BattleZone

BattleZone (1998) by Activision asked the important question: what if your real-time strategy game also let you hop into a tank and blast things personally? The result was a hybrid that felt revolutionary. You built bases, commanded units, and also jumped into the cockpit to do the dirty work yourself. The alternate-history Cold War setting—with Americans and Soviets fighting on the moon using alien tech—was gloriously bonkers. The controls took some getting used to, but once you got rolling, it was part shooter, part strategy, all awesome. It’s one of those games that makes you wonder why more studios haven’t copied the formula.

“The great mixture of the adrenaline rush of first-person action with the strategy and resource management, never seen before or after, is the main reason why the critics say that BattleZone is still one of the best PC games of all time.” - Activision