The upcoming real-time strategy game Dune: Spice Wars has announced its new smuggler faction. Dune: Spice Wars was initially announced late last year during The Game Awards, and is scheduled to enter Early Access on Steam sometime in 2022. The new strategy game based on Frank Herbert's iconic novel, as well as last year’s movie from Legendary Pictures and Denis Villeneuve, is being made by Northgard developer Shiro Games and published by Funcom.
Dune: Spice Wars' gameplay will combine both real-time strategy mechanics as well as the 4X elements of “Explore, Expand, Exploit, and Exterminate.” According to Shiro Games, Dune: Spice Wars will be able to achieve its hybrid gameplay by providing a slower-paced RTS experience while also including pause and fast-forward time mechanics. It will also feature exploration, territory control, economic growth, combat, politics, and spying, which covers all the elements of a 4X game. Shiro Games gave fans a glimpse of what that would look like in a Dune: Spice Wars gameplay trailer released last month.
In a new press release, developer Shiro Games revealed the smuggler faction as the latest group that players will be able to choose to play as in Dune: Spice Wars. According to Shiro Games, smugglers focus on infiltrating the economies of opposing players for their own benefit. Since they start near the polar regions of Arrakis, they can also take advantage of polar water trading. In battle, the faction specializes in drawn-out battles in neutral territory by reducing the supply of their targets and taking advantage of both starving and fleeing units by utilizing their unique units such as the Scavenger, Wrecker, and Scouts, among others. Smugglers are also good at ambushing exhausted armies that are returning home after another battle.
As Shiro Games previously revealed, it plans to feature groups beyond the franchise’s popular Landsraad houses, such as Dune: Spice Wars’ House Atreides and House Harkonnen, so other factions may be revealed and added to the game in the future. Some of the other non-house factions Shiro Games has announced for the game include the Spacing Guild and the Fremen. With the large number of groups that exist within the Dune universe, Shiro Games certainly has no shortage of factions to include in the game.
It looks like Dune: Spice Wars' smuggler faction will focus on winning through economic and political means, while only utilizing its armed forces to help achieve those. It seems like an interesting choice for players who enjoy employing subterfuge and other cunning tactics to achieve victory.
Dune: Spice Wars is scheduled to enter early access on Steam sometime in 2022.