History GameBreaker / RealTimeStrategy

** In a rare example of the game (and the StrategyGuide) ''recommending'' a GameBreaker, Reign of Chaos had the Goblin Zeppelin / Sapper combo. Load the autocasting AoE explosion sappers eight at a time in the zeppelins, and watch them destroy a base with the enemy able to do very little about it. This was made impossible in the expansion, and carried over to the original if installed (yet the prompt to load them up still appears).

* ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilation'' allows to quickly build air transports and use them to pick up anything... including the enemy commander, which you can now kill by detonating your aircraft or letting other enemy units shut down it. There is nothing the AI or an unaware player can do for that after you load the commander.

** ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' Protoss players had the infamous [[FanNickname Archon Toilet]], a tactic where they used the Protoss Mothership's "Vortex" ability to trap enemies and then sent in Archons after the enemies. Since Archons dealt SplashDamage, all the units emerge at the same time and are overlapping each other, this allowed the Archons to ''[[CurbStompBattle shred]]'' the opponents in mere seconds. It proved to be so overpowered that Blizzard attempted to {{nerf}} it by giving all units that emerge from the vortex MercyInvincibility. Eventually, due to the inability to properly balance the Vortex ability, it was replaced with the Time Warp ability in ''Heart of the Swarm''.

* In ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'', enemy agents [[YouCantThwartStageOne won't show up in your island before you reach the first objective]]. Therefore, if you build enough lockers to hold 100 [[{{Mooks}} construction workers]], get 100 of them, send them all overseas to steal money, and leave the game running for at least 2 hours, you'll end up with a strongroom holding at least... [[Film/AustinPowers *Pinky raise*]] ...''Three '''Million''' Dollars''!

* Many people consider the King Tiger in ''VideoGame/CompanyOfHeroes'' to be this. It's a one time use unit that drains 2000 manpower over the next few minutes after being fielded. It's also slow. However, it has tons of health, is heavily armored, can be called in at a moment's notice, does not require you to 'pay' to field it, and damage done to it can be repaired. It is essentially a supertank that you can call in for 'free' (you don't need to save up for it) and can be added to your existing army to give you a massive edge over the other player. The other player will need to field lots of AT Weapons to take it down, but these are costly and take time to make, and on top of that, he still has to deal with your existing army while trying to set up and defend these AT Weapons.
** The Western Allied counter to that would be the American Pershing, which is close but not quite up to the King Tiger's power. But unlike the once-per-game-if-you-loose-it-you're-screwed KT, you can literally SPAM these things at the Germans from here to doomsday as long as you have the funds avalible. And suddenly it's the GERMANS who are having their tanks chewed up and spit out like paper. ALL OVER THE MAP. And as long as you keep some engineers nearby to do the obligatory repairs, these things gain experience easily, which makes them only more dangerous. Suffice it to say by the end, the German elite armor will struggle to scratch these things.

** If anything, the Commonwealth's artillery is a game-breaker. Once the Artillery doctrine abilities are acquired, every British artillery piece on the map can shell the enemy's main base simultaneously, reducing all that work to rubble, and forcing the enemy to slowly rebuild his entire production capacity. Setting up three or four 25-pounder artillery pieces takes a bit of resources, but then again the British have amazingly powerful defensive emplacements to boot, and can just sit back and gather resources for a while. Even a King Tiger can't stand up to a couple of British AT emplacements - they're some of the most powerful AT weapons in the whole game.

** Soviet Scout Sniper squads used to be able to garrison into [=M3A1=] Scout Cars. With a bit of micromanagement this would allow the Snipers to work their magic against infantry while keeping far away from any potential Wehrmacht attackers for a while since the vehicles needed to catch the Scout Car would take a fair bit more time to get and just about anything on foot would have no chance of catching it, it was basically free map-control and enemy losses for sufficiently skilled players

** ''2'''s infantry gameplay's speed was dramatically changed on March 25th, 2014. Unfortunately, in that same update, the G43 upgrade ended up just more or less being a completely broken upgrade with no obvious weaknesses and made Grenadiers upgraded with them largely unmatched by any other infantry...and could be combined with an [=LMG42=] with sufficient munitions to completely crush Soviet infantry's hopes and dreams. The G43s' long-range effectiveness was reduced and the G43 and [=LMG42=] upgrades became mutually exclusive.

* Tzar: Burden of the Crown had a faction where you could spend money to create "relics" that could increase your units stats. Game broken when you could play with unlimited resources and have units carrying relics that increased stats by 10 times.
* ''Noblemen: 1896''

* In early versions of ''VideoGame/BrutalLegend'', an Ironheade player who spammed fire barons was virtually unbeatable. Fire baron spamming was so overpowered that it nearly killed the game's online multiplayer community. Eventually Double Fine released a patch that gave fire barons a much-needed {{Nerf}}.
* Many people consider the King Tiger in ''VideoGame/CompanyOfHeroes'' to be this. It's a one time use unit that drains 2000 manpower over the next few minutes after being fielded. It's also slow. However, it has tons of health, is heavily armored, can be called in at a moments notice, does not require you to 'pay' to field it, and damage done to it can be repaired. It is essentially a supertank that you can call in for 'free' (you don't need to save up for it) and can be added to your existing army to give you a massive edge over the other player. The other player will need to field lots of AT Weapons to take it down, but these are costly and take time to make, and on top of that, he still has to deal with your existing army while trying to set up and defend these AT Weapons.

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