HomeFeaturesDune: Spice Wars
Dune: Spice Wars gets back to basics with its compelling mix of 4X ambition and real-time strategyShiro Games didn’t even have to use the special voice, either…
Shiro Games didn’t even have to use the special voice, either…
In a hands-off presentation, developers Shiro Games showed us how the (sadly Chalamet-less) Atreides family will be going about their fight to control Arrakis' most coveted substance - the all-important spice melange - although players will also be able to choose from the shady Harkonnen clan at launch, plus two more unannounced factions that will be revealed in the coming weeks. There’s a lot to take in, but if you’ve been waiting for a Dune game to succeed the 1992 RTS epic that was Dune II: Battle For Arrakis, well, you better pull your head out of the sand and strap on your hydro-cycling stillsuit. The battle for this year’sbest strategy gameis about to getspicy.
Dune: Spice Wars - First Gameplay TrailerWatch on YouTube
Dune: Spice Wars - First Gameplay Trailer
“Dune: Spice Wars definitely is a 4X game,” Shiro Games' head of marketing and publishing Adrien Briatta told us. “It has a slow rhythm, a tile system, a lot of resources, but it remains an RTS at heart - and this aspect is especially important during combat.”
The rest of your resources and political currency can be found in the top nav bar. As “the most important resource”, your Spice level is nice and large in the UI, and next to it you’ll find a slider you can set to either sell it to the Choam for cash (or solari, in the game’s parlance), or stockpile it for future use. The latter is “super important,” says Briatta, as each month you’ll have to pay the dreaded spice tax to your imperial overlords. This tax will vary as time progresses, and if you find yourself unable to pay then your Landsraad Standing will fall accordingly, making you an easier target for political attacks, which Briatta says “can be as destructive as military ones”.
The fabled North Bowl will be an important capture point for expanding your empire.
In an ornithopter, it’s only a very short jaunt to the North Bowl, but getting your units there and defending it will be another matter entirely. There are sections of Arrakis known as ‘deep desert’, you see, and units will pretty much die instantly if they try to cross it on foot - something Briatta ominously refers to as “the desert price”. Units have to dig into their supplies whenever you go outside your territory, you see, and once supplies are depleted, they’ll start losing health. Due to the exceptionally high winds in deep desert territories, this process happens even faster, and we all watched in horror as lead game designer Franck Delfortrie sent a group of troopers in to demonstrate. “Deep deserts can be considered as seas in other 4X games,” Briatta explains, and you’ll need better technology to cross them.
To aid transportation (and develop your empire more generally), you’ll need to continuously work away at Spice Wars' tech tree. It’s roughly split into four main categories: expansion, military, economics and statecraft, which covers all things politic and subterfuge. In our presentation, selecting ‘Survival Training’ in the Military section unlocked a new heavy weapons unit for the Atreides family, but each faction will have their own unique squads to play with. Each unit also comes with their own special passive abilities as well, which Briatta says have been designed to complement one another in battle. To demonstrate this he explained how the Atreides rangers can deal splash damage from afar, while the Atreides troopers can get stronger when they lose health - which they will inevitably do when in range of their rangers' attacks. It’s a slightly risky strategy, I’ll admit, but I’ll be intrigued to see how other units play off each other in the final version.
Some of the military units you’ll be fighting with from House Harkonnen.
It’s not just the North Bowl you’ll need to defend, either. Arrakeen and your other conquered settlements will also need protection as you explore and conquer more of the map. As the capital city, Arrakeen’s self defence systems should be able to see off potshots from small groups of desert raiders, but mobilising your troops to defend villages and refineries will require a lot more unit micro-management. There’s also your main enemy faction to worry about as well. In my presentation, it was the Harkonnens sitting on the other side of the Spice Wars table, although the brief nature of this particular demo meant we never got to see whether they’ll be able to wreak equally cinematic destruction as their filmic counterparts.
That said, even if you have the best army on Arrakis, you’ll still need to play politics with the Landsraad Council to keep everyone on side. This is all done through a panel on the right-hand side of the screen, although Briatta said its UI is still being worked on and may change when it hits early access. Still, from what I saw, it all looked reasonably manageable. The most important stat to keep on top of is your Landsraad Standing, which is determined based on your relationship with other factions and whether you’ve been paying that aforementioned spice tax. However, you can also use subterfuge to affect it as well, which in turn will affect how much impact you have when trying to pass resolutions.
Diplomacy is key to staying on side with other factions. Trading will help you sign treaties with them - although you can also eventually assassinate other faction leaders to win the game.
Whichever way you decide to go about it, though, this early access build of Dune: Spice Wars looks like it will have plenty of plates to keep spinning, and I, for one, am excited to dig into it all myself. Based on what I’ve seen, it looks like Shiro Games have done a fine job of translating Dune’s big epic power plays into a real-time 4X strategy game, and most importantly, it doesn’t look overly intimidating for first-time players to the genre, either. There’s a lot to take in, for sure, but as someone who’s always been a bit frightened of tackling some of the all-time 4X greats, Dune: Spice Wars definitely looks more my kind of speed - and a 3-5 hour game length isn’t half bad either. There’s still no word on exactly when Spice Wars will be heading to early access onSteamjust yet, but we’ll keep you posted as soon as we hear more.
