Dune: Spice Wars News

We are proud to announce that Dune: Spice Wars has entered into Early Access and is available to buy now on Steam!

After over 2 years of work, Dune: Spice Wars has finally launched into Early Access and we are unbelievably excited to have the opportunity to share our game with you all and work alongside you to develop and improve it over the coming months.


[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]




For the initial stages of the Early Access period we are going to focus on working alongside you all to identify which areas of the game need improvement, expansion or iteration and from this we plan to outline a developmental roadmap that will detail exactly what's is to come and when you can expect it. We'll keep you updated on this front!

While Spice Wars launches with more than enough content to sink hundreds of hours into, we have so much more in the pipeline and we can't wait to share it with you all.





All feedback and bug reports are absolutely invaluable at this time and will be paramount in our efforts to ensure that Dune: Spice Wars not only meets, but exceeds the lofty expectations of the community that has grown around this legendary franchise and will continue to grow alongside our game.

As such, please submit any bug reports to our dedicated bug reporting platform HERE

And provide your feedback either on the Steam Forums or via our Discord which can be found HERE.





https://store.steampowered.com/app/1605220/Dune_Spice_Wars/

Hey Everyone!

With release just around the corner, we're back with a second FAQ to address some more of the most popular questions we've been receiving over the last few months (and obviously since our first FAQ which can be found HERE), including the pricing of Spice Wars, system requirements, future content plans and more...

[h3]How much will it cost?[/h3]
The initial price for the game will be $/€29.99. This price could change during Early Access as we add more features to the game, but we will ensure that we inform players well in advance of any impending price changes.

[h3]What are the system requirements for Dune: Spice Wars?[/h3]

The system requirements are as follows:



[h3]When does the game release on Steam? What hour can we expect?[/h3]

The game will be released in Early Access on April 26. It’s a bit early to give a specific hour right now, but it should be late afternoon in Europe / morning in America. We’ll share more concrete details on this closer to release.

[h3]How big will the download be?[/h3]
The game client should be around 3GB at release.

[h3]Can we preload the game on Steam?[/h3]
There are no plans for a pre-load option at this time but with the download size being on the smaller side, a pre-load shouldn’t be necessary.

[h3]Is the game based on the movie, or the books?[/h3]

The game is primarily an adaptation of the books, but many other Dune sources have influenced us in our design, including the boardgames, comics, card games, and the Denis Villeneuve movie. Every stone added to the edifice helps make it grander, even if the books obviously remain the seminal work.

[h3]How many new factions can we expect during Early Access? Do you expect to add more factions to the game beyond the one already planned?[/h3]
At least one additional faction is planned during Early Access and yes! Priorities for Early Access will change depending on the feedback we receive from the community (from experience, multiplayer will probably be high on the list). That said, we have ideas for many different factions, with even more asymmetrical gameplay.

[h3]What made you choose the 4 release factions (Atreides, Harkonnen, Fremen, Smugglers) as your base factions?[/h3]

The Atreides and Harkonnen are a staple of the universe that pretty much had to be there. For the other two (Smugglers and Fremen) we wanted something that would feel different both in terms of theme and gameplay. The Fremen are a significant force that is very present and potent in the books, and that has been almost ignored in previous video games. We felt their time to shine was overdue. As for the Smugglers, they are also an important part of Arrakis and provide a good way to explore the universe from a different angle and again, provide unique ways to play the game.


[h3]When will multiplayer be available in Spice Wars?[/h3]
We expect it to be early during the Early Access, but this will depend on the feedback we get from the community. We will have fine tuning to do as well as new features to add and we’ll prioritise all this shortly after the EA release.

[h3]Will there be a competitive multiplayer feature? [/h3]

That will be for the community to decide ;-)

[h3]Can we use a gamepad or is it keyboard and mouse only?[/h3]
Keyboard & mouse only for now. A 4X game has a lot of moving parts and interactions and gamepad support would require a completely different UI to feel good.

[h3]Will the game have a tutorial?[/h3]
The game has a tutorial that helps players directly as they play the game. We believe it is better to have an integrated experience than a standalone tutorial, if the game permits it. We feel Dune: Spice Wars is accessible enough that an integrated tutorial will work and be a better experience.

