Legendary composer Frank Klepacki says the RTS genre isn't dead, but he would like to see devs get a little more creative with it

Frank Klepacki has composed a lot of great game music over the years—in fact, he's responsible for the soundtrack in Eye of the Beholder 2, one of the best dungeon crawlers of all time. At heart, though, Klepacki is a real-time strategy guy—and he takes real issue with claims that the genre is dead.

There's no question that RTS is diminished, at least compared to its glory days. Back in the 1990s, games like Command & Conquer, Warcraft, and Dune 2 (especially Dune 2, I'd say) dominated the scene. But all that remains of any of them these days is the seemingly unkillable World of Warcraft—and how many players even know that Blizzard's one true behemoth is an RTS spinoff?

Speaking in the latest issue of Edge, however, Klepacki said he thinks the genre still has lots of life in it. …