An Action-RTS is a fusion of two very different genres: Real-Time Strategy and something else, such as an action-RPG or shooter.
In a direct opposition of the Non-Entity General featured in pure RTS games, you take full control of a Hero Unit that represents the Frontline General of a faction in either first- or over-the-shoulder third- person point of view. To qualify, the interface must be fully attached to the player character (as one Lowko put it, "I AM the cursor!"). This handily justifies why the Hero Must Survive: not because the story says so, but because you died. In other versions, the game is mostly RTS, but the player can "assume direct control" of one of their Red Shirts to play as an action game, instantly giving them a bonus to their stats and tactical acumen
Some other games border this, such as tactical shooters or "zookeeper" style summoners. Once it becomes mandatory for "Your Guy" to begin building a barracks and capture a resource extractor while that percolates instead of purely fighting with the occasional opportunity to tell their buddy "huck a grenade at that MG nest for me" or "run interference on the boss while I charge up a fireball," however, it starts to look more RTS than action, and that's where this trope comes in.
Compare Strategy RPG, which is a fusion of RPG and Turn-Based Strategy. Usually, the heroes ARE the units, with no mooks, at least on the player's side
Also compare Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, which has light or fully automated strategy elements (ie, premade bases and AI troops), a handful of heroes to choose from per faction, and an Excuse Plot that facilitates its focus on multiplayer. In contrast, an Action-RTS will have no, or at least, an unselectable hero (barring the "assuming direct control of a redshirt makes it Bettertm" version) and full RTS control of allies. Story, is of course, on a case-by-case basis.
See also Hero Unit, which is intended to represent the player or Frontline General on the battlefield.
Examples:
- AirMech is a Spiritual Successor to Herzog Zwei (see below) with similar mechanics: Your command unit scouts, and gives orders to troops. Your commander unit is also responsible for ferrying troops around the battlefield.
- In Battalion Wars, you take direct (Third-Person Shooter) control of a unit to command battles from the frontlines. Sometimes you start out as a poor, bloody infantryman, sometimes a bomber, and in the third-to-last mission, you command the Frontier Army's pride-and-joy, the Battlestation. The unit you control gets a damage and armor boost, but whether this is a bug or a feature is unspecified.
- Battlestations: Pacific: While you do play as the Commander of either the Imperial Japanese or United States Forces in their respective campaigns and multiplayer, down to directing their units on what to attack and where to go, you, the player, also have the option of taking direct control of any aircraft, surface ships, or submarines currently still intact anywhere on the map. In the latter case, the game becomes more akin to a Vehicular Combat slash Third-Person Shooter, while in the former case it plays more as an RTS, complete with overhead view of the entire map.
- Battle Tanks II by John Junod has the player command a tank in battle as a third-person shooter. However, there are other tanks in your company, and these will mindlessly wander the battlefield into superior hostile forces unless you issue commands such as "Stay put" or "Follow me." With periodic reinforcements enabled, any new arrivals also require orders to prevent them from wandering.
- Battlezone (1998):
- The original is a hybrid First-Person Shooter and RTS. You control either the ISDF or Soviet Union factions on the moon for the control of a fabulously useful substance called "biometal" that allows for Ridiculously Fast Construction. There is no hero unit, you just drive a generic scout car, with the option to swap vehicles later on. You can play as the driver, too, but that's not recommended, as he's pretty squishy.
- The sequel takes place on an exoplanet (with a brief first chapter on Pluto) and deals with alien-like Super Soldiers fighting the ISDF. Upon building the comsat relay-equivalent structure, the game can be played from the typical RTS "God's-eye view" if you prefer.
- Bladestorm The Hundred Years War: The player character is a mercenary who can take command of units to personally direct them in combat, in addition to issuing orders to friendly units. It's actually possible (but very inefficient) to engage in combat solo, but it's made very early on that you're no One-Man Army.
- Brütal Legend is a 4-way cross between an Action RPG, car rally game, Rhythm Game, and RTS. You play as Eddie Riggs, a roadie who got Isekaied into the Land of Metal and leads a revolt against the land's demonic overlords with a magical electric guitar in one hand, a battle axe in the other, the ability to make large groups of people do what he says in his heart, and a kickass hotrod to drive around doing car stunts to please the gods with in his leisure time. His ex-girlfriend gains similar abilities after committing suicide in a lake of concentrated divine grief and returning to life as a vengeful Revenant Zombie. The unique gimmick of the game is that a faction's leader can "double-team" with a basic unit to grant it a special power, from a bonus to their attack to a super move that's otherwise totally unavailable. Battles consist of the hero building up an army from their Stage (an actual concert stage, built in literally ten seconds by friendly Fan spirits), gaining control of resource collectors, and then trying to attack the enemy Stage. Similar to Sacrifice, the hero can't actually damage the enemy base by themselves.
