Homeworld Units

[Phuong Fulsom]

Thosecomments come from a new Homeworld 3 developer update which also teases the work Blackbird has done on pre-rendered cutscenes and in-engine environment rendering. There's some strong nebula work to admire near the bottom of the post, but the big section in the middle titled "No one can hear you scream" is what caught my attention, because I'm not sure I've ever encountered such a thorough breakdown of RTS unit bark theory.

"Of the four audio design pillars we have for Homeworld 3, the one that has driven ship pilot speech the most is: 'Humanize the fleet,'" writes audio director Dave Renn. "If you've played a lot of real-time strategy games, then you're all-too-familiar with the 'barks' that units give as you order them around. Y'know, 'Zug, zug' and all that.

"A lot has changed since that golden era of real-time strategy, though. While we could've stuck to tradition, we chose to innovate and create a speech system that'll bring your fleets to life and immerse you in their moment-to-moment interactives and battles."

According to Renn, unit barks in Homeworld 3 should deliver two things to the player: "information and flavor." To do that, Blackbird has borrowed a format from sports broadcasting, giving each ship a play-by-play announcer and a color commentator. There's a commander who's "focused on direct responses to player commands, notifications for important events such as coming into contact with enemy ships, and a select few flavor events," and a tactical officer who's "focused on contextual conversational chatter," the flavor.

What I find most interesting is that Blackbird has decided to do away with the idea that the units are talking to you, the player who's clicking on them, which they did in Homeworld 2 and every other RTS I can think of. (I have not played every RTS that has ever existed, so perhaps there are true chatter trailblazers out there that were doing this in the '90s, but I don't remember 'em.)

So, rather than saying something like, "Confirmed, initiating docking procedure," a ship that you've ordered to dock with a carrier will tell the carrier's docking control, "This is flight lead looking to put down, echo back," and the carrier's docking control officer will respond. You can see that example dialogue in the video below.

Ships won't only talk to each other when you're interacting with them: The tactical offers have "a selection of 5 to 15 contextual call-outs and 5 to 15 contextual responses" for various situations, such as flying through a nebula, and you'll catch bits of those conversations as you play.

You can read the full chatter breakdown (and all that cinematics and graphics stuff) in the Homeworld 3 developer update on Steam. The strategy game was delayed earlier this year, and is now scheduled to release in February of 2024. The reason for the delay, Blackbird said at the time, was simply that they want to make the game better: "This work takes time, especially when we are raising the bar on what players will experience in the Homeworld universe."

Homeworld is a legendary series. To say a game was revolutionary can often be hyperbole, but in the case of Homeworld, this is as true of a statement as any. Before Homeworld, moving your units in three dimensions didn't happen. Homeworld brought actual space combat forward and is essentially revered as a result. Homeworld 3 and developers Blackbird Interactive, with some Relic Entertainment luminaries, look to build on this. After more than a few delays, we're finally here. Is this the triumphant return to the series it hopes to be?

I'm going to get the negatives out of the way early. During my time with Homeworld 3, I encountered a few bugs. One particular bug - the sixth mission, I believe - has you waiting for an enemy fleet to jump into the battlefield, and you should have the time to set up an ambush. My issue was that the trigger wouldn't occur, so I spent a fair amount of time trying to make it happen - searching the map for any enemy, but there were none. Restarted from a checkpoint, same thing. Restarted the mission, same thing. I finally got the game to work on my fourth attempt - six hours lost. I did report this to Blackbird, who sent me a save file for the next mission, but that was just after I'd managed to get there. Will that issue be fixed? The day-one patch may have it, but I am also very good at finding bugs other people don't.

Other issues include markers for objectives, such as salvaging an enemy ship, still showing despite either the ship having been salvaged or it has disappeared because you've been a bit quicker than the game expected and you're now on the next objective. We know that Games are scripted, but it seems the scripts here can mess up - mainly if your units complete an objective while the game shows you a cutscene: minor issues, but noticeable, and immersion breaking.

