Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak is looking really, really nice. Vehicle lust is alive and well in Deserts of Kharak. The vehicles feel like they behave according to their physics, like conceivable machines rather than abstract polygonal toys. Each buggy’s wheels had independently moving suspension on their wheels, logos were readable, and they adjusted to every change in terrain according to their velocity. When zoomed in, the amount of detail work on the vehicles is hard to ignore. A starry night sky lit up the desert floor in deep blues while the buggies weaved in and out of one another, leaving behind a trail of dust. What was left looked like something out of a movie. But then he transitioned the bird's eye camera from the sky to follow the buggies from behind on the ground. McGuire loaded up a night mission and sent some dune buggies to scout ahead, a menial task in most RTS games. My biggest takeaway from the demo was how gorgeous it all looks. Zoom out far enough and it starts to look like Google Earth. Dunes tower like mountains and canyons split the map into a maze of chokepoints. The environments are massive, and use of the tactical overhead camera from the prior games is absolutely necessary. Kharak appears to keep that sensibility intact though. It was oppressive and difficult-especially because units carried over between missions. Zooming out on space battles drove home how small and insignificant your meager fleet actually was. Space as a backdrop made the journey feel impossible, desperate. At first, I was a bit worried that pulling Homeworld down to terra firma would drain the game of its somber identity. Each mission offers up some kind of variety, whether defending a mobile story character as they investigate a familiar shipwreck or navigating a dangerous sandstorm while enemies attack your flank with reckless abandon. Smaller units with varying rock-paper-scissors specialties act as offense, defense, scouts, and so on. A grounded ‘mothership’ acts as a hub for vehicles, upgrades, and mineral processing. Maroonedĭeserts of Kharak’s basic gameplay loop will be familiar to Homeworld players. They stopped by recently to show me a few campaign missions from Deserts of Kharak and how it embodies and iterates on their classic take of the RTS formula. But Rob Cunningham, CEO of Blackbird, and Rory McGuire, Lead Game Designer aren’t worried. But this time, gameplay takes place on the ground and there’s a concerted focus on personal storytelling-a huge, somewhat worrisome departure for the franchise. Blackbird Interactive, a conglomerate of developers hailing from the original Homeworld games and elsewhere, is finally going to release Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak. Lo! There’s a whole new Homeworld game coming out next week.
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