Homeworld is still my dream RTS

A mothership in front of a planet
(Image credit: Gearbox)

Oh no. I'm playing Homeworld again. 

During my formative PC gaming years, the RTS was king. With every new game I could get my sweaty little hands on, there were dramatic leaps as some of the best developers of the day conjured up new systems, more elaborate conflicts and started to flex their storytelling muscles. There was the rivalry between Westwood and Blizzard pushing things forward, and then around them so many experiments, like the mind-bogglingly massive battles of Total Annihilation and Age of Empire's attempts to make a Civ-scale RTS. Then Homeworld arrived, and it was like staring into the future. 

Westwood's Dune 2 was the RTS that really founded the genre, though it wasn't the first one. It took three years for it to spawn a challenger, which came in the form of Blizzard's Warcraft. It didn't change a whole lot, aside from the setting, but then Westwood responded with Command & Conquer and the competition began. The genre started to evolve rapidly, but in the mid-90s there was no way I could have imagined where things would end up just a few years down the line. 

In the space of only four years, we went from this:

(Image credit: Electronic Arts)

To this:

(Image credit: Gearbox)

A fully 3D RTS set in space that looked that good didn't seem believable—surely it would end up being all eye candy and nothing else. But no, it was the real deal. From its hypnotic cosmic battles to its stirring orchestral score, it was, and still is, exceptional. Even the narrative design is noteworthy. There were plenty of RTS developers investing in story, but most of the time they just served to bookend missions—a cutscene here or there—whereas Relic opted for a holistic approach. Story was given a higher priority, and things like radio chatter and even gameplay systems, like your fleet persisting across missions, reinforce and enhance it. 

The history of the strategy game

Civ ruler

(Image credit: 2K)

If all these words about Homeworld have got you ravenous for more nostalgia, why not read our mammoth history of the strategy game feature, where we go all the way back to the '70s and chart the genre's course. 

Loss and desperation run all the way through the game, and they're made more tangible by their mechanical impact. If you get through a mission by the skin of your teeth, you'll have a whole other mission ahead of you where you'll really feel those losses. You're trying to preserve your species, trying to build a huge armada to keep them all safe, so taking a beating stings, and there are consequences. Tragedy is always nipping at your engines. This is brutally established in the game's third mission, which throws you into a harrowing rescue attempt where you have to secure cryo trays with slumbering passengers above your burning world, all while enemies are trying to wipe them out. To really hammer things home, it gives you the numbers. You can actually save all 600,000 people, but chances are you'll lose a lot of them.  

It's uncompromising. It's challenging to the point of occasionally being punishing, and it turns out that managing fleets in a vast 3D space is pretty tricky. The 2015 remaster made it more accessible, but it remains a game where you really have to work for your victories. It's a big job, saving your species, and Homeworld never lets you forget that the odds are stacked against you.

(Image credit: Gearbox)

The fact that it's so damn gorgeous means that even when shit hits the fan and your armada is looking like a goner, at least you get something pretty to stare at. The unlocked 3D camera means you get all the best views of every fight, but the best way to watch Homeworld's battles—albeit not very tactically sound—is by fixing the camera on a single ship and getting real close. It's like being in a choreographed dance routine while you're also on a roller coaster. 

RTS was heading into fascinating new territory, or so it seemed in 1999. There were still good things ahead. Blizzard was working on Warcraft 3, Total War was waiting in the wings, and Relic would continue its bold experiments in Company of Heroes, as well as releasing a second Homeworld. Some of the very best RTS games appeared in the 2000s, but it also marked the decline of the genre, with players migrating to consoles and publishers no longer investing in the former golden goose. 

(Image credit: Gearbox)

I'm trying to think of another time I was more excited about what was in store for the genre and coming up short. For all the impressive stuff that's come since, nothing has ever seemed quite as bold. The biggest RTS success story has undoubtedly been StarCraft 2, which has dominated the genre for over a decade, and it's great, but it's also just more StarCraft. Esports and MOBAs took over, and now Homeworld looks more like an evolutionary dead end than the future of RTS games. 

More Homeworld has, at least, been a nice consolation prize. There was a big gap, but eventually we got Blackbird Interactive's Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, a prequel set in the desert instead of in space. It very much lived up to the name, despite the change in setting, while not being beholden to it. It might have been an origin story drawing on nostalgia for the original Homeworld, but there was enough that was new so that it felt like progress. And now we've got Homeworld 3 on the way, apparently coming next year. I'll take all the Homeworld I can get. But none of them will compare to playing the first Homeworld, when it was like nothing I'd seen before, and dreaming about what was on the horizon. 

Fraser Brown
Online Editor

Fraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person. With over a decade of experience, he's been around the block a few times, serving as a freelancer, news editor and prolific reviewer. Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession, from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims, and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings. He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep, systemic RPG. These days, when he's not editing, he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog. 

Latest in RTS
Earth vs Mars screenshot - Martian troopers vs Earth light tanks
Relic's new project is a 'smaller indie-style' game about a martian invasion of Earth
Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition promo art
Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition DLC promised last year is cancelled: 'We announced content before it had been built, and we now feel that announcement was premature'
Tempest Dynasty faction
The first multiplayer demo for my most anticipated RTS, Tempest Rising, is out now
Former Age of Empires developer says the RTS genre's stuck in a rut: 'you're still playing the same game'
Creeper World IXE
Creeper World IXE breaks the RTS mold and adds a dash of Noita's alchemy to the gooey war
A large blue factory complex in Industrial Annihilation
Planetary Annihilation successor has a bumpy landing on Steam, and the backers aren't happy: 'So bare bones that it's basically an asset show without a game'
Latest in Features
Rainbow Six Siege year 9 season 2 key art - two Rainbow Six Siege operators facing each other
'Siege 2 was never on the table': Rainbow Six Siege X director explains why the 10-year-old FPS doesn't need a sequel
Hands pushing poker chips on a table
Winning $2.6 billion in this poker videogame has completely ruined fake poker for me
Fragpunk characters with weapon drawn
The latest big game on Steam is Fragpunk, or as I like to call it, 'kitchen-sink Counter-Strike'
Screenshots from Half-Life 2 RTX, showing the various new effects delivered by full ray tracing and enhanced assets.
I just played Half-Life 2 RTX, a fully ray-traced overhaul of the original, and its meaty headcrabs have me hankering for more
A hunter poses with a large hammer as their palico cheers nearby in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Monster Hunter Wilds weapon tier list
character creation in Monster Hunter Wilds
The best Monster Hunter Wilds mods