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Westwood's 1995 real-time strategy war between the UN's GDI and Kane's Brotherhood of Nod, told in live-action cutscenes shot in spare rooms with Westwood's own staff. The 1996 prequel Red Alert added the Soviets and Frank Klepacki's "Hell March." Three million copies, and a name that became shorthand for the whole genre.
Blizzard's genre-defining real-time strategy game — a three-way war between the human Terrans, the insectoid Zerg, and the psionic Protoss. Beloved for its finely balanced factions and bottomless multiplayer, it consumed LAN parties and Battle.net, and in South Korea it became a televised national sport.
Blizzard's 1995 orcs-versus-humans strategy game: fog of war, a mini-map, and the network game that ate dorm LANs and dial-up evenings over Kali. More than 3 million sold, the design StarCraft grew from, and Blizzard's half of the rivalry with Westwood that made real-time strategy the PC genre of the late '90s.
Blizzard's fantasy strategy epic gave the world Arthas, hero units, and four armies worth arguing about — then its map editor quietly gave the world an entire new genre: DotA, the custom map that paved the way for the MOBA era, was built inside it.