Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
HOMEWORLD: DESERTS OF KHARAK A ground-based RTS prequel to the classic Homeworld games. Assemble your fleet and lead them to victory on the shifting sands of Kharak in this compelling strategy game. Crafted by Blackbird Interactive, a studio founded by veterans of Homeworld and Company of Heroes, Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak takes players to the deserts of Kharak where danger lurks over every dune. EXPERIENCE AN ORIGIN STORY In Deserts of Kharak’s campaign, an anomaly is discovered deep in the southern desert. An expedition is sent, but the story is not that simple. Discover the story of Rachel S'jet as she leads her people on a quest to find their destiny in an exciting campaign. HEAVY DUTY HARDWARE Take control of fleets of land and air vehicles – from nimble light attack vehicles to massive heavyweight cruisers – built to conquer the desert.
Game Discussion
Steam User 8
An enjoyable, if fairly mediocre RTS. The theming, soundtrack, and art design do most of then heavy lifting, whilst the important parts of the technology, mission design, and story aspects of the game were apparently left on the cutting room floor. This product clearly had a lot cut out of it in order to get it to ship on time.
The game starts quite strong and presents some novel ideas (Homeworld, but in the desert!), but quickly descends into fighting identical missions in identical terrain using identical units. The most fun to be had is in using the carrier as an actual carrier, and launching wave after wave of jets against your enemy, with your ground fleet being the support that grabs the all important objectives.
I love the vehicle design, and I really like the cinematic style and VOX. But the actual story presented to us via these animations and cinematics is a garbled mess that 2/3rd of the way through jackknives itself. Everyone involved in the story and mission design just seems to give up, presenting us with some absurd plotting, and just dumping every technology upgrade in the game on you that they couldn't find a way to give you elsewhere. The final mission is completely anti-climatic, especially compared the previous few.
The combat is ok. The unit AI could be smarter, as units seem to shoot at the closest thing, rather than the thing they counter, and microing everything is tedious because all the enemies unit look like floating tanks, and if you zoom out far enough to see the NATOesque unit icons then they all blur into one, meaning you can't select the damn things. Thankfully the game features tactical pause (order whilst paused) meaning you can actually target that mission ship in the middle of the medium tanks. The combat mechanics are meant to take advantage of heights, but you can only really figure out the height of various dunes by using 3d mode and zooming right in, as it's completely absent from the tactical view. Another crucial feature also mission from tactical view: range. How am I meant to make informed decisions about the Carrier's range power settings, or where to station the artillery, if I don't even know how far 1300m actually is? Even homeworld 1 showed the range!
The mission design is fairly samey, uninspired, and predictable: baddies arrive in waves, shoot them! And then 2/3rd of the way through the mission, "surprising" enemy reinforcements appear in a cutscene. Oh no, it's another mixed group of units with two support cruisers, or perhaps even a carrier depending on how far along the game you are! Medium difficulty is ok, nothing too rushed, perhaps a bit on the easy side. "Classic" difficult is _very_ difficult, even the first few missions are hard in this mode!
Tech wise: You can't even change your hot keys, which is annoying. I also had consistent problems with sound stuttering and skipping if I played for a long time, required me to restart the game.
Over all, it's another RTS game that looks and sounds cool, gets old quite quickly, and is perhaps only worth it on 25% off.
Steam User 6
A fun, cute, if some what niche and short rts. Made for a memorable experience. If you are a fan of home world, then chances are you'll enjoy this. With only 24 players online as of writing this, I would not call it ''multiplayer'' but I would call it ''fun''.
Steam User 5
The campaign got me invested in the story; the emotional weight of it is gripping. Gameplay forces you to think carefully. In other RTS games I would usually just crank out enough units to overwhelm the enemy without care for the losses. This is the first one that really forced me to think about what I'm doing and care about protecting my units.
Steam User 3
I recommend because I enjoyed the gameplay.
Like many I am bothered by the online requirement and the Epic Store install.
Game is on the shorter side so buy on sale.
I liked the story and the units.
Reminded me of Ground Control (late 90s).
Didn't try multiplayer.
Steam User 4
It's fun, very reminiscent of the good ol' Command & Conquer series or any other title in the RTS genre. The negatives:
- Short campaign and it was hard to get emotionally invested in the thin plot and then it's suddenly over. It's ok, It's like playing a campaign in FPS games, it's there but not the reason you bought the game.
- Unfortunately, the Skirmish mode is weak, very few maps to pick from and if you're a fan of the genre then you know how important this part is - There's just one (1) 6 player map, for example.
- As you improve you'd like to go 1 vs 2, 1 vs 3, 1 vs 4 and so on but it's not possible here as you'll get a "team unbalanced" message stopping you from going further. Great.
- You can't change shortcut keys (!) so if you're on a 60% keyboard you might miss out on important functions.
- The game will launch offline but you can't play offline, not even skirmish mode because everything is cloud-based. Had I known beforehand I probably wouldn't have bought it.
- Insane amount of bugs. Matches will crash 20 minutes in, enemies will freeze mid-air and just stay there. Most annoying of all is the resources bug, salvagers refusing to collect resources because it says it's already 2/2 salvagers there but in reality it's not so you have to wait until the bug clears itself and try again - hopefully you will not die whilst trying to get this sorted.
Not worth the full price since it's abandonware and will not see any updates or bugfixes (most likely) but at €5 I really can't complain, the price of a Happy Meal.
Steam User 3
The real Homeworld 3. A very faithful sequel with enough new bits to keep you hooked.
Great story, fun gameplay loop, real feeling of threat during battles thanks to the great balancing.
Cons - Camera is hard work at time.
If you are put off by it not being space based, don't be. It's a true and faithful part of the Homeworld story, with the gameplay to match.
Steam User 2
A nice RTS with:
beautiful graphics, soundtrack, and sound design;
superbly designed and highly detailed units;
satisfying gameplay of combined arms attacks, flanks, and head-on carrier assaults to tie it all together :D
The implementation of terrain height variation adds a good depth to tactical planning
The story is simple but engaging
It is available for purchase on GOG.com (for 5$ on sale often; current sale till 10.07) without DRM or the need to accept Epic's intrusive EULA, although re-purchasing a game you already own simply due to retroactive user agreement changes really sucks.