KickStarter Homeworld 3 from Blackbird Interactive

[kinzadza]

Both of them ugly af

 

[Luka-boy]

Have a palate cleanser, guys, and rejoice because HW1 still exists.

Original Intro + Mothership Launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6zDVmsiZZ4
Remastered Intro + Mothership Launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-i8LOKjTEk

 

[Be Kind Rewind]

I mean, Deserts of Kharak had some cheap Illustrator moving image cutscenes, but they looked kind of atmospheric, but this, it's just atrocious. And being fully rendered means indeed money and effort went into them.

Says a lot about how bad a game is when it's being unfavorably compared to Deserts of Kharak, the F2P live-service we-have-Ground-Control-at-home title that was half-assedly turned into a Homeworld prequel after spending a long time as vaporware. Diversity Shrek 3D fanfilm in space makes the travesties of the past look good, even the bad times are ogre and we're getting bad game+ now.

Here's the top steam review as of now, it's very informative and from someone who backed this when it was on Fig.

In my 12 hour playtime here, I've completed the campaign on hard, finished 2 hard-mode skirmish matches, a few difficulty 10 wargames, and at least 1 hour of idling.

Go buy the old games. Usually about 5 USD. They won't look as good, but you'll have games with better mechanics, better written story, more ship variety, multiplayer worth a damn, a bigger community, and a library of mods to keep it all interesting.

As a Fig backer, none of the promises were kept. Literally none of them. The scale didn't get bigger, the ballistics mechanics are nonexistent, the railgun frigate is gone, and the scarring system is not only irrelevant due to the average ~15 minute session time for each mode, but also completely nonexistent. Instead, ships show a gross tiling effect for damage. That's every feature they mentioned in 5 years of "insider access", just not in the game.

From an RTS standpoint, this is worse than "Babys first RTS". There's no strategy here. You blob up and smash your blob into the enemy blob. Just watch any video showing combat. Capital ships don't move. There's no evasive maneuvers or any kind of action. Strike craft do ovals, don't even try to dodge fire (cause its not ballistic, so its not able to be dodged anyway) and still care more about maintaining formation than fighting the enemy. Everything responds so slowly and moves so slowly (except the mothership, which is the fastest ship in the fleet somehow) that it is impossible to apply any tactics. There is no hyperspace mechanic anymore to make up for it. You're sitting there hitting timer abilities that just make your ships better until one blob kills the other blob. Its braindead gameplay, and the rosters of available units are too small to make up for it. Tech is linear, so the overall progression of each match stays the same. There is no room for different builds. You tech up and try to out-rock-paper-scissors your opponent before the resources run out on the minuscule maps.

From a Homeworld standpoint, nobody asked for this. Is Homeworld a game where you expect hyperspace wizards? Hopefully for your own sake you answered yes. Beyond that midichlorian-level of lore shredding, it amounts to a child's fanfiction. Imogen accidentally falls into solutions for their problems, or just straight up knows what to do at all times. The Incarnate Queen forgets that she opens portals that spit hellfire enough to destroy planets, and lets you walk right up to her. She throws a temper tantrum upon losing, told to us through horribly amateur cinematics. Only to be forgiven for her killing of millions of people once they realize she's just lonely. The story is so pathetically weak that none of the descriptors in any language can properly describe it. The lore has gone through a mulcher. It contradicts every single game in some way, including BBI's own Deserts of Kharak. People get hung up on the character focus. I don't even care that the narrative style switched. The characters they focused on are just categorically stupid and uninteresting.

This game is a regressive failure at every single possible point of measure, except graphically. The game is a beautiful failure. 20 year old games literally made in garages have deeper mechanics, better stories, and even just more things to play with. Its worse that those 20 year old games are in the same series, and the people involved in making this game couldn't even glance at them to make this remotely fit at all.

Don't buy this one. Go buy the other games in this series and forget this one exists.

Volound, the only English speaking RTS autist whose youtube opinion actually matters will also be posting an analysis of what went wrong soon.

Despite this trainwreck being entertaining on its own, senile devs with no idea of what made the original game special handing over development to incompetent DEI hires who don't know it either, it does leave me hankering for a good space strategy game. I've been eying O.R.B.: Off-World Resource Base since I've already played Homeworld and Cataclysm to death but I doubt it will fully scratch the itch. Always the same when the first iteration nails it and everything following it is an inferior copy. Homeworld did it for the fully 3D space RTS niche, Master of Orion did it for the space 4X, and SMAC did it for planetary colonization 4X. Homeworld wasn't a perfect game, but it got so much right in 1999 that nobody has even come close to it since, 25 years later.

 

[Be Kind Rewind]

Original Intro + Mothership Launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6zDVmsiZZ4
Remastered Intro + Mothership Launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6zDVmsiZZ4

You posted the same link twice, but I'm not complaining, the original game >>>>>> """remaster""".

