Matrix Games has nothing to do with the more popular Matrix film franchise. Instead, the company can be considered a niche-publisher in computer games. Matrix Games is a game publisher that concentrates on strategy and wargaming titles, though you might occasionally find an odd game that doesn’t fit this categorisation. Their most popular settings is World War 2, but you’ll find plenty of titles for other eras too, certainly more than through any other publisher.
The majority of these games are aimed towards grognards, strategy gamers and wargamers. Though none of these games can be considered AAA-titles, it would be wrong to categorise them all as indie-games too. Most of the games are the products of industry veterans who have worked with their favourite topics for decades. Small teams or individuals as opposed to fully funded big-time gaming studios. As of late, there have been some improvements in aiming the games at the general public too.
Today Matrix Games is part of the Slitherine Group. The list of published games includes hundreds of titles.
The Short History of Matrix Games Company
Matrix Games was founded in 1999 in the USA. The company set out to create an online platform for smaller studios that concentrated on historical wargaming and strategy games. The road there wasn’t especially rocky, as such a platform didn’t really exist at this point. Though the company seems to have produced a few games of their own (Steel Panther: World at War is a famous example), they mostly worked with established producers or industry legends to give them a viable platform through which to reach their audience. This they have done successfully.
In 2010 Matrix Games joined hands with Slitherine Group, becoming the publishing arm for all historical games, wargames and strategy games for both companies. Matrix Games has also been busy signing up contracts with the military, delivering games that are used to train actual staff.
Along the years the company has signed up more publishers, delivers tons of games, improved their website, come up with new ways to deliver their games (you can get most games via Steam or GoG these days), and in general taken control of the wargaming industry in many ways. At the same time, the company has established offices in the UK, France, Spain and other locations in addition to the USA. Steady development has kept the company number one in its field, and a favourite for people who love the games they come up with.
Games Published by Matrix Games
The company has published such a list of games that you best head for their website to take the total count. We have listed here some of our favourites that you might want to take a further look at:
- Armored Brigade
- Fantasy General 2
- Field of Glory: Empires
- Order of Battle
- Panzer Corps 2
- Sengoku Jidai
- Shadow Empire
- Strategic Command series
- The Operational Art of War IV
- Warplan
- War in the East
It is worth noting that not all games are easy to play. Whilst some of them will remind you of board games, and in others you might finish your turn in a minute or two, in few it will take hours and hours to just get started in. When choosing a game it’s good to read up on the complexity first. More information is available via our reviews, from forums, blog posts and many other sources. One downside of these games is that they tend to be a bit pricey, though usually easily worth that money. Luckily, most older titles can be found during sale with considerable discounts.