[h3]If you are making a campaign, will it follow the story of the books or be an original story?[/h3]

We’re not there yet, and we don’t know what form it would take, but a narrative campaign would probably have a different story so that there’s something new to discover for all players.

[h3]Will the game be accessible on GeForce Now?[/h3]
We are actually working to have the game compatible with GeForce Now as we speak! We hope to have this finalised by the time of the Early Access launch, but if not, very shortly after.

[h3]Will the game be available on Mobile?[/h3]
While we believe Dune: Spice Wars is an accessible 4X game, it is still very deep and requires many interfaces and a lot of information that would be very challenging to fit on a mobile screen, so for now at least, there are no plans to bring the game to mobile.

[h3]How about console?[/h3]
Right now, we’re 100% focusing on making the best game possible for PC. But we are more than open to looking into the possibility further down the line, so never say never!.

[h3]How many units are available for each house/faction?[/h3]
5 or 6 depending on the faction, each with its unique stats and abilities. Dune: Spice Wars is a 4X game and warfare is only one (important) part of the game. With economy, spying and politics to manage we didn’t want to overwhelm players with 10+ different units like you would find in a regular RTS that does only war. That being said, we do have a few ideas for more, and we’re excited to get player feedback on that topic.

[h3]Why did you change the gender of Liet Kynes?[/h3]

We feel the gender repartition in an otherwise very modern book is an artefact of when it was written. Liet is one of the most modern characters in the books (with messages about the preciousness of resources, building a sustainable planet with local communities...) and modernising the messenger only makes the message more powerful.
Obviously, we love the book and the characterisation of Liet therein, but we also enjoyed the portrayal within the recent movie and how it reimagined the character, and this was something we thought could be an interesting approach to take in Spice Wars.

[h3]There are some deviations from the books in the game, such as the use of Kulon Caravans and shields, can you explain these design decisions?[/h3]

Dune: Spice Wars is an adaptation. Everything is inspired by the books, most things are the same or very close, and some get changed because of gameplay or art direction constraints.
The shields/laser interaction is a good example of something that was not that relevant at a planetary scale, and quite hard to manage when there are many units on a battlefield so we went for a more high level perspective of shielded units having higher armor. The Kulon Caravans were also invented to bring more variety both visually and from a gameplay standpoint, while still being credible within the universe.

[h3]Do you have plans for any cosmetic options (changing the house colours, skins, etc…)?[/h3]
Not for now, but we’re looking into building a House creation system later on. It is a lot more tricky than it sounds because we have high definition Leaders who would require customization options as well, but we’ll try to make it happen during the Early Access.


[h3]On average, how long will one game last? Does it depend on the faction you have chosen? [/h3]
Depending on your strategy and the chosen difficulty, a game generally lasts from 2 to 3 hours. That being said we’re pretty sure players will find ways to be significantly faster than that, especially once multiplayer is available.

Thank you to everyone who has been following the development of the game and reading our articles over the last few months, if you have anything else you'd like addressed or clarified, feel free to leave your questions in the comments and we'll try to answer as many as possible!

See you all on the 26th ;)

- Shiro Games

Spielt als eine von mehreren Fraktionen, darunter Haus Atreides, Haus Harkonnen und die einheimischen Fremen, und kämpft um die Macht über Dune und sein Spice.

» Komplette News auf pressakey.com lesen» Dune: Spice Wars auf pressakey.com

[Quote] With the April 26th release of Dune: Spice Wars approaching rapidly, we sat down with our lead artist Jeremy to talk about his work on the game, creating a distinct but recognisable style for the project, his experiences working for the first time on a world renowned IP, how the style of the game evolved over time and more...

Check out the full interview below!

[h3]What was the first official art that you worked on for the project?[/h3]

The very first piece of art we made for the project was a large scale view of Arrakis along with a fake ingame mockup in order to set up the mood. It has obviously changed quite a lot since then, but we tried to keep that stylized look throughout the whole Production.



