If you’re looking for iconic videogame visuals, it’s hard to top the classic pixel art look! After decades of tech upgrades, the humble pixel is still one of the most popular—and most beautiful—aesthetics instrategy games.
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From the early days of Windows MS-DOS in the 80s and 90s up until the present, pixel art can be found in genres from strategyto JRPGs and beyond.
Unlike other visuals, good pixel art retains its charm year after year. So, let’s celebrate some modern gems and their strategic predecessors for their blend of beauty and gameplay!
10Songs Of Conquest
Gorgeous Modern Masterwork
Songs Of Conquest
For sheer aesthetics alone, I’ve seenfew modern strategy games as beautiful asSongs of Conquest.While this game is a clear love-letter to theenduring classicHeroes Of Might And Magic 3,it’s the best type of homage—one which dares rival its inspiration.
Playing as one of four factions,Songs of Conquestperforms a medley of campaigns, challenge maps, and multiplayer options in its strategic setlist.
Add a native map editor atop that, and you’ve got a winner for both modern audiences and pixel nostalgics (like myself).
9Death Crown
Punish Mortal Arrogance
PC, Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Xbox One
June 17, 2025
SWORD Team
Steam Reviews
Very Positive
Sure, we’re all familiar with the classic look of 8-bit or 16-bit pixel visuals. But how often does a modern game show up usingentirely 1-bit visuals?
Death Crownis an indie RTS that proves that the mighty pixel doesn’t need any fancy-pants multicolor nonsense to still look beautiful. Its animations evoke an 80s line art style while remaining easy to understand while trying todestroy humanity for its arrogance.
Oh, did I fail to mention that you’re playing as Death? The game’s campaign pits you against an upstart humanity whose king seeks immortality, a plot that is well-supported by the stark visuals of the 1bit style.
8Tooth And Tail
Tooth and Tail
Anthropomorphic animals are usually cute and cuddly, like in Brian Jacques’sRedwallbooks or the recentBloomburrowexpansion forMagic: the Gathering.That doesn’t mean there’s nodark side to animal stories!
Tooth and Tailis a fast-paced RTS built around short, action-packed battles. Whether playing through the macabre humor of the story campaigns or battling buddies in multiplayer, it’s a great game for pixel enthusiasts wanting a strategic quick-fix.
Personally, I’m a big fan becauseTooth and Tailis an RTS that supports split-screen multiplayer—a rarity nowadays! Maybe it’s just me, but I’m still fond of gathering in the same room on game nights.
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7Advance Wars
Assemble Your Armies!
Advance Wars: Days of Ruin
When it comes to icons of the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DS eras,Advance Warsjumps into mind due to itsextensive map builder and hotseat multiplayer.
Building upon Japan-exclusive predecessors,Advance Warsis a pixelated turn-based strategy game with a simple objective: conquer the opponent’s HQ!
Of course, no strategy game is ever THAT straightforward.Advance Warsis an excellent tactical game due to the variety of units available, resulting in engaging rock-paper-scissors fights between diverse land, air, and sea units. However, only the game’sweakestunits—infantry—can capture an enemy building!
While there wasa modern remake of the first twoAdvance Warsgames in 2023,alas, they’ve opted for more modern 3D-based visuals.
The pixel-based nostalgia may be gone in the Nintendo Switch edition, but the plot and strategic puzzles ofAdvance Warscontinue to hold up.
6Dungeon Of The ENDLESS
Tower Defense Dungeoneering
Dungeon of the Endless
InDungeon of the ENDLESSyou’re launched off into deep space on a prison colony ship, only for the vessel’s catastrophic crash to bury you at the bottom of a labyrinthine dungeon.
Despite the spacefaring beginning, this strategic roguelike is as dungeon-centric as anything in the fantasy genre.
Beautiful pixel graphics, however, aren’t the only reason to delve into this dungeon.Dungeon of the Endlessputs a unique twist on the roguelike dungeon-crawl byfocusing on tower defense gameplay to expand your territory and defend your spaceship’s generator.
