Best Turn-Based Games on Steam
Games where players act in discrete turns with time to plan.
Browse all Turn-Based →
1Slay the Spire - We fused card games and roguelikes together to make the best single player deckbuilder we could. Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and Slay the Spire!
Jan 23, 2019
In this game, you can…
- cut your deck down until you can loop actions forever and take turn after turn without running out.
- stack armor so high you can copy a card and turn that defense into a one-hit kill.
- upgrade a key card at a campfire, via an event, or even mid-fight, and have the new version change how every combat plays out.
- build a deck from scratch, choosing one of three new cards after every fight.
- pick a route each act, weighing shops, campfires, mystery events, and elite fights that can define your whole run.
- find a single relic that permanently changes what strategies are even possible for the rest of the run.
- walk into a question-mark event that can hand you a blessing, a curse, or a new rule you have to build around on the spot.
2Sid Meier's Civilization® V - Create, discover, and download new player-created maps, scenarios, interfaces, and more!
Sep 21, 2010
In this game, you can…
- open your borders to Gandhi, then watch him pillage your land, annex cities, denounce you, and launch nukes anyway.
- send a nuclear fleet across the world, punch through a submarine blockade, fire the warheads, then drop XCOM squads to seize the top superpower's capital before the space race ends.
- absorb a nearby city-state instantly, then trigger a chain-reaction war where your allies help wipe out an empire.
- start in 4000 BC with one settler and build a world empire.
- win wars by pure positioning, using terrain choke points while cities shoot enemies from two tiles away.
- bribe leaders and city-states into alliances until a few denouncements turn into a globe-spanning world war.
- fight late-game resource wars where uranium decides everything, nuclear subs blockade coasts, cruisers break through, and XCOM drops capture capitals.
- race two victories at once, then lose one turn before winning because another nation hits a different win condition first.
- build famous wonders in completely wrong places, like the Great Pyramids in Honolulu or the Great Wall of Portugal.
3Balatro - The poker roguelike. Balatro is a hypnotically satisfying deckbuilder where you play illegal poker hands, discover game-changing jokers, and trigger adrenaline-pumping, outrageous combos.
Feb 20, 2024
In this game, you can…
- reshape your deck until it's 20 Aces or a single suit.
- turn a normal poker hand into an impossible one, like five of a kind.
- stack two effects so one adds a new card every round and the other immediately buffs it, creating a self-feeding deck growth loop.
- make a straight or flush using only four cards.
- reroll the shop until you find the exact upgrade you're missing, burning all your cash to do it.
- start from a basic deck, buy wild upgrades between rounds, and watch one tiny combo turn into billions of points.
- skip early rounds for cash, ride interest, then pivot your whole deck plan and crush a 1M+ blind later.
- keep playing after you "win" in Endless mode, turning runs into a high-score lab for crazier combos.
4Darkest Dungeon® - Darkest Dungeon is a challenging gothic roguelike turn-based RPG about the psychological stresses of adventuring. Recruit, train, and lead a team of flawed heroes against unimaginable horrors, stress, disease, and the ever-encroaching dark. Can you keep your heroes together when all hope is lost?
Jan 19, 2016
In this game, you can…
- watch a hero snap from stress and start refusing orders or even attacking teammates mid-fight.
- deliberately let the torch go out to change how battles work and gamble for better loot before looting a chest.
- come back from a failed mission diseased and traumatized, then send heroes to the tavern, abbey, brothel, or sanitarium to recover.
- bail out of a dungeon run mid-expedition, turning the rest of the crawl into a constant push-or-retreat decision.
- have a random miniboss like the Collector appear out of nowhere and wreck an expedition that was going fine.
- build parties where each character can only use certain moves from certain positions, so rearranging your lineup changes what anyone can do.
- lose heroes permanently, then recruit replacements and keep the campaign going with the town upgrades you managed to bring back.
5Total War: WARHAMMER II - The forces of Lustria await your command. Choose your Legendary Lord, expand your armies, forge alliances in a strategic turn-based campaign, and unleash the might of your monstrous forces in fast-paced real-time battles.
Sep 28, 2017
In this game, you can…
- get ambushed, eat a tactical nuke minutes into the fight, then rebuild your entire battle line mid-chaos and still win.
- lead an army of thousands of rats with poison bombs, lightning cannons, and rapid-fire guns that can erase units fast.
- play on a stitched-together mega-map where every race from both games is in one campaign with wildly different starting situations.
- race other empires to complete world-shaking rituals, then hold off enemy counterattacks long enough to finish yours.
- set up a chokepoint defense where one perfect position and timed spells lets you beat multiple elite armies at once.
- send a single hero into the front line to fight whole groups alone, then swing the battle with healing or devastating magic.
- slam cavalry into a line hard enough to rip it open, then follow up with hydras, dragons, and phoenixes to finish the collapse.
