The strategy game Dune: Spice Wars announced as part of the Game Awards will initially be released in a significantly slimmed down form – which is also due to the early access model. Many features and content will follow over time.
After the successful cinema hit “Dune” last year, the long-standing franchise is also celebrating its comeback in the video game sector. The Northgard makers announced Dune: Spice Wars in December, a new strategy game that is scheduled to launch in 2022. However, it will then only be an early access start and a lot of content will only follow gradually.
Developer Shiro Games has now published new official FAQs and addresses various questions about the title. Dune: Spice Wars will therefore take up the gameplay from real-time strategy games about base building and unit management, but also combine it with broader and more extensive 4X strategy games.
There is currently no price for the finished game, but the path via Early Access was confirmed again. This early game version will initially only have the two playable factions, Atreides and Harkonnen, and will also integrate two additional factions at launch. A fifth faction will be released with more at a later date.
The Early Access variant will initially focus entirely on the gameplay. The game is played in Early Access on randomly generated maps, where you spin intrigues, manage politics, build armies and fight for control of Arrakis. However, there will be no multiplayer or a campaign for the time being.
“We’re definitely going to be doing multiplayer as well,” the developers say, but that mode won’t come until later in Early Access as part of a major update. The single-player campaign will also only be released via an update in the early access phase, although it is not known how long it will last. It may take some time before all planned content for the full version is actually available.