With a lot of games, they’re about reactivity. They throw you into a scenario, give you your tools, and make you adapt on the fly. This can be great and exhilarating, but it isn’t the only way to experience a game. Sometimes you want to use your head. Not everything should be a threat you can brute force your way through.
In these games, you have to plan everything you do. From the steps you take to the space you occupy, every choice could be your last if you’re not careful. You have to think it all through, or you’ll hit a wall early on. This is more than just the strategy of a single battle, but across the whole game. You make one wrong choice, and it’s gone forever.
8 Fire Emblem Three Houses
Fire Emblem has always been one of the foremost tactics games out there, and that has not dwindled in recent years, either. With Three Houses, the strategy extended beyond your battles and the units you chose, but how you used your time. Losing a unit was bad enough, but missing the chance to ever get them was just as bad.
You only have a limited time in Three Houses, and there are plenty of cut-off points. Your units can die if you’re not careful, and timeskips will cut off the characters you can recruit. And misuse your time and you’ll fail to get your stats and bonds high enough. If you’re not playing right, you might jeopardise an entire playthrough.
7 Frostpunk
There are many games out there that try to showcase brutality, but that can at times come at odds with fair gameplay design. Frostpunk is brutal, and is not afraid to make that challenge next-to-impossible for you. The world is in a new Ice Age, supplies are scarce, and the population is dwindling. And you have to be cruel to be kind.
You may not want to force people into work, you may not want to ration, you may not want to send the children to the mines. But if you make soft choices, you’ll meet an early end. But it’s more than that, too. The world is getting colder, and you need to make sure your city is ready for it. Push your people to the limit, and you won’t have the support to survive the coming winter either.
6 Unicorn Overlord
Unicorn Overlord is such a fascinating rendition of turn-based combat. While you can build your team and roam the map to pick your own battles, combat is a different beast entirely. You cannot take a single action in battle. Rather, you need to set up your gambits in advance and rely on your planning to have your team survive.
As the game advances, you’ll discover that knowing who you’ll come across before you enter combat is half the battle. It is literally impossible to react to danger once it’s already arrived.
5 Crusader Kings
Being a grand strategy game with no strict goal, Crusader Kings 3 is what you make of it. You don’t even need a goal inherently, but any goal you want, you’ll need to fight for it. And that takes a lot of planning. The game has an end date that you can’t deny, so whatever you hope to achieve, you better hope you can get it before then.
You may start as a lowly count in some obscure corner of the world with ambitions to become emperor. But staying emperor is no easy task. You want succession to be smooth, you have to choose your heir and get the populace to like them. You have to have laws in place to protect your own position. A negligent ruler will have a crumbling empire, and perhaps lose their head entirely.
4 Death Stranding
Death Stranding is a game unlike many others. By all means it could be classed as a walking simulator in the purest sense of the word. You walk everywhere, and drive sometimes if you’re looking. But you are never aimless. Out in the wilds, you are relying on the random kindness of others if you don’t have the equipment you need.
You want to bypass a river? You need to find a route around first. Or maybe you could build as bridge over it, to help yourself and others. Sometimes you’ll take a path multiple times and want to create a more permanent route. Are there enemies along the way you should bring weapons to defend against? You have to learn your routes so you can perfect them.
3 Persona
Persona is a game series you can’t escape, with some many of them available, all with their incredible turn-based combat and flashy visuals. But the games are so much more than just their style. They are planning from beginning to end in every action you do. You have a schedule, but so does everyone else, and you’ll need to make time for them.
It is impossible to max out every Social Link in a single playthrough. So you need to make prioties. A little bit of everyone, or max out a few? Make sure to check the weather for activities that might change. Study for your tests. Don’t forget to boost your stats for combat, too. Invest in your friends. There is always something more to do, and you can’t afford to be reactive. You need to plan it all out, sometimes months in advance.
2 Dishonored
Immersive sims are all about reactive systems. You do one thing, and another happens in turn, cascading down like a Rube Goldberg machine. Dishonored sits near the top of the pile. You are packed with abilities and the freedom of the movement. But with that unprecedented control comes so many more aspects to account for in your mission.
Your target is on the second floor and there’s an open window. Ah, but then is there a trap by the window, or a guard just out of sight? Maybe you can lure your target out instead? Now they’ve brought their whole squad with them. Now’s a good chance to summon rats to take them down. Somehow, an explosion has gone off. Maybe it wasn’t what you’d planned, but they’re dead. But it could just have easily been you.
1 Hitman
From the very inception of the series, Hitman has stood at the pinnacle of planning. You can’t just walk in, shoot your target and leave. Agent 47 is smart, but he’s no superhuman. You want to take out your target and disappear as if you were never at the seen. The very image of a Silent Assassin.
The power in Hitman is the replayability. Yes, you can’t just walk in and shoot your target, but you can plan out so many other ways. You must choose the gear to bring with you. Maybe there’s a perfect sniper’s nest on the other side of town. Ah, they have a secret affair that you can take the place of to lure them away. Ah, they go golfing at midday. Perfect time for a switcheroo. But you have to learn it all first, and now exactly when who will be where to. You have to know them better than they know themselves.
