Strategy fans had to dig a little on the Wii U. Most of the big war games of that era went to other consoles, so the genre lived on the eShop, where small studios sold castle sieges and robot shootouts as downloads. Nobody bought a Wii U for strategy, and yet the people who looked found some real treats.
The GamePad helped. A second screen in your lap is a natural place for a map or a wall of camera feeds, and a couple of these games were built around that idea. Nintendo even teamed up with PlatinumGames for one of them. Others are ports of games that did well elsewhere, and they play just as well here. Here are the 6 best Wii U strategy games.
6. Swords & Soldiers II (2015)
Swords & Soldiers started out on WiiWare, where it was released in Europe on May 15, 2009. Two Tribes released Swords & Soldiers on the Wii U eShop in 2014, and a sequel, Swords & Soldiers II, was released on the Wii U eShop in May 2015. The idea is simple and very easy to get hooked on. You never steer a single soldier. After being built, units automatically begin marching towards the enemy's base, and you cast spells to either strengthen your own units or directly attack the enemy.
So the whole game is about timing. Players must make strategic decisions on what units to build and when to send them out, and a wave sent too early melts on arrival. The series began as a split-screen multiplayer game featuring only the Aztecs and the Vikings, and the single player mode was added after the developers found their own tutorial fun. In June 2018, Ronimo Games started a Kickstarter for a re-release titled Swords & Soldiers II: Shawarmageddon, so the sequel did not stay on the Wii U forever.
5. Pure Chess (2012)
Pure Chess is a chess video game by British developer VooFoo Studios, and it first came out on PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3. It was the 4th best-selling PS Vita game in June 2012, which says a lot about how much people wanted a good chess board in their bag. Pure Chess was announced for Wii U during an August 2013 Nintendo Direct for the PAL region, and publisher Ripstone later confirmed a Nintendo 3DS version as well. Cross-platform play is supported between the Wii U and 3DS versions, so you can play someone on the other machine.
Critics liked the single-player mode and found the multiplayer disappointing. It is plain chess with nice boards and no gimmicks, and that turned out to be what a lot of owners wanted. Players name it right next to Nintendo's biggest games when they list their Wii U favourites. Chess is the oldest strategy game there is. This is simply a very comfortable place to play it.
4. SteamWorld Heist (2015)
SteamWorld Heist was developed by the Swedish studio Image & Form, and it is the sequel to SteamWorld Dig. You play Captain Piper Faraday, a smuggler and occasional pirate, as she recruits a ragtag team of robots and sets out on a space adventure. The game launched first on Nintendo 3DS on December 10, 2015, and the Wii U port followed in September 2016. It plays like a turn-based tactics game, with one big twist: you aim every shot yourself.
That twist was the whole plan. The developers wanted to solve the frustration of "missing a 99% hit chance" common in the genre, and critics praised the manual aiming system for adding a layer of skill to the turn-based formula. The soundtrack was composed and performed by the real-life steam-punk band Steam Powered Giraffe. Players usually recommend it in the same breath as SteamWorld Dig, and the two make a fine pair of downloads.
3. CastleStorm (2013)
CastleStorm is a side-scrolling physics-based real-time strategy game with tower defense elements developed by Zen Studios. It reached the Wii U on December 26, one month after the first release. There are four separate campaigns, starting with Sir Gareth in Kingdom Quest, and you spend most of them fighting off Vikings. You defend your own castle while you fling things at the other side's walls until something gives.
IGN favorably compared the title to Angry Birds, while also criticizing its overly sensitive controls. Critics praised its physics and its real-time strategy, and they knocked a repetitive storyline. A remastered CastleStorm: Definitive Edition followed in 2014, and CastleStorm 2 arrived on July 31, 2020. On the Wii U, players kept recommending it to new owners who asked which eShop games to buy first.
2. Star Fox Guard (2016)
Star Fox Guard is a tower defense game co-developed by Nintendo and PlatinumGames for the Wii U, and it came out on April 22, 2016. It was bundled as a separate disc for the first print edition of Star Fox Zero, and it was sold as a download on the eShop afterwards. It began life as a tech demo called Project Guard, shown off by series creator Shigeru Miyamoto at E3 2014. Your job is to protect the bases of Grippy, the uncle of Slippy Toad, from waves of attackers.
The television displays footage from all of the security cameras, while the GamePad shows an overhead view of the base. Combat robots must all be defeated to progress, and Chaos robots mess with your cameras to blind you. Critics were mixed on it. Players remember it much more fondly, and they bring it up whenever someone asks which Wii U games never got a second home.
1. Pikmin 3 (2013)
Pikmin 3 is the sequel to the GameCube games Pikmin (2001) and Pikmin 2 (2004), and it was released in Japan on July 13, 2013, and in all other regions the next month. Nintendo first said it would arrive around the same time as the Wii U, but it was delayed until mid-2013. Three Koppaite captains, led by the engineer Alph, land on a planet with an abundance of cultivable food that could save their own. Your Pikmin can be directed to build bridges, destroy barriers, collect spoils and defeat enemies, and the game's ending varies based on the number of fruit you bring back.
It received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise for the gameplay, graphics and level design. One player summed it up as "Super gorgeous and fun, especially if you liked the other two." Players recommend it more than all the other games on this list put together. Pikmin 3 Deluxe came to the Nintendo Switch on October 30, 2020.
Which one to play
There you have it, the whole list of the best Wii U strategy games. It is a short list, and every game on it earns its spot.
If you are not sure where to start, play Pikmin 3. If you like turn-based tactics, SteamWorld Heist is the one for you. For a game that only makes sense with the GamePad in your hands, try Star Fox Guard. If you just want a quiet game of chess, Pure Chess does the job. And for a hidden pick, try Swords & Soldiers II and its marching armies.
