Dune is an iconic franchise when it comes to the RTS genre. Can this new interpretation deliver?

Dune and the Real-time Strategy (RTS) genre of videogames are almost synonymous, at least as far as its conception is concerned. Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty, released in the ye old year of 1992 for MS-DOS and 1993 for Sega Genesis/Mega Drive, is considered by many to be the foundational game in the RTS genre. Despite not being the first RTS game, it defined most of the archetypal concepts we have come to associate with the genre today, as well as undeniably tying the Sci-fi and Space Opera genres with this videogame genre (we need but look at the other classic RTS games that followed, such as StarCraft, Supreme Commander and Homeworld for some examples).

Dune II was also inserted into the continuity of David Lynch’s… quaint 1984 adaptation of the first book in the series. The influence is mostly aesthetic, as the game’s underlying narrative, if we can call it that, is presumably a prequel, or alternative story. In the game’s narrative, the then current Padishah Emperor, Frederick IV, sets three rival houses to compete on Arrakis in order to see which of them can harvest more spice for him to pay his debts. These houses, of course, are Houses Atreides and Harkonnen, with a new House, named Ordos, being introduced. The player controls one of these houses while the enemy AI controls the others, and eventually, once they all settle in Arrakis, they all come to heads with each other until only one emerges as the victor.

This basic story and setup were retold in 1998’s Dune 2000, which is, by all intents and purposes, a remake of Dune II. It was succeeded by a sequel, Emperor: Battle for Dune, in 2001. In this game, Padishah Frederick IV is murdered, and the three houses are, once again, set to butt heads with each other in Arrakis - except that, this time, it’s under the machinations of the Spacing Guild, the Tleilaxu and the Ixians. These three games form, then, their own little narrative, and may be seen as a loose prequel to Lynch’s movie.

This tradition of tying games into the continuity of Dune adaptations isn’t unique to Lynch’s movie, though. Frank Herbert’s Dune, a PlayStation 2 game exclusive to Europe, is set in the continuity of the SyFy minisseries adaptation of Dune. More specifically, it covers the years-long time gap that Paul spends with the Fremen. It is, however, not an RTS, but rather a third-person action game. It is a mostly forgotten title, in part due to its limited availability, and in part because it was not very good to begin with. Still, it’s a surprisingly cheap title in the European second hand videogame market, and this humble writer heartily recommends you to grab a copy if you are into Dune memorabillia - but do it now, rather than later.

But alas, we are in 2022, and a new Dune adaptation is out. Dennis Villeneuve’s Dune came out late last year, and despite it being only the first part of what will hopefully be a trilogy that covers Dune and Dune Messiah, it already left a very strong impression. This visually stunning, sonorous and invigorated interpretation of Frank Herbert’s classic is a very strong adaptation, both in terms of being faithful to the events and the themes in the book, and also in establishing its own distinct visual style. And, as is tradition by now, a new videogame comes to accompany it: Dune: Spice Wars, an RTS inspired by Villeneuve’s adaptation. Developed by Shiro Games and publised by Funcom, it came out in early access in late April 2022. By the time of this review, I have finished five playthroughs of the game (testing out every faction and every victory condition), and will provide my early impressions based on that. This is not a review, as that will follow only when the game releases in its full form, some months (or years…) down the line. It is also focused more on how it integrates Dune’s lore and worldbuilding into a videogame, so do not expect this to get very technical. I myself am fairly terrible at RTS games, and there are some great breakdowns out there that focus on things like game balance and strategies. But this is not that.

Dune: Spice Wars, much like Dune II, takes a mostly aesthetic inspiration from Villeneuve’s Dune - as the game’s logo readily suggests - although it goes a tad deeper in some aspects. This time, there are four factions vying for control of Arrakis’s spice trade: House Atreides and Harkonnen are back, and Duke Leto Atreides and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen bear a striking resemblance to their movie counterparts, played by Oscar Isaac and Stellan Skarsgård. The game, however, is heavily stylized, with an art style that in no small part resembles the one found in Civilization VI (a 4X strategy game that is a close parallel to Spice Wars in many regards, and certainly a major influence). The third faction, the Fremen, are led by Liet Kynes. As in the movie, Kynes is now female, and her model also resembles her movie actress, Sharon Duncan-Brewster. The fourth faction, the Smugglers, are led by Esmer Tuek, a book character that has not yet made an appearance in Villeneuve’s continuity (though I would hazard there is a likely chance he’ll appear in the second movie). The game follows the same exact mold as Dune II, with the four factions fighting over territory in Arrakis and trying to achieve victory through different means of surpremacy: producing spice, playing the right hands in the Landsraad political circus, investing in espionage missions with the ultimate end of murdering your rivals, and engaging in calculated armed conflicts are all tools in your path towards being granted full dominion over Arrakis. There is, however, no underlying narrative of any sort.

In terms of gameplay, it is interesting to note how things change for each faction, depending on their “relevance” in the Landsraad and their rapport with the deserts of Arrakis. House Atreides are very easy going when it comes to dominating the Landsraad, as well as holding villages. However, they are too honorable to pillage enemy cities, which the other factions can do. The Harkonnens are fairly similar to the Atreides when it comes to the ways they operate, although what they lack in democracy they compensate with sheer military power. They can also oppress towns in order for them to be more efficient. The Fremen have a much reduced influence in the Landsraad, but they are still allowed to vote (Kynes is, after all, a Judge of the Change closely tied to the Landsraad). The Fremen also ride sandworms in order to fast travel between locations, as opposed to the air transports used by other factions. It is a great way to incorporate this ancient Fremen practise into a gameplay feature, as riding a worm is much more efficient than establishing airfields in each town you want to travel to. Finally, the Smugglers cannot vote on the Landsraad, as they are not exactly a legitimate faction, but they can influence, through bribery, the resolutions that the other factions will have to vote for or against.