This tactical twist helpsDungeon of the ENDLESSstand out from the crowd of indie roguelikes and earns it a spot on our list.
5Tactics Ogre
Tactical Titan
Tactics Ogre: Reborn
A monolith of tactical gameplay, the legacy of 1995’sTactics Ogregoes more than pixel-deep. This game’s isometric mapadded a new strategic dimension—quite literally, introducing height to grid-based battles.
Combine that with a time-sensitive world map and an engaging, branching story, andTactics Ogretruly stands out as a strategic success.
Perhaps better-known than the original, however, areTactics Ogre’sspiritual successors in theFinal Fantasy Tacticsseries. Developed by many of the same designers—and using the same iconic isometric perspective—these games' success with an international audience demonstrates whyTactics Ogreisone of the best grid-based JRPGs to date.
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4Into The Breach
Pixelated Pacific Rim
Into the Breach
Ever want to enter the Drift anddefend humanity against those alienkaijuinPacific Rim?Kit out your mechs and headInto the Breachin this splendid mech-based strategy game.
Tidily presented in pixelated “game boards,“Into the Breachfeatures deceptively simple battles with engaging mech design and strategic complexity lurking beneath.
Honestly, my favorite aspect might be simply that you’re disincentivized to blow up civilian buildings! After all, they’re the ones you’re trying to protect. I always felt a bit bad when some poor guy’s car gets tossed at a supervillain, or a building gets dropped on Godzilla.
Into the Breachgives a nod to the mech genre’s “bottom line” in a way that also makes the gameplay more challenging and satisfying.
3Age Of Wonders
Well-Aged Strategies
Age of Wonders
Age of Wondersis a strategic gem from the sunset of the 90s which, alone, providesplentiful evidence of how well good pixel art endures.
The game’s maps and characters remain attractive today, with colorful and well-characterized portraits to boot.
Yet you can’t get this high on the list on visuals alone, andAge of Wondersalso endures due to the depth of its gameplay. Both the overworld and direct battles are turn-based on a hex grid, and require a variety of air, sea, and subterranean units to navigate them successfully.
Further, RPG elements allow for deep customization of an army’s heroes to explore a variety of skill and spell combinations.
With a whopping 12 factions and options to recruit units from other factions, the game’s variety will keep aspiring masterminds scheming and scheming.
2Fire Emblem
The Blazing Survivor
Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade
For me, the instant you say “pixel art strategy games,” I think ofFire Emblem. In a list characterized by indie icons and old legends, theFire Emblem franchisesticks out asthe series that never died(even if, alas, it has abandoned the pixel designs of yesteryear).
TheFire Emblemgames may not have the beauty ofAge of Wondersor the RPG customization ofTactics Ogre.Where they stand out—especially the “classic” titles—is in their compelling plots and tactical complexity.
Few strategy games have the challenge of old-schoolFire Emblembecause no single solution solves every scenario. Balancing your army’s strengths and weaknesses from the early levels is often necessary to avoid eventuallylosing units to permadeath.
What always drew my love, though, wasFire Emblem’smelodramatic stories of loyalty and betrayal. With the games' often-grueling difficulty, the narrative really felt like you’d just gone through a battle, too.
1Heroes Of Might And Magic
Icon Of Fantasy Strategy
Heroes of Might and Magic 3
There was no way the legendaryHeroes of Might and Magicwasn’t going to make it onto this list—and indeed, it deserves its place at number one! Few strategy games are so beloved or beautiful—inanyart style—as the best this series has to offer.
TheHeroesseries blends elements of strategy, RPG, and exploration together into an iconic gaming experience. Further, it’s the first game to combine themes in this way, creating a formula which has echoed ever since throughout the genre.
Despite beginning as a strategy spin-off of theMight and Magicfranchise, theHeroesseries fully stands out by its own merits.
Arguably, it’s survived the test of time evenmoresuccessfully than its progenitor! With severalHeroesgames continuing to maintain fan engagement decades after release, this series has definitively earned its place at the top of our list.
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