Real-time strategy games tend to be more or less the same in terms of design: for the most part, players collect resources, construct buildings, build armies and conquer enemies. It works, but there isn't a lot variety within the genre, especially nowadays when every other RTS game seems to want to compete with what Microsoft and Ensemble Studios created with Age of Empires II. It won't happen, because Microsoft games was ahead of the curve around the late '90s and early 2000s. Case in point, Impossible Creatures; Microsoft Game Studios' boldest real-time strategy release and a video game in desperate need of a remake.
The 2003 game, developed by Relic Entertainment, possessed all the features gamers have come to expect from an RTS game, but it distinguished itself with one key mechanic -- players were able to completely customize the construct and abilities of their armies by combining two of the core game's 51 available animals (76 with DLC). That's right. Battles were fought with genetically recombined animals produced in-game through creature chambers.
Impossible Creatures is set in the 1930s across a fictional group of islands in the South Pacific known as Isla Variatas. The story centers on Rex Chance, a former war correspondent who travels to the region in search of his long-lost father, Dr. Eric Chanikov, creator of the Sigma Technology. Unfortunately for Chance, all that greets him is an abandoned lab and the hybrid monstrosities that it helped create, controlled by the megalomaniac, Upton Julius. With the help of his father's protege, Dr. Lucy Willing, Chance is able to create an army, and the two battle their way across the archipelago to dismantle Julius' army and end his threat to the world.
Both on paper and in execution, it's impossible to escape the absurdity of the concept. Impossible Creatures didn't try to. It had its emotional moments, but it never took itself more seriously than it needed to. With the help of a soundtrack bursting with jazz and an appropriate collection of animal noises, it allowed itself to be as vibrant, witty and fun as a game with labs in flying trains should be.
Upon release, critics were generally satisfied, though not altogether impressed. The game's premise received more praise than its gameplay, but even then, a common complaint was that the game had not gone far enough, which is exactly why it needs a remake.
Despite the fact that it has been almost two full decades, the real-time strategy genre has seen little in the way of evolution. Graphical quality has improved and there have been some attempts at creating more dynamic experiences, largely by increasing the scope of battles and adding new superficial mechanics, but nothing that offers the same level of customization that Impossible Creatures was able to provide.
Some of the most successful RTS games available are, of course, Microsoft's Age of Empires and those that combine elements from other genres, such as Ubisoft's Anno series and Sega's Total War. In terms of pure real-time strategy, no other games in recent memory have been able to innovate and improve upon the established formula mastered by Microsoft -- the whole reason why Age of Empires II has seen multiple expansions and re-releases.
Some gamers might argue that this is due to the genre's reluctance to venture beyond the realm of realism and history, and that may be true to a point. There a handful of RTS games set in fantasy worlds. 2006's ParaWorld, for example, took players to an alternate dimension where dinosaurs, mammoths and humans lived side-by-side. It should be noted that its failure was due to poor sales, not critical reception. That being said, despite its exotic setting and story, ParaWorld was still essentially a standard RTS at its core with resources, buildings and a fixed -- albeit singularly ferocious -- army.
An Impossible Creatures remake would undoubtedly require some of the features present in newer games, and that very much includes the high level of visual detail that has become standard among more contemporary titles. The core concept could be enhanced by more refined economic micromanagement and unit and building management through adoption of turn-based strategy elements, not necessarily on the same scale as the Anno and Total War games. There are so many possibilities, all of which would need to preserve the concept and customizability that made Impossible Creatures so special.
It would be a breath of fresh air in a genre that some would contest is in dire need of something new. Microsoft is already revisiting the past, in a sense, with the upcoming Age of Empires IV. The game will certainly appeal to those who fell in love with Age of Empires II, but it will do nothing to revitalize the genre the way an Impossible Creatures sequel has the potential to do. It's out of Microsoft's hands now, as the rights fell to THQ Nordic in 2015, around the time the game was made available on Steam. Impossible Creatures was a wild game in more ways than one, and the real-time strategy genre needs to get wild.