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

it does leave me hankering for a good space strategy game.

Nebulous: Fleet Command shows some promise.
I just hope there will be functional single player mode at some point.

 

[Baron Tahn]

Now I'm wondering what this Era One game is going to be like. That's what the game made by the HW Complex guys is called right?

 

[DesolationStone]

Who's the fault? Embracer, Gearbox, BBI?

 

[Cyberarmy]

Who's the fault? Embracer, Gearbox, BBI?

 

[catchaser]

I got the main game refunded, but since the season pass that was bundled couldn't be refunded for some reason... i still can play the game. Fine by me, i guess i'll try playing the rougelike mode then

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

 

[ropetight]

it does leave me hankering for a good space strategy game.

Nebulous: Fleet Command shows some promise.
I just hope there will be functional single player mode at some point.

Nebulous will be great game, it already is good; and I also hope that it will have single player campaign and not only skirmish.
But it is more hard SF and intensive than your average player wants - so I guess it is locked into niche.
If devs manage to make it more accessible without watering it down, it would be awesome.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

If devs manage to make it more accessible without watering it down, it would be awesome.

That's a massive if.

 

[JarlFrank]

But it is more hard SF and intensive than your average player wants - so I guess it is locked into niche.
If devs manage to make it more accessible without watering it down, it would be awesome.

Let it remain niche.
Not everything needs to be accessible to plebs.

 

[Alienman]

This is sad. You should always hope your favorite game series remain forgotten.

Or remain incredibly niche.

Edit:
Damn, JarlFrank beat me to it

 

[lightbane]

Jesus Christ, you guys are missing one hell of a disaster.

Reviews are complaining about super invasive data-harvesting EULA, gameplay just being zerg rush at 2 minutes ez gg, devs actively censoring the forums and removing most criticism/denuvo complaints, old fans of the series being bummed, idiot navel gazing story, etc etc. Not sure how much is true but shiiieeet.



View attachment 49581

Hyper invasive data harvesting that makes CPunk look honest, End of Emongelion imagery combined with DEI writing and self-inserted woke writers...
This is the future of gaming.
I wonder what will happen once one of these vultures discover Ground Control's IP in a forgotten drawer.

 

[markec]

Looks like CGI from Lawnmower Man

 

[Joggerino]

Okay, definitely not playing. I don't want to see that in fullscreen.

 

[Tyranicon]

One of the easiest signs to tell if a game studio is utter trash is by their community managers/glorified discord mods. If they can't handle the slightest amount of negativity or criticism and start censoring everything = studio is fucked. It's indicative of the management. Run by incompetent, thin-skinned morons.

I also can't believe I'm saying this, but somehow PR monkeys got even worse at their job.

Anyways, this game is a dumpsterfire and most longtime fans won't be surprised. Anybody who had a clue knew this attempt was doomed. Look at this really cool shit instead:



https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...combining-rts-and-simulation-elements.136816/

Made by just one dude allegedly.

 

[Yaar Podshipnik]

I had Falling Frontier on my wishlist forever. I have great hopes for mechanics, though would be surprised if the dev can create a story as gripping as HW1 was for me. Still, fingers crossed!

 

[Tyranicon]

I had Falling Frontier on my wishlist forever. I have great hopes for mechanics, though would be surprised if the dev can create a story as gripping as HW1 was for me. Still, fingers crossed!

HM1's story was great and an inseparable part of of the game, but at its core it was a really basic revenge/people-in-exile story bolstered by great music, atmosphere, deliberate and muted cutscenes, and voice acting.

So in HM3 they decided to make... cringe evangelion?

 

[Alienman]

Made by just one dude allegedly.

Now to see if it becomes another Manor Lords.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I had Falling Frontier on my wishlist forever. I have great hopes for mechanics, though would be surprised if the dev can create a story as gripping as HW1 was for me. Still, fingers crossed!

HM1's story was great and an inseparable part of of the game, but at its core it was a really basic revenge/people-in-exile story bolstered by great music, atmosphere, deliberate and muted cutscenes, and voice acting.

So in HM3 they decided to make... cringe evangelion?

It takes a PhD to make original stories. (Skip ahead to 43 seconds, couldn't time stamp this from my phone.)

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

Just saw the SkillUp review and since he's somewhat positive about the quality of cutscenes I decided to look them up.

The SkillUp dude was coping hard.

 

[Tyranicon]

Game in a nutshell:

Credit where credit is due, she (and her grandma!) seems to have a banging body. How do you get that from floating in an anime plot all the time?

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Game in a nutshell:

View attachment 49600

Credit where credit is due, she (and her grandma!) seems to have a banging body. How do you get that from floating in an anime plot all the time?