In the realm of political science fiction stories very few can measure up to the heights of respect and iration attained by Frank Herbert’s Dune series. Yet Dune: Spice Wars, developed by Shiro Games and published by Funcom, finds itself, and despite only entering Early Access at the moment, the title seems like it will be able to deliver on the newfound appreciation for its source material.
One of the game’s greatest early strengths is the way it allows for exploration of a version of the world of Arrakis. Anyone who fell in love with the landscapes from the film will find something to enjoy on the map, especially given the decent amount of variety in terrain contained within it, in spite of the planet being one massive desert. The character portrait designs and voices are all easily recognizable, but unfortunately, the downside to adapting a rigid narrative into a nonlinear game is that the story that made Dune so intriguing is, out of necessity, nowhere to be found. Instead, the stage that is set is one where both House Atreides and House Harkonnen are on Arrakis and vying for control of the lion’s share of the Spice trade at the same time. Alongside them, the native Fremen and the opportunistic Smugglers are attempting to control the same for their own ends. Through a combination of intrigue, cooperation and military might only one of these four will end up succeeding.
While it’s not unheard of for a 4X type game to be done in real time like an RTS, Dune: Spice Wars does manage to still feel fairly unique. While the standard 4X formula is clearly present and ed for, the combat and exploration feel far more like a real-time strategy title, with the only caveat being the ability to pause time at will. This ability to stop the clock allows the game to remain strategic even with the real-time environment and prevent gameplay from being bogged down by players only being able to succeed based on their number of actions per minute. Probably the biggest roadblock to the combat in the game’s current state is the very limited troop choices. There are only a handful per faction, and they are all restricted to infantry with only vaguely different designs based purely upon which weapon they’re holding.
The game’s diplomatic aspects are unfortunately also a little barebones at the moment, as the other factions can only really be traded with, and the most diplomatic thing to be traded are research and trade agreements. On the brighter side of things, however, these minor interactions are not the only way to affect an adversary in Spice Wars. Skullduggery is the name of the game when it comes to competition on Arrakis, and the game allows for the flexing of both covert and overt social pressure.
For those wishing to keep their hands clean, periodically a slate of decrees are given to the factions, and together they vote on which to enact or who gets to benefit (and who gets to suffer) from their effects. A faction can use their accrued Authority to punish their rivals as well as benefit themselves. Intelligence is a catch-all term for the currency used in the opposite type of scheming, and it allows the player to “build” missions, the effects of which can be dropped on unsuspecting interlopers at a moment’s notice. The possible inclusion of a few hiccups when coordinating these operations acts as a way to keep the player on their toes.
the political struggle of holding onto Arrakis would go a long way to making them feel more impactful, even if mechanically their effects stayed the same.
Arrakis is an interesting and complex world of political intrigue on a galactic scale, and to see a game try to bring that daunting setting to life is enough to make it worth checking out. While Dune: Spice Wars might not be a perfect realization of this goal just yet, the developers at Shiro Games have a strong base that, much like the factions of Arrakis themselves, could serve to be the beginning of something much more powerful and influential as its development continues.
Dune: Spice Wars will be released into Early Access on April 26th, 2022 on PC. Screen Rant was provided a digital Steam code for the purposes of this review.
