Homeworld 3 is the sequel to one of the crucial celebrated sequence in real-time technique historical past. The primary RTS to happen in a completely three-dimensional atmosphere, Homeworld was a revelation in 1999 as a result of its setting was authentically house, moderately than a 2D aircraft. Maneuvering not simply round however above and beneath your opponents was key to victory in Homeworld.
Maybe most notable, nonetheless, was Homeworld’s environment. The galaxy felt empty, lonely, and oppressive. Enemies had been at all times dogging your heels and the expansive ambient soundtrack left you feeling misplaced in a galaxy a lot bigger than your individual issues.
Developer Relic Leisure launched Homeworld in 1999, with an enlargement in 2000 after which sequel Homeworld 2 in 2003. These video games obtained remastered in 2015 by Gearbox, to blended reception. Prequel Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak was developed by Blackbird Interactive and launched only a yr later in 2016 to nice acclaim.
Blackbird interactive can be creating Homeworld 3, and the conclusion to our Deserts of Kharak review ought to offer you a superb indication of why we’re enthusiastic about this sequel: “Despite all of the methods this might have gone horribly incorrect, Deserts of Kharak succeeds on nearly each depend. It is not solely a terrific RTS that units itself aside from the remainder of the style’s current video games, but it surely’s additionally a wonderful Homeworld sport that reinvents the sequence whereas additionally recapturing its magic.”
What’s Homeworld 3’s launch date?
We do not have a precise date but. Homeworld 3 can be launched within the fourth quarter of 2022. Realistically, that most likely means you will see it in November or early December of this yr. It is uncertain that Gearbox will decide early November resulting from launch date competitors with Starfield, but it surely’s not unprecedented for giant video games of various genres to launch on the similar time.
Will Homeworld 3 get delayed? At this level, most likely not: Blackbird Interactive has ample sources behind it now that Gearbox is a part of the Embracer Group. However within the time of Covid-driven improvement delays, nothing is ever out of the query.
This Homeworld 3 gameplay trailer gave me goosebumps
That is the stuff.
The trailer’s narrator is Karan S’jet, the primary character from unique Homeworld video games and the voice of The Mothership and Fleet Command. She’s a posthuman of some variety, referred to as an Unbound, resulting from her bodily reference to the Hyperspace core that powered the mothership. As we perceive it, she’s additionally now going to dwell for a really, very very long time.
We’re proven a sprawl of occasions from the primary two video games, from the destruction of Kharak and the Kushan flight by way of the galaxy to the battle with the Vaygr horde from Homeworld 2. From there, we see a barrage of ships within the flat, boxy types and colours of our Hiigaran protagonists. We additionally get a number of distant glimpses of angular ships within the signature yellow and purple stripes of their Taiidan enemies. There’s additionally a quick flash of some ships in purple, the first coloration of the Vaygr antagonists from Homeworld 2.
All through we get glimpses of an enormous ship again and again: A crescent-shaped flat vessel. That is most likely our new Mothership, with its signature large launch bay for producing capital ships. It is a new design, a kind of flat croissant moderately than the large upright banana of previous motherships within the sequence—and a pleasant design callback to the carriers from Deserts of Kharak.
So what is the story of Homeworld 3?
After Homeworld 2, the galaxy entered what was referred to as the “age of S’jet,” as Karan’s clan used the newly-opened hyperspace gate community to usher in an age of prosperity. We do not know something about what is going to occur in Homeworld 3 apart from that a number of time has handed.
Here is the official description: “Cycles of loads and battle have come and gone. Now the Hyperspace Gate Community is catastrophically failing and Karan, who has handed into delusion and non secular idolatry, is the important thing to the thriller threatening a galaxy’s future.”
So that is what’s up, a minimum of: The now nigh-immortal Karan S’jet would possibly nicely be the final one who remembers the distant previous, and because the gameplay trailer narration hints, that reminiscence would possibly nicely be the important thing to saving the long run.
Blackbird has additionally been clear that like the unique video games and Deserts of Kharak, Homeworld 3 may have a deep, compelling single participant story. After how good Deserts of Kharak was, it will most likely be an actual deal with.
What’s new in Homeworld 3? What’s coming again?
We do not know that a lot about what’s new in Homeworld 3 but, however I recognized one large factor from the gameplay trailer that could be a touch at a twist for Homeworld 3’s environments.
Some environments look nearly low-atmospheric, with massive non-ship objects exhibiting up. That is new, as asteroids within the outdated Homeworld had been hardly ever so massive as what we see within the gameplay trailer, and no battles befell so near a planet you may make out geographic options like mountains.
A lot of the battles within the gameplay trailer additionally occur amongst large spaceborne megaliths, made by the mysterious Progenitors, that beforehand solely shaped very rudimentary terrain in Homeworld video games. They now look much more interactive, as fighters sweep down trenches for canopy. The official Homeworld website says that these constructions will “deliver 3D terrain into the traditional Homeworld battlespace” and that they can be utilized to cover your fleet for ambushes towards enemies. There will even be harmful terrain, like asteroid fields and particle storms, that may hurt ships.
What’s again? On the very least strike craft, frigates, and cruisers are returning, but it surely’s onerous to inform if corvettes and destroyers made the lower. Bigger ships additionally make an look within the trailer, with the very distinct silhouette of a Kharak-inspired Hiigaran service exhibiting up at one level, and the sport description mentioning “hulking battlecruisers.”
A ship very very like the traditional Taiidan missile destroyer and ion frigate present up within the gameplay trailer, too. However these fashions are to this point past these of 1999 and 2003 that whereas there’s clearly inspiration occurring, drawing a direct parallel is not possible. Simply know that I noticed projectile weapons, missiles, and ion cannons, so your favourite Homeworld weapon might be again in some type.
In any other case, Blackbird Interactive appears fairly dedicated to the unique imaginative and prescient for Homeworld. Count on to assemble useful resource items from asteroids, maneuver a giant fleet, and hyperspace bounce your nastiest ships proper on high of an opponent’s mothership for the win.
Here is an older trailer
That is the announcement trailer for Homeworld 3, which we first noticed in 2019. In it, scouting ships that look to be from our main faction, the Hiigarans, make their method by way of the huge hyperspace gate found and activated on the finish of Homeworld 2. We additionally get a quick flash of our homegirl Karan S’jet.
What else do we all know?
Homeworld 3 will Have co-op
Homeworld 3 may have a roguelite cooperative mode, the place one or two commanders tackle a sequence of fleet battles with a persistent fleet. Every battle helps you to declare rewards for the subsequent, and profitable runs will allow you to unlock new powers that “carry over run after run.”
Homeworld 3 will even have PvP multiplayer.
The soundtrack will nonetheless slap
Authentic Homeworld composer Paul Ruskay returns for a minimum of among the music, and the previews sign that his latest work is pretty much as good as ever. For the curious, Gearbox has launched a 20-minute mini documentary in regards to the sequence use of the Adagio for Strings.
“Nobody’s left. All the pieces is gone. Kharak is burning.”
