Homeworld Remastered Collection, the bundle which contains prettier versions of cult-classic RTS' Homeworld and Homeworld 2, is currently free to keep from the Epic Games Store. We thought it was a corker of a collection when it first released eight years ago, so strategy-heads who like to build space fleets may want to get on this one.
]]>Let's not muck about here. Homeworld is essentially just Battlestar Galactica, if it were a real-time strategy game that jumped through a hyperspace gate exclusively onto PC. There's still much more to Relic Entertainment's sci-fi take on the plot of exiles returning home, though. When Homeworld's Kushan civilisation set out on their journey to the lost planet of Hiigara in the space-year of 1999, the game was doing something very unique compared with most other RTS games on the market.
]]>Video games are great at transporting us to different worlds, but none capture that feeling quite so perfectly as intergalactic space games - and 2023 looks set to be one of the biggest years for space games yet, with the launch of Starfield, Homeworld 3 and more all on the horizon. But what games have gone before them and staked their claim already on the dusty planet surface known as 'Best Space Games'? We reveal all below, with our carefully curated list of all the best space games you can play on PC right now. Whether you're a budding space cruiser captain, a wannabe space conqueror or an intrepid space-faring explorer, there's a space game for you.
]]>Few games have aged as gracefully as Homeworld. Even without modern enhancements, Relic's 1999 space opera RTS is still a looker, carried by sharp ship designs, low-fi but evocative audio and some gorgeous nebula backdrops.
That's not to say there isn't room for improvement; between Gearbox's Homeworld Remastered Collection and a fresh wave of interest in the upcoming sequel, modders have been returning to their old stomping grounds. While the engines of space-war haven't yet hit fever pitch, let's take a peek at what modders have done so far with the remaster.
]]>Oh, to be a Mac owner. Not that we've got it great on PC - my rig's been bricking it since last week's Windows update, after all - but it's been a long time since a big OS update killed half of my game library. Desktop gaming always gets around to leaving a generation behind, though. 32-bit applications have been on the chopping block for a few years - and with this month's "Catalina" update, Apple are making the first move towards killing them off for good.
]]>Not only does Humble currently have its second 'Very Positive' bundle going on right now, the site is now listing a separate sale, appropriately titled the 'Very Positive Sale'. As with the bundle, the sale features a bunch of games all with 'Very Positive' or higher ratings on Steam right now, with discounts of up to 80%.
Before you ask, yes, that means you can get Dream Daddy for £9.89 / $13.49. Also featured are things like lovely retro Metroid-like Axiom Verge, perpetual Early Access feudal RPG Kenshi, the Homeworld Remastered Collection, Sniper Elite 4 and more.
We covered the strange adventure possible in Kenshi quite recently. In a year that gave us Divinity: Original Sin 2's hungry elves and face-stealing undead, it's astonishing to realise that Kenshi has weirder cannibalistic possibilities than Larian's latest masterpiece.
]]>Alec was jolly pleased with the Homeworld Remastered Collection [official site], revisiting Relic's spaceship real-time strategy classics after Gearbox spruced them up. Now they've even fancier, as the promised mega-patch has arrived with everything from improved fleet formations to proper ballistic weapons.
The Collection has also now arrived on GOG, for those who prefer their games DRM-free, with a hefty discount t'boot.
]]>After a rather long drought, Homeworld: Remastered Collection [official site] will be getting a sizeable update that will introduce sweeping changes to fleet formations while also adding ballistics to projectile weapons. Oh, and bug fixes, lots of 'em. According to a report by Fists of Heaven, the update has been in the works for more than six months and is the core focus of a small team within Gearbox Software. As of yet, no official release date has been announced.
]]>Anyone still playing Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak [official site], our first new Homeworld game in a hundred million years? It may have ditched the spaceships, but it did well at retaining the langorous pace and titanic scale. I had a good time, but I can't pretend I've been back to it since release. Question is whether the first round of DLC is likely to pull distractable quitters like me back in.