- pull 10,000 gold from a shipwreck, drop it straight into new buildings, then use the upgrade to launch your next conquest.
6OMORI - Explore a strange world full of colorful friends and foes. When the time comes, the path you’ve chosen will determine your fate... and perhaps the fate of others as well.
Dec 25, 2020
In this game, you can…
- swap everyone's mood mid-fight, where happy, angry, and sad counter each other and add extra effects when you get hit.
- trigger special follow-up attacks based on how close your friends are, with different effects depending on the relationship.
- make choices that open different areas, bosses, and endings, turning what looks like a short RPG into a much longer run.
- wake up in an empty white room with only a lightbulb, a laptop, blankets, tissues, and a sketchbook.
- fight bosses that change and escalate as the battle goes on, so the fight itself plays out like a story scene.
- roam a bright hand-drawn dream world, then step back into a quieter real town, with the game using that contrast throughout the story.
- replay for a whole second layer of content, with perfect-run conditions, a boss rush, and a superboss that expects real mastery.
- notice small details early, then come back later and realize they were foreshadowing, with scenes and objects clicking into place hours afterward.
7Persona 4 Golden - A coming of age story that sets the protagonist and his friends on a journey kickstarted by a chain of serial murders.
Jun 13, 2020
In this game, you can…
- step into your TV on a rainy night.
- build friendships — even with a shrine fox — that directly power up your combat fusions.
- fight someone's "other self" so their Persona can awaken and join your team afterward.
- live a full school year where every day is two choices.
- capture Personas, then fuse them into custom builds with the exact skills and resistances you want.
- dive into a foggy TV-world dungeon of random floors, hunt the staircase, and push deeper for treasure and rare fights.
- investigate a string of disappearances by chasing clues across town, watching the Midnight Channel, then entering the next victim's TV world before the deadline hits.
- bounce from goofy school trips and club hangouts to life-or-death boss fights as your classmates become a full detective squad.
8South Park™: The Stick of Truth™ - From the perilous battlefields of the fourth-grade playground, a young hero will rise, destined to be South Park’s savior. From the creators of South Park, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, comes an epic quest to become… cool. Introducing South Park™: The Stick of Truth™.For a thousand years, the battle has been waged.
Mar 3, 2014
In this game, you can…
- summon Jesus from heaven to mow down Nazi zombies with an M16
- shrink down, crawl through Mr. Slave's rectum as a gnome, disable a WMD, dodge bodily fluids, and turn on vibrators to progress
- walk into Canada and suddenly play through an 8-bit RPG-style section
- use fart magic as a combat spell and an overworld tool for puzzles and secrets
- get abducted and probed by aliens, then gain teleporting you can use to explore and bypass fights
- time button presses for perfect hits and blocks instead of just picking an attack and watching
- pick a class like Fighter, Mage, Thief, or Jew, and get a noticeably different playstyle and reactions
- walk through a fully recreated South Park, entering houses, rooms, and closets while characters keep treating you as the silent new kid
9Total War: SHOGUN 2 - Total War: SHOGUN 2 is the perfect mix of real-time and turn-based strategy gaming for newcomers and veterans alike.
Mar 15, 2011
In this game, you can…
- import British marines through a single foreign-trade port, buy an ironclad, and mow down elite samurai with Gatling guns and cannons.
- grow powerful enough that allies and vassals flip on you, then fight off a coordinated dogpile ordered by the Shogun himself.
- recruit a new general from the rank and file when leaderless troops win battles, promoting a regular soldier into command.
- pivot your clan from sword charges to rifles, factories, and a new emperor after getting shredded by modern gun lines.
- bait an army into a trap with one division, encircle it with gun units, wipe it out in volleys, then upgrade to bigger guns when armored samurai appear.
- watch a trained ninja assassination play out as a cutscene gamble that can succeed cleanly or fail in a spectacular botch.
- climb castle walls with any unit, push through multiple inner tiers, and turn a siege into a chaotic all-hands fortress storm.
- fight battles where weather, thunder, petals, and war drums all keep going while armies clash and enemies try to sneak through forests.
10XCOM: Enemy Unknown - The XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Slingshot Pack is Now Available!
Oct 8, 2012
In this game, you can…
- capture aliens alive, interrogate them, autopsy them, and turn their bodies into new weapons and armor.
- infect civilians into zombies that burst into new aliens, spreading the outbreak across the map.
- blow holes through walls and erase enemy cover with rockets and grenades.
- name and customize soldiers, then watch them survive promotions, injuries, and impossible missions for dozens of battles.
- shoot down a UFO, then storm the crash site and clear out whatever survived.
- run a whole war from a base: scan for threats, launch satellites, choose research, and decide which countries get saved.
- deploy late-game soldiers in MEC suits, psionic powers, and flight armor that let them fight like sci-fi monsters.
- juggle multiple high-stakes operations so you can't always rely on one "A team," forcing you to spread veterans across missions.
