Highlights
- Strategy games have traditionally avoided pixel art aesthetics, but indie developers have brought a flood of pixel art strategy games to the scene.
- Hero's Hour is an accessible indie strategy game on Steam that combines turn-based gameplay with real-time battles, featuring a pixel art aesthetic.
- Tooth And Tail offers a minimalist pixel art aesthetic that pairs well with its simplified RTS gameplay, making it a strategic yet accessible game.
The strategy game genre is one of the most saturated, packed with sub-genres from turn-based and tactical to real-time and grand strategy. However, it's rare that strategy games adopt a pixel art aesthetic, be they old or new.
It could be argued that this is due to strategy games being primarily developed by larger studios in the 90s with higher budgets. However, with the rising popularity of indie games in the last ten years, indie developers have been able to explore a variety of genres, leading to an explosion of creativity in all genres and a plethora of indie strategy games, many of which feature pixel art graphics.
8 Hero's Hour
Hero's Hour is a strategy game in which players explore an over-world map, developing their town and armies in turn-based gameplay, and fighting real-time strategy battles. Due to its lack of micromanagement, Hero's Hour is one of the most accessible indie strategy games on Steam.
Although players don't have direct control of their units during battle, they can cast spells and give orders, adding a welcome level of depth and strategy. The combination of turn-based strategy and real-time auto-battler combat makes for a unique and accessible strategy game with a brilliant pixel art aesthetic.
7 Dungeon Of The ENDLESS
This pixel art strategy rogue-like has players controlling a party of characters in real-time with resource management and tower defense elements that make for a truly unique and visually impressive experience.
Dungeon Of The ENDLESS has a unique and detailed pixel art aesthetic with highly detailed environments and a dark, moody atmosphere, which is only furthered by its great lighting and soundscape. The game can be quite challenging and fairly inaccessible, with lots to manage and high lethality, but due to its rogue-like nature, it's also highly replayable.
6 Wargroove
This game takes clear inspiration from the old-school Advance Wars strategy games, with an exceptionally similar art style and battle system. Wargroove features chunky, colorful pixel art and evocative character portraits that fit the tone of the game perfectly.
Wargroove features four unique factions and over twelve unique Commanders, each with their own unique "Groove," a special move that can turn the tide of battle. The game is turn-based and highly strategic, tasking players with countering their opponents' units and carefully positioning their own to succeed.
5 Star Renegades
Published by Raw Fury, Star Renegades is a strategy RPG with a rogue-lite structure in which players battle through a procedurally generated campaign of turn-based missions via a unique battle system with a reactive timeline that allows players to interrupt and counter their enemies.
Similarly to games like Shadow Of Mordor, Star Renegades features an adversary system that generates different enemies and bosses that can evolve as players progress, leading to some emergent gameplay that helps to make each run feel distinct.
4 Death Crown
This strategy game is unique for its well-crafted and crunchy 1-bit pixel art aesthetic that helps to distinguish the game in a saturated market. Death Crown is also unique for its innovative and simplistic real-time strategy mechanics that flip the RTS genre on its head and make it accessible for anyone to play.
Death Crown is displayed on one screen and controlled entirely through simple mouse movements and intuitive hotkeys that enable players to devise simple strategies revolving around economy, defense, and offense. The game's distinct art style and accessibility make it one of the most memorable and easy-to-pick-up pixel art strategy games on Steam, and its local multiplayer features help to boost its replay value.
3 Tooth And Tail
This minimalistic, isometric strategy game puts players in control of a commander, moving their character about the map while rallying their units and constructing buildings in true RTS fashion, vying for control over various resource-producing "Mills."
Tooth And Tail features a simplistic but highly effective pixel art aesthetic that works in tandem with the game's anthropomorphized creatures and simplified RTS gameplay. Tooth And Tail's micromanagement is kept to the bare minimum, with players rallying troops in their nearby vicinity, focusing primarily on which troops will go into battle and when, rather than their individual movements in the encounters themselves. This leads to strategy in broad sweeps rather than fine details and allows the game to be both strategic and accessible at the same time.
2 Tinyfolks
This retro pixel art game features gameplay similar to Darkest Dungeon, tasking players with recruiting and training a roster of "folks" to send out to various dungeon-like locations packed with cute and quirky pixel art enemies and fantastically illustrated bosses.
Tinyfolks features turn-based combat similar to Darkest Dungeon in which players are tasked with controlling a party of heroes, battling through various encounters to get to the boss at the end of each dungeon. The game's combination of charming pixel art and catchy chip-tune soundtrack make Tinyfolks a memorable experience.
1 Into The Breach
This turn-based tactics game from the developers of FTL combines turn-based strategy mechanics with elements of puzzle games and rogue-likes to create an arguably perfect experience for fans of tactics games.
Into The Breach distinguishes itself from other strategy games by giving the player access to all the game's information, including enemy intentions, turn order, and damage amounts. This enables players to plan out every move, using the undo move feature and the ability to reset the entire turn to craft the perfect strategy.