Full control over Arrakis can, then, come in three possible ways. The most obvious one is done by eliminating every other faction, which can be done by either destroying their home base, or by assassinating their leader through espionage. Home bases can be either cities or Sietches, depending on the factions: the cities of Arrakeen and Carthag are Atreides’s and Harkonnen’s home bases, respectively, while the Fremen and Smugglers find their home in Sietches Tabr and Tuek, respectively. The second way to obtain surpremacy over Arrakis is by being granted the Charter by the Landsraad. This requires players to have a high Landsraad standing, as well as to hold a fairly high number of villages. Finally, there is a victory through Hegemony, which is how every game will inevitably end if none of the other conditions are met. Hegemony is always being produced, and it is a more or less vague definition of your might - you can increase your Hegemony production by building more buildings, researching more things, annexing more villages, and so on.

Other non-playable factions also exist. Throughout the map there are Sietches, at first hidden from sight, but revealed in due time as you interact - usually in the battlefield - with skirmishers from said Sietches. The inclusion of these Sietches is a bit odd, as both the Fremen and the Smugglers use Sietches themselves as their home bases. It seems a bit dissonant to have the Fremen be a major faction, while also having rogue factions attacking everything and everyone out of their hidden holes in the ground. This is slightly offset by giving the Fremen improved relations with these Sietches. Aggressive Sietches can be stopped by trading them water in exchange for other resources, which will slowly turn them into your allies.

But most of these factions are in Arrakis for one reason, and one reason alone: harvesting that good old spice melange. Spice is produced by first identifying a spice field, building a refinery in the closest town, and sending in the harvester to gather the spice. The sandworms, though, will eventually come, and your harvesters need to be recalled until the worm is gone. This can be done automatically, as you can set your harvesters to always be recalled whenever a worm is nearby. However, this is not very efficient, as harvesters always harvest spice up until the very last minute. You can do this in the game, but it requires you to manually recall them just before the worm arrives… and watch your harvester be lost to a worm if you recall it too late. It is an interesting tradeoff, and one you will have to manage. The game allows you to pause the time, but this kind of micromanagement can be both boring and laborious, and the extra spice you get by recalling the harvester at the very last minute may not be worth the hassle.

Monitoring your harvesters, though, is not the only dilemma related to spice production. As you produce spice, you keep it stored in your reserves, and every 25 days you need to pay a certain amount as tribute to the Padishah Emperor. Of course, you can find yourself producing much more spice than the amount required for the Emperor… which means you can sell it to CHOAM instead. This is another interesting debate, as the conversion rate between spice and Solaris, the Imperium’s currency, is always changing, and you may want to wait until the right time to do so (or maybe speed that up by convincing the Landsraad into providing better exchange rates!). On the other hand, the amount of spice required for each tribute is always increasing, and you may want to stockpile some extra just to make sure you meet the deadline. You may also lose harvesters to the worms if you are not careful, and you may also lose the provinces where you gather the spice to an enemy faction, which further complicates things. Spice is, as it should be, the most important resource in the game.

But Arrakis is unforgiving, and no amount of spice can provide you with the water you need to survive that harsh environment. In order to hold sway over the land, and bring more and more villages under your control, you need to have decent water production capabilites. You can generally make it through by simply building wind farms on most villages, but this is not as efficient as seeping the precious water that exists under Arrakis’s northern Polar Sink…

…which brings us to the final lore aspect I would like to tackle in this article: the geography. The game uses, understandably, randomly generated maps, but not without paying tribute to the original geography of the books. In the books, most of the action is set in Arrakis’s only inhabitable area: the north pole, and its surrounding mountains and deserts (the south pole is also inhabited by smugglers, although on a much smaller scale). The game map is very much organized in the same way, and the game map is always circular in shape, as it represents Arrakis’s northern pole. It is also surrounded by the massive planet-wide desert of Arrakis, as well as its relentless coriolis storms. At the center of each map is the northern Polar Sink, but many other recognizable landmarks can also be found scattered around: Observatory Mountain, Mount Idaho, the Cielago depression, the False Walls, the Red Chasm, Bight of the Cliff, the Imperial Basin… chances are, if you can find it on the map of Arrakis provided in the book, there will be a region in your game map that will bear that name, and behave accordingly. Some of these iconic regions even give you production bonuses!

To conclude, I am very happy with how Dune: Spice Wars uses Dune’s lore and worldbuilding to create an engaging, tight and accessible game. In fact, the game may seem too simplistic at first, but its true beauty and complexity starts to unfold as you put in more and more hours. For an Early Access title, it already feels quite complete feature-wise, and I absolutely recommend getting it for the current price. As of the writing of this article, in late May 2022, the developers have published a roadmap for the game: they say that their top priority is implementing multiplayer, which to be frank is something I don’t particularly care about, but then they say that they also want to add another faction. Now, that is interesting. Who could it be? Here’s hoping we see a return of House Ordos, to come full circle with the original Dune games. But sadly the spice does not flow here, and I lack the prescience to know what will come out of that.

What we know for sure, though, is that there is a bright future for Dune out there. With Villeneuve’s sequel greenlit, and with a new Dune survival game being worked on right now, we will certainly be talking about Frank Herbert’s universe for many a time to come.

15th June update: it has been confirmed that House Corrino is the new faction coming to the game.