It’s been a very long time coming however Warner Bros. and Legendary’s gigantic Dune adaptation lastly hit cinemas and HBO Max this week, sparking a revival of curiosity in Frank Herbert’s beloved sci-fi franchise.
To mark the discharge of the most recent adaptation of this sci-fi epic, we’re wanting again on the historical past of Dune video games in an effort to know why the franchise hasn’t seen long-running success on gaming platforms, regardless of providing a wealthy and distinctive sci-fi world brimming with lore that ought to have builders rubbing their arms in glee, and the way the Dune franchise may make a gaming comeback as grand as Frank Herbert’s books.
- Dune is an absorbing and visually hanging sci-fi epic – with one main downside
A troubled historical past value remembering
1992’s Dune, developed by Cryo Interactive and revealed by Virgin Video games, was an bold mixture of real-time strategy and interactive journey, borrowing components from hits comparable to The Secret of Monkey Island with a view to flesh out each its characters and the dense world of Arrakis. Its improvement was as troubled because the manufacturing of David Lynch’s 1984 movie, and the entire thing was virtually canned a number of instances.
Nevertheless, the sport was a hit and proved there was a future for the IP within the gaming world. If we glance again on the crucial reception, most reviewers praised the mix of journey and RTS, with some shops praising how Cryo struck gold by specializing in what made Arrakis a singular setting and toying with the participant’s company. That sort of strategy sounds acquainted, doesn’t it?
We’re greater than used to versatile, non-linear storytelling in video games by now, particularly when it helps discover huge, unknown worlds. Dune is all about this – most of Herbert’s authentic novel spends virtually half of its pages organising Arrakis and its guidelines, plus different planets and portion of an enormous galactic empire. The cinematic medium has a more durable time with this due to runtime limitations, and Dune is just too large for the small display. However video video games don’t face the “an excessive amount of info” downside, as they will flip all of it into good playable content material.
Surprisingly, Virgin Video games needed to strive its luck with a full-blown RTS too, within the type of Dune II. Oddly, Dune and Dune II had been launched solely months aside, – they’d been developed by totally different studios as rival tasks below the identical writer’s umbrella.
Past the essential DNA, Dune II, developed by Westwood Studios, had little or no in widespread with Cryo’s sport. The truth is, it was titled Dune II (with two totally different subtitles) solely as a result of it ended its improvement later. It was launched simply in time for Christmas 1992 and likewise discovered nice success, establishing a brand new customary for technique video games. It is a little bit of buried sport historical past, however arrange plenty of what we’d see later within the Command & Conquer sequence, born from Westwood as effectively, and within the first Warcraft.
Okay, so each an adventure-RTS hybrid and a whole RTS made a splash within the early 90s. However did that occur due to their high quality or due to the property they had been primarily based on? Trying again, Dune wasn’t extremely popular round that point. Lynch’s movie had left a bitter style in individuals’s mouths, and avid guide readers had been those maintaining the flame alive for future audiovisual diversifications. Constructing these video games on high of an already-established property saved sport corporations valuable time and wasn’t as dangerous as developing with one thing new, however that was it. The gameplay is probably going what made these titles profitable, reasonably than the ‘Dune’ identify, and that turned evident with Dune II.
Right here’s the factor: there’s a lot to unpack in every of Frank Herbert’s novels (and his son’s when you’re into them) – the Dune universe follows widespread patterns, however continually tears them down. The iconography that has been solidified is that of the sandworms and perhaps the stillsuit-wearing, blue-eyed Fremen. However Dune is a lot greater than that, and most video games previous the primary one appeared to overlook about its uniqueness, an untapped power that was pushed apart with a view to as an alternative work with acquainted blueprints. Even when individuals didn’t care a lot for Dune, it was an IP that might’ve pushed these technique titles in more energizing instructions if it had been utilized correctly.
Arrakis is ripe for the taking
Look, we’re not saying Dune II, later remade as Dune 2000, is a nasty sport, as a result of it isn’t, however it set the IP on a path of conformity and diluted id, giving beginning to tasks (later dealt with by EA) that felt like Command & Conquer mods. Anybody into the books is aware of why that’s an issue and nullifies what makes the universe particular. For starters: no waving weapons and lasers round to battle, that’s probably the most not-Dune factor ever.
Dune II already confirmed indicators of inventive confusion through the use of a non-canon faction, Home Ordos, as an alternative of developing with an attention-grabbing Fremen faction that hardly resembled the opposite two (Atreides and Harkonnen). Moreover, large pew-pew autos slowly took over – it acquired ridiculous in 2001’s Emperor: Battle for Dune – as a result of large sci-fi means Star Wars-y tanks and ships, proper? There have been loads of properties doing that already, and the world of Arrakis was asking for one thing not almost as explosive.
Dune video games went underground after Cryo one way or the other acquired its arms on the IP once more to provide you with a tie-in sport for Frank Herbert’s Dune, a Sci-Fi Channel miniseries launched in 2000. It was a pricey flop that didn’t land lots of its pictures, however it doubled down on the inherent weirdness of the universe and went again to the story-heavy gaming roots of the franchise despite some canonical compromises. We may see one thing like that working now, as avid gamers have grown to like character-driven experiences. And that’s only one risk.
We nonetheless don’t know whether or not or not Denis Villeneuve’s Dune will discover sufficient cash within the sands of Arrakis to kickstart a movie franchise, however it has actually gotten individuals speaking and diving into Herbert’s expansive universe once more. Individuals like bizarre, particularly of their video video games – Dune doesn’t must comply with “protected” aesthetics or design selections anymore, as many sci-fi properties have come and gone whereas it hibernated. With open-world RPGs, cinematic narrative video games, and RTS titles now having huge followings, it may be the right time to sprinkle some spice on high of these genres.