- In Divinity: Dragon Commander you take on the role of the titular Weredragon. In normal battle gameplay you build and control units from a top-down perspective, but can also turn into a dragon to personally shoot enemies and use special skills, that depend on your dragon form, which you can choose at the beginning of campaign. The dragon form can be attacked and defeated if you're not careful, but that merely returns you to a strategic mode, while the dragon form recovers.
- Dungeon Keeper allows the overlord to possess any unit. It's use is necessary in the bonus stage which requires going through an entire maze-like dungeon. The sequel also permits grouping creatures to follow the possessed creature.
- In the Empires spinoffs of Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors, depending on the rank of the character you play as you can issue orders to allied forces in battle even as you slaughter the enemy by the hundreds. In general, when first starting out as part of a faction you're only in command of your own unit, but upon promotion can be given command over allies as well. Of course, if you happen to be the faction leader (by ascending to the rank, being in charge of a band of mercenaries or simply choosing a faction leader to play), you're able to do this from the start.
- Exaggerated in Executive Assault, where the ability to assume the perspective of any unit and turn the game into a FPS is the central gimmick.
- Guilty Gear 2: Overture is an Oddball in the Series of Fighting Games, utilizing a base (the "Masterghost," basically the physical manifestation of the player character's soul) and resource collectors ("Ghosts," who conjure disposable Mooks) to summon various troops and facilitate their special abilities by granting a bonus to their MP regeneration.
- Herzog Zwei involves scouting and collecting resources with a Transforming Mecha, then parking at a base to issue orders for troops.
- Kessen II: In addition to ordering around your AI controlled units, the general can directly take to the battle and unleash special abilities such as summoning earthquakes, lightning, and fireballs.
- Men of War: One of the series' main features is the ability to take any unit under you direct control. A "unit" may be a single soldier, a machinegun, a tank, or even a small vessel. Doing so essentially turns the game into a top-down shooter, but it's impractical to do so in large-scale missions. On the other hand, directly controlling a tank in smaller-scale missions spares you from Artificial Stupidity, making the game way easier.
- Natural Selection: This game is a team-based first-person shooter with RTS elements added. On the human side, there is a commander that watches over the humans, constructing buildings and giving instructions to marines and the other players on the team act similar to a conventional unit. On the alien side, there are also units and base builders but everyone acts on their own accord rather than following orders.
- In the Overlord games, you play as the titular Evil Overlord, whose claim to infamy is his horde of goblin-like Minions. He can command up to twenty at once, split between four specialized types (melee-fighter Browns, fireball-throwing Reds, sneaky-and malodorous-Greens, and amphibious, healing-spell casting Blues), as well as get stuck in with his trusty weapon-of-choice (sword, axe, or mace) and magic gauntlet. In the sequel, he gains the ability to Mind Control a number of peasants, who take orders like any other minion.
- LEGO Rock Raiders: The PC version is normally a Real-Time Tactics game but allows players to select a Rock Raider and jump into first- or third-person view to run or drive vehicles around maps and drill into cavern walls.
- Sacrifice details a war between various flavours of conjurers, summoners, and necromancers, and the servants given to them by their respective patron deities. It incentivizes actually building an army rather than going solo: The enemy base is immune to the attacks of another summoner, but not their Mooks, and the only way to win is to destroy it.
- Space Rangers 2: Planetary battles mainly consist of producing and controlling small groups of robots to capture enemy bases, but you can take any robot under your direct control, and play it like a Third-Person Shooter. Doing so messes quite a bit with enemy targeting, because most attacks are projectile-based, rather than Hitscan, and a savvy player can dodge most of them, or even hit enemies while hiding in folds of landscape, without triggering retaliation. There are some maps, such as "Ecventor" or Terron's core, that are specifically built around this feature, as they give you only a tiny amount of robots, but enemies are spread-out and have stunted or nonexistent production.
- In Stickwar, you can instantly convert a unit into a Hero Unit by choosing it as your avatar.
- In Tooth and Tail, you play as your chosen faction's commander (similar to an Isometric Perspective Diablo style ARPG), whom you have direct control over when constructing buildings and commanding other units. If your commander falls, the game isn't over; you respawn after a short waiting period, though that's usually more than enough time for the enemy to get the upper hand.
- World of Warships used to be a downplayed example prior to the 0.8.0 update. Among Third-Person Shooter-style WWII-era Epic Ship-on-Ship Action, where ships usually just shoot at each other, aircraft carriers were essentially mobile bases, who were able to deploy up to seven plane squadrons and control them at once from top-down view. Each carrier had two or three different setups, each with different amount of dive bomber, torpedo bomber, and fighter squadrons. Bombers could either attack the enemy by themselves or be directed manually, while fighters had a special attack that mowed down all planes in an area. The player could return to controlling the ship at any time, but there was usually little reason to do so, unless you were dodging torpedoes or squeezing into a narrow strait. Following the aforementioned update, however, carriers were reworked to only control one squadron from third-person view, and thus this trope no longer applies.
