Dune: Spice Wars review: a diamond in the rough

Frank Herbert’s Dune holds a particular place within the gaming neighborhood, offering the idea for one of many first true real-time technique titles, Dune 2: The Constructing of a Dynasty. Shiro Video games is treading on hallowed floor with its newest title, Dune: Spice Wars, and the studio appears to realize it. The sport’s latest 1.0 launch nonetheless has some ache factors after a yr in early entry, but it surely’s clear that Spice Wars was developed with a transparent ardour and understanding of the project.

Dune: Spice Wars is a 4X recreation, performed utterly in actual time, set towards the backdrop of Herbert’s novel. Whereas the sport clearly makes use of established 4X titles like Civilization 6 as a framework, massaging that very same method into an RTS flavored with the Dune universe provides Spice Wars an edge.

At launch, Spice Wars options the Atreides, Harkonnen, and Fremen factions, along with Smugglers, Home Corrino, and Home Ecaz. Every faction operates on the identical primary rules however has some distinctive wrinkles that lend them to a selected play type. For instance, whereas Home Atreides can’t pillage settlements, they’ll peacefully annex them, which is costlier however yields long-term bonuses. The Fremen, then again, aren’t topic to the identical penalties for failing to pay the Emperor’s ever-present spice tax.

Picture: Shiro Video games/Funcom

The usual recreation mode, Battle for Arrakis, is supplemented by the protracted two-player Kanly Duel and the extra prolonged Conquest Marketing campaign. The gameplay will likely be acquainted sufficient to seasoned gamers of the 4X style, however a sequence of useful tooltips and tutorials are additionally current to fill you in on the fundamentals.

Every procedurally generated map consists of areas managed by a single settlement (assume city-states from Civ 6). These might be annexed, turning them into extensions of your regime, or pillaged for a fast money infusion. Every settlement additionally has randomly assigned traits which will affect the way you specialize its infrastructure.

Picture: Shiro Video games/Funcom through Polygon

The tough surroundings of Dune performs into your technique, too — items deteriorate when exterior of your territory too lengthy, which has the added impact of curbing rushes as a viable technique. The random look of sandstorms and sandworms may also successfully shut down operations for big areas of the map.

Increasing, conquering, and researching all in actual time might sound overwhelming, however the motion on the map happens at a leisurely tempo, and you’ll pause the motion at any time. Issues can nonetheless get often chaotic, although, normally whenever you’re making an attempt to struggle wars on a number of fronts.

Picture: Shiro Video games/Funcom through Polygon

The minute-to-minute fight in Spice Wars is serviceable however lacks precision. Your ranged items make a nasty behavior of partaking in melee, whereas your melee items will chase the enemy into their very own territory from a defensive place. Past your items’ occasional ineptitude, what’s much more irritating is making an attempt to determine why you’ve misplaced. You’re supplied with stats for your entire items, however these numbers lack transparency and context. Not like with a recreation of Civ, which offers an in depth comparability and breakdown of the maths concerned, I can’t let you know why having a unit with extra armor is sweet, or what impact fireplace price has on the end result of an engagement.

Picture: Shiro Video games/Funcom through Polygon

Whereas the martial fight is a bit forgettable, Shiro Video games has completed an awesome job turning espionage and coverage conferences, the weather that I’d sometimes ignore in a recreation of Civ, into partaking metagames inside themselves. This really makes a recreation of Spice Wars really feel like a struggle of assassins, the place having the proper brokers in place and getting on the proper poll might be the distinction between victory and defeat.

Picture: Shiro Video games/Funcom through Polygon

Aesthetically, Spice Wars seems to be nice, leveraging visible themes impressed by the latest Denis Villeneuve adaptation, and the soundtrack appears like a mashup of the groovy 1984 film soundtrack paired with the suspenseful rock anthems from the unique RTS titles from Westwood Studios. The voice work, sadly, lacks the identical distinction, with the unit acknowledgments, specifically, ranging in high quality from satisfactory to comical.

Picture: Shiro Video games/Funcom

In its present state, Dune: Spice Wars is novel and entertaining, if altogether imperfect. Whereas the core gameplay gained’t shatter anybody’s expectations of the 4X or RTS genres, Spice Wars completely nails the texture and aesthetics of open warfare over the sands of Dune. Like Paul Atreides, this recreation didn’t roll away from bed able to topple an empire, but when Shiro Video games continues to help Spice Wars with the identical degree of dedication we’ve seen all through early entry, it has the potential to attain greatness.

The 1.0 launch of Dune: Spice Wars was launched on Sep. 14 for Home windows PC. The ultimate launch of the sport was reviewed utilizing a pre-release obtain code offered by Funcom. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media might earn commissions for merchandise bought through affiliate hyperlinks. You will discover extra details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.