One final thing I noticed is to do with controls. Due to the sheer size, finding and selecting a target can be awkward at best, which can be solved by pausing the game. It feels like a cheat, but it's the best way. You can zoom in to make it easier, and that's the only way to ease the finicky controls in a multiplayer game. However, I had an issue where, maybe 10% of the time, clicking an enemy to attack them wouldn't work. It's not a big issue early on when you can forgive it, but it's soul-destroying when enemies are capturing your ships, or they're launching missiles at your mothership from across the map, and you can't target them. There are other minor niggles, but they don't outweigh the respective positives, so I'll cover those together.

On the counter to the six hours I lost, I became so good at that mission that my resource count saw a nice boost. This benefitted me in the long run because I gave myself a nice basepoint for future missions since resources carry over. It brings you to the inevitable comparison that everybody and their dog makes: Homeworld 3 is essentially Battlestar Galactica. It's reductive because Homeworld 3 is most certainly its own thing. Still, the fact that you're constantly being harassed by a foe just moments behind you and your resources are limited always keeps that comparison in mind.

Homeworld 3 takes this feeling of limitation and runs with it to its fullest, making tactical thinking and planning your resources a core part of the game beyond what is generally found in a real-time strategy. Due to your limited resources, you will want to use the battlefield to your advantage, with space and its sheer scale being used to its fullest. Cover in a game isn't unusual; it's essentially mandatory. However, how do you have cover in a space game? Well, you have asteroids, giant wrecked space stations, and massive capital ships for little ships to hide behind. Homeworld 3 makes the cover feel special, as you're flanking an enemy through massive tunnels inside a destroyed ship the size of Manhattan Island or going through the crevasses of a giant ice field in space.

Blackbird Interactive has made it so Homeworld 3 utilises this freedom and newfound tactical options with a reasonably varied campaign. Homeworld 3 even has a commando-style mission, where you use limited units to destroy a few key targets. If you succeed, the next mission is more manageable. If you fail, well, get ready for a fight. This continuance between missions and that you start the following mission with the same units as you ended the last makes for an enjoyable experience.

However, wrapping up my thoughts on the campaign comes with a pro and a con. The pro is that it's a significant enough experience on its own, thirteen missions that will take around seven hours to complete. The con is that I can't honestly say I was engaged in the narrative; it's essentially a fight against a space witch who wants to conquer everything - though a few links to previous Homeworld titles are in there, including a returning character. I have to admit, not many strategy games have managed to draw me into their characters, World in Conflict being a clear exception, so it's not a real issue.

What makes up the rest of Homeworld 3 is the usual Multiplayer. I would talk more about this, but if I were honest, I don't care. I am far more interested in playing with my cats than playing games with you fleshy humans. It's Homeworld 3, but with humans, which helps make battles either more predictable or less predictable, depending on the tricks people find. It's far too early for me to tell you if the multiplayer is broken due to the more limited nature of a pre-release review, so this is the end of that part.

The new mode within Homeworld 3 is the War Games mode. Essentially turning it into a roguelike and even more Battlestar Galactica-like. You'll move forward into new objective after objective, picking up new rewards. This allows a co-op of up to three people and offers an exciting mode not often found in the strategy genre. I've had the chance to play a little, and everybody had the opportunity in the available demo during Steam Next Fest. The main thing about this mode is that it emphasises the efficient use of your units in combat, mainly when grouping them up and putting them into specific formations, which offer different boosts or detractors.

Rounding all of this up is the presentation. In my Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak review, I had a minor complaint with the user interface. Specifically, I didn't like how they used icons similar to what Homeworld is known for, which was essentially a more old-school RTS - specifically, it wasn't space-bound. Well, the UI returns here, but it makes sense. Indeed, it's a crisp and clean UI, but it's slightly tricky to navigate when all units are unlocked due to the scroll speed. However, it's not a dealbreaker.

Everything else, visually, is simply splendid. The sheer scale is magnificent, and the beauty of space is entirely on-show, with the fun impact of battle on your ships and the surrounding area. It's terrific to see the trails from your ships and weapons, making what is essentially space art. This is backed up by excellent music, great voice acting for the FMVs, and in-game dialogue, though I have had occasions where that's repeated. Again, it's not a dealbreaker, but it's noticeable.

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