In praise of strategy games that end

I love strategy games, but the mobile versions often turn into endless timers and daily check-ins. Iron Frontier reminded me how nice it is when a match simply ends within an hour.

A finite game respects your time. You make your decisions, they play out, someone wins, and you can walk away satisfied instead of feeling obligated to log in tomorrow.

Offline is part of this too. When you're playing against bots rather than a server full of strangers, there's no pressure to keep pace with anyone but yourself.

We'll keep favoring strategy games with a clear finish line. Depth doesn't have to mean an infinite grind.