The landscapes look cool, everything else looks underwhelming.The character portraits, the structures/buildings/architecture, the units/uniform/weapon designs.pretty lame or boring if you ask me I would have expected more... Dune 2 looked gritty and realistic IMHO , Dune 1 brutalist and monolithic, like the movie.

On gameplay and strategy i cannot say anything as i haven't played it yet.

Spent 13 hours so far. I started with House Atreides to learn the mechanics and failed miserably on my first try. My second try I learned a few more mechanics but still stretched myself too thin and failed once more. My third play though I was successful in keeping my production rates steady and strong enough to weather any negative Landsraad resolutions against House Atreides. I marched an army upon the Fremen base and burned it to the ground, then regathered my forces to March south to the base of House Harkonnen to end their presence on Arakkis once and for all.

The next playthrough I decided to okay the Fremen as I had a great grasp on the core game mechanics and wanted to see how their faction worked. I actually had a much easier time as the Fremen because the units they have make it easy to lay in wait and strike other houses when they’re fighting amongst themselves. My strategy was to wait for a rival house to March on a free village or house controlled village, kill off a few units or milita, then when they were weakened I could use the infiltrators to almost one strike kill any units with the first strike ability that gives them 80% extra power. This way I could fight against weakened house forces with fewer units and turn their conquest against them.

I really enjoy the core mechanics. It really rewards balancing resource production vs using military forces to capture objectives. You have to research the relevant tech trees to be able to build large armies, but this takes a lot of manpower and water to maintain which you might need to trade with the unaligned sietches to get production or solari benefits. I have yet to try the Smugglers or House Harkonnen, but from what I played as House Atreides and the Fremen there was a nice difference in the priorities of gameplay between them. If you don’t learn which buildings to make to maximize production, or securing enough spice to meet the tax then you are put at a huge disadvantage. Sometimes I would respond to a crisis with my attention completely invested in saving my village from pillage or takeover, only to miss a council vote where the rival houses voted against me and wrecked my production.

All in all, at $30 early access I’ve had a lot of fun. The environment looks great, the small side missions are a nice thing to do, it’s fun to keep your house control of arakkis balanced, and luring your enemies to get eaten by sand worms never loses its satisfaction. I think it’s worth checking out, and I really look forward to multiplayer being implemented so I can enjoy this game with friends.

Sounds as if multiplayer with 4-5 factions could be fun...

How is the story done?