[h3]What were some of your main inspirations when developing the Art Style for Spice Wars?[/h3]

Our first idea was to make something that didn't look like any of the previous Dune games but one that maintained Shiro Games' touch and to make things more stylized than the usual 4X games. We also decided to add a hint of "Art-Deco" feel to the overall designs, mostly for the User Interface but also slightly incorporated on the characters and props, that way it would make our game stand out a bit more in terms of Art Direction (because that's not something you see everywhere)

[h3]Did you take any inspiration from the older movies or games?[/h3]

We tried to keep some distance from the previous Dune material out there because we really wanted to have our own take on it and express our own style. Plus, obviously having the opportunity to work within this world on Herbert's legacy is a once in a lifetime chance to express ourselves and make our own mark within this universe as a video game developer.



[h3]Was there ever a point where the game or characters looked distinctly different from their final design?[/h3]

Well the game most definitely changed a lot since the early stages of development due to our iteration process and all the trial and error we had to go through in order to find something that actually looks like what we had in mind when we started.

Oddly, the characters didn't change that much during development -apart from some small tweaks here and there- because we knew from the start that we would have a lot of them to make and changing a character too much can have huge implications down the line (in terms of textures, rigging, animation etc..)



[h3]With Dune being such a well known and beloved universe, did you face any challenges in developing a unique style for the game?[/h3]

Actually yes, it was really hard to not take into account all of the incredibly cool stuff that was already out there on the internet, and yet we had to make something unique, different and as great as possible! Another huge part of that challenge was the fact that everyone already has their own vision of what Dune-related things would look like, so the pressure of making something not too crazy and still appealing to the players that fit into this universe was definitely a tough one!



[h3]What other challenges did you face whilst working on the games art?[/h3]

Being consistent on the art direction is really a difficult task and that's the case everytime we start working on a new project because we gather a lot of references at first, then we have to sort everything and make a decision on what we should aim for, but as the development goes, our vision becomes clearer, more precise and some of the early work can become more and more irrelevant over time so we had to be extra careful with that particular aspect of the game. On top of that, we also had to make each faction look unique and this took a little while to achieve.

Another obvious challenge for us was the environment: Arrakis is basically a desert planet and we didn't want the player to spend countless hours looking mostly at sand dunes, so our first goal was to explore different kinds of desert biomes and see how much variety we could bring in order to make the map less boring, less uniform. Added to the fact that the world has to be procedurally generated in order to look different every time, it becomes an even more complex task.
The scale of the world wasn't easy to get right at first, we didn't like the more realistic version of having tiny units and bigger cities & villages, and on the other hand, we didn't want the more cartoony exaggeration of having way bigger units and smaller buildings so we tried to find a middle ground that ended up working for everyone in the team!
Lastly, Dune: Spice Wars is the first game in which we have animated and detailed characters in the front of the screen (the faction leaders), so that required a much larger amount of work than we were used to in order to reach the level of quality we wanted.

[h3]What major differences did you experience between working on an original IP vs working on a well known licence such as Dune?[/h3]

The main difference is obviously that we had to stick to the existing material and that meant cutting a lot of ideas that we had in the first place and be more careful about what we wanted to show and how we would show it.
Working on an original IP means that we can basically make our own decisions every step of the way and that is something we can't have if the project is a licensed one.
That being said, it was really cool to work with these constraints because it made us come out of our comfort zone, for the better!



[h3]Were there any underlying themes or motifs you were hoping to convey with your art?[/h3]

We really wanted to make the game enjoyable for a wide range of players by making it a bit more colourful and vibrant than people would expect from a 4X/RTS game based on Dune. That is something we tried to convey with our previous games as well, and we wanted to keep that kind of appeal.
We think the addition of the "Art-Deco" theme was a great idea in order to bring finer details and subtlety to the overall look of the game, to make it more refined and elegant. It is also our way of saying "the game looks accessible, but there's more to it behind the curtain".
We also tried to put a hint of the "cold-war propaganda poster" feel to some of the illustrations, especially on the political aspects of the game.



[h3]What has been your favourite part of your experience working on the project?[/h3]

Well, the fact that we actually got to work on the "Dune" universe was really exciting and already a huge deal for all of us here!
Having the chance to bring our own ideas and design to such a Sci-Fi masterpiece certainly was the most fun part of this experience, for most of us on the art side at least.

Big Thanks to Jeremy for taking the time to answer our questions today! You can check out his other works over on Artstation - HERE. See you this time next week for our final article before Dune: Spice Wars releases into Early Access on April 26th!