in a turn-based game is less fun and more stressful. So incorporating some way to react, like a quick time event during unit movement, can put some fun back in these games. At the very least, it’ll keep players on their toes as they won’t always know what’s coming.
Genre salads
This is a welcome trend that I’m noticing across the gaming industry: the mixing and matching of genres. Turn-based games aren’t just turn-based anymore. They are turn-based with rogue-like elements or turn-based with survival elements. Maybe they are turn-based, action rogue-like…bullet hells (this one is probably a bit much, but there is a game with all of those tags)?
The point is, the mixing and matching of genres gives players some flexibility during decision-making. For turn-based tactics with survival elements, it isn’t a one-dimensional, defeat all monsters decision. Making sure you have enough supplies to survive becomes an important decision-making factor. Will you risk further injury for your squad to get the extra crate of supplies?
What genres have yet to be mixed with turn-based games? FPS games come to mind, though it might be very difficult to make a compelling turn-based FPS game that doesn’t feel like a maddening point-and-click adventure game. But it worked for Enter the Chronosphere so maybe it’ll work for FPS games?
Street Fighter-style fighting games might be an interesting place to incorporate turn-based action. I’m thinking a rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock kind of input system that determines what your characters do on screen. I haven’t looked so I’m not sure if one exists already, but the closest example I can think of is the upcoming mech fighting game, Nitro Gen Omega.
Sports games are probably the easiest to incorporate a turn-based mechanism and I’ve already seen some fantastic examples. Beastieball is Pokemon meets volleyball, complete with creature collection and relationships between creatures. Soccer Kids lets you control a group of kids as they play football (for all my non-North American readers) on grass fields and school yards. I’m hoping that more developers will take a look at making turn-based sports games — there’s nothing more satisfying than a well-executed tactic that leads to a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL!!!
Replayability
I talked replayability as emergent gameplay in last year’s post so I’ll take a different approach this year. It’s a controversial one because it involves AI, or more specifically, large language models (LLMs).
Let me be clear: I’m not talking about replacing writers or artists with AI generated content. These LLMs are not smart, sophisticated, or creative enough to generate a human experience in the way writers and artists can. But what they can help with is to support more natural interactions with non-playable characters (NPCs), with a ruleset provided by the writer.
Games based on deduction stand to benefit the most from having a cast of characters defined by writers but powered by LLMs. Current deduction games, like Ace Attorney, rely on the player’s ability to observe a scene (and in some cases hunt for pixels) to piece together a story. But what if you could have a conversation with the people involved as you interrogate them for information? And they all had personalities and motives that you had to navigate? This is how I see LLMs supporting a more natural interaction between game elements and players, and by extension, replayability because the LLM-powered NPCs may not always respond in the same way.
I can’t talk about replayability without mentioning user generated content (mods). The games that I’ve spent the most time are all due to mods created by other players. XCOM 2, Wildermyth, Stellaris, Crusader Kings III, and Starsector all fit the bill and have a very robust modding community. I love seeing the creativity of other players and I hope to showcase more UGC in the coming year. Having support from game devs to add content is a great way to extend the lifespan of a game, and I hope that more and more devs will consider adding support for their games.
What are you looking forward to for the games that you play? Let me know in the comments below!
Nice article with some really cool tips for games. I don't care much for sports games, but Soccer Kids looks fun!
I think I go in for the story, and avoid mechanics...
But I kinda like a well designed game, and stay for the fun, mostly, until the story ends ;-)