]]>Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak [official site] is a prequel to the legendary Homeworld space real-time strategy games, but this time - heresy! - set on land, as the Kushan race battle angry clans to reclaim ancient technologies found on the sandy planet they currently call home. While some of its developers (including studio boss and former Relic art lead Rob Cunningham) worked on the original games, this first began life as the unrelated 'Hardware: Shipbreakers', before morphing into the free to play multiplayer 'Homeworld: Shipbreakers' and then finally to the traditionally-sold, singleplayer and multiplayer package it is now. Deserts of Kharak has some bloody big boots to fill - can it possibly manage it?
]]>Oh, blimey. Suddenly there's a new Homeworld game right around the corner. Confusingly it's not set in space, but it's definitely following the same visual design cues nonetheless. It's also now a prequel to the events of the spaceship RTSes we know and love, and is developed by Blackbird Interactive, an outfit founded by various veterans of said original spaceship RTSes. I.e. space or not, sit up and pay attention to this.
Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak is released very early next year, and there's footage below.
]]>Disclaimer: I played Relic's space strategy game Homeworld [official site] when it first released (because of course I did), but unlike many of its fans I didn’t continue to live and breathe it, so I am simply not your guy to get into the fine detail of how the new version does or doesn’t differ from the original. I’m sure other places and even our own comments section will provide that stuff, but this piece is essentially looking at whether the Homeworld games, newly remastered by Gearbox, still hold up today. I should also note that I’m discussing this as an overall package rather than comparing the two games within it to each other.
Two questions: 1) Is it pretty enough? 2) Is it still any good?
]]>Just before I got hold of some early code for Gearbox's upcoming remastering of unbelievably beloved space RTS Homeworld (which I made some stupidly oversized and stupidly pretty screenshots and video of yesterday), I had a chat with the studio's Chief Creative Officer Brian Martell, plus Community Manager Chris Faylor about the new version of Relic's game. Why do this rather than make their own space RTS? How was melding Homeworld 1 and Homeworld 2's multipalyer going to work? What about mod support, past and future? And did they feel having something as respected as Homeworld in their stable would help with Gearbox's... chequered reputation?
]]>They should have sent - hey, no, don't interrupt me with your obvious, tired pop culture quote. I was going to say they should have sent someone with a triple SLI setup and a 4K monitor. Instead they sent me, with a single graphics card and a 1440p monitor. Even so, I was able to get a preview build of the Homeworld Collection Remastered [official site] running at a preposterous beyond-4K 5120x2880 resolution, via the dynamic super resolution stuff in drivers*. Take a below. It is... well, yeah, maybe I do need that poet after all.
]]>It's only three weeks until we can get lost in space again ourselves, but in the meantime your eyeballs will thank for pointing them at this big chunk of 1080p footage from Gearbox's upcoming remastering of cult classic spaceship RTS Homeworld. Whereas other recent remasterings - Grim Fandango and Indigo Prophecy - focused on making the game less archaic, this looks like it's really going for it. For instance, where once the mothership's textures took up a lowly 100k, now they're a meaty 10Mb.
Can't speak yet for how the game feels, but the results of all this fiddling are spectacularly pretty. Take a look.
]]>February 25th. That's it. That's the day when Gearbox will release the Homeworld Remastered Collection with its two made-over, fancied-up re-releases of Relic's wonderful spaceborne real-time strategy games. After a long but comfortable silence, Gearbox this weekend announced a release date and, gosh oh golly, a trailer with a look at its new look. It is pretty. I'd say it looks as good as I remember Homeworld looking in the first place, which means the Remasters impressively can equal the sludgy haze of nostalgia, memory, and imagination.
]]>We learned last year that Gearbox were planning to re-release the enormously loved Homeworld games. Having plucked the license from the THQ jumble sale, apparently because their Chief Creative Officer Brian Martel has maximum love for the series, they made clear their intentions to release an HD version of the first two games. They're upping their terminology now, from "HD" to "Remastered".
]]>Polygon are reporting that Gearbox have announced their intention to release HD versions of Homeworld 1 & 2 for PC. We already knew this was a possibility, of course, with their having acquired the license during the IP stripping of THQ earlier this year. No date on in yet, but my bet is early in 2014, to coincide with the next International Homeworld Day. That's on everyone else's calendar too, right?
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