No, this is not an April Fool's joke, a new game in the series has indeed been announced, Homeworld: Vast Reaches, a game by the FarBridge team commissioned by Gearbox. And such an abbreviation - HWVR - is no coincidence: it is indeed a game created for the VR headset, unfortunately. Or not.
Content
- The Sources
- Change Log
- Graphics
- GUI
- Units
- Music
- Plot
- First Play
- My Conclusions
- Links
The Sources
- HW1 - Homeworld 1, manual, game
- HWC - Homeworld Cataclysm/Emergence, manual, game
- HWCO - Homeworld Cataclysm, outtakes
- HWWOS - HW1 and HWC ship descriptions, well of souls
- HW2 - Homeworld 2, manual, game
- HW2PR - Homeworld 2, Prima Official eGuide
- HWDOK - Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak, Expedition Guide, game
- HWR - Homeworld: Revelations RPG
- HWRS - Homeworld: Revelations RPG Story Seeds
- HWM - Homeworld: Mobile, homeworldsource.net
- HW3 - Homeworld 3
- HWDST - Homeworld Dust Wars drafts
- HWVR - Homeworld Vast Reaches press-release and stuff
Change Log
- 04.04.24 - first draft
- 23.04.24 - removed "Meta-only" and added Steam page
- 02.05.24 - added first play of the game
Graphics
The graphics are good. For HW1. Perhaps, comparable to HW2 (2003). Or even, with HWM. Why is that? I'm not sure.
Basically, the screenshots show us 2 or 3 planets and the trailer gives us one battle against 3 Vaygr shipyards with a Planet-Is-A-Lava background.
GUI
The choice of color palette here is, of course... They should have asked for a consultation from BBI (HWDOK, HW3) if not from Stratosphere Games (HWM), at least. The GUI looks too much StarTrekish.
Also we can see here that there would be some MOBA-style actions, a red line from HWDOK to HW3, 3 tactical groups and quick special actions.
Units
As you see, there will be Kushans Fleet plus a sudden Defense Force Field Frigate on an old Kushan frigate chassis. There are also two inexplicable ships with some sort of a Star Trek appearance or it's just a bad HW design.
As for the interstellar traders, the Radaa, they were found to have Vaygr and Taiidan (imperialists, probably) technologies: there are Taiidan Destroyer with lance beams, Taiidan frigate of unknown purpose, Vaygr Shipyard, Vaygr Resource Controller, and Vaygr Fighters.
And Strike Craft is grouped in a HW2-style squads.
The movement is weird. How it comes that no descendant can repeat HW1/HW2 movement solidness even with the HW1 engine source code technically being opened to the public?
Music
On the positive side - expect old and new (!) music from Paul Ruskay, the composer of the entire Homeworld series (at least "main" titles).
Plot
From what is known:
Set between the events of Homeworld 1 and Homeworld 2, you take on the role of Tyrra Soban, a new Fleet Command. Guiding you is Karan S’jet, the legendary hero of Homeworld War, as the original Kushan Mothership is pulled from retirement to serve as the flagship of a new fleet. Together Tyrra and Karan face a new threat, the Radaa, duplicitous interstellar traders who want to obtain your hyperspace core and don’t care if they destroy your Homeworld to get it.
A Bold New Chapter in the Homeworld Saga
A gripping new tale that expands the rich lore of Homeworld and centers on the iconic Mothership and its original commander, Karan S’jet, while introducing new Fleet Command, Tyrra Soban.Encounter New Foes
Fight the Radaa, ruthless opportunists who assimilate their enemies and want to add your Mothership and its Hyperspace Core to their fleet.
(c) HWVR press release
What it's about: in HWC, the Mothership was converted into an orbital shipyard:
The Mothership, which once carried our people safely across 35,000 lightyears of uncharted space, is no longer fully operational. Deprived of the conscious direction of Karan Sjet, the Mothership’s engines are set on automatic; She serves as an orbital space station and shipyard. Manned by a skeleton crew of 8,000 engineers, the Mothership provides living quarters for those working in low orbit, and She has given birth to over 30 carrier-class ships since the Hiigaran Landfall.
(c) HWC, p.4, HISTORY OF THE HIIGARAN LANDFALL
Kuun-Lan and Faal-Corum were built at this shipyard...
Karan S'jet in HW1 sacrificed herself for science and her people:
In order to serve as a living command core to the Mothership, one of our people would have to volunteer to be surgically altered so that most of the nerve trunks serving limbs and senses would be patched into ship systems instead. The subject would then have to be embedded permanently in the bridge of the ship. Karan Sjet refused to allow her technology to be used on anyone else.
(c) HW1, Historical Brief, [A9] Karan Sjet Solution
But at the end of HW1, they put the brakes on all this and made a happy ending
And in HW2, she also became the Fleet Command of the "Pride of Hiigara":
She became Fleet Command of the Mothership, and the first Unbound of the Hiigarans, leading her people across the galaxy and to their home. She detached from the ship to walk her new homeworld for some 115 years before the Vaygr War called her once again to meld her mind with a machine.
(c) Homeworld Revelations, Chapter 6
The problem is that such a danger - the destruction of Hiigara, which necessitates to pull the old Mothership from retirement and prematurely return Karan S'jet with the involvement of some intern, devalues her secondary sacrifice in HW2 - it stands out too much from the established timeline. Events of such magnitude are nowhere mentioned or even implied, such as in the case of the fall of the Taiidan Republic under the pressure of the Vaygr (which is then directly confirmed in HWM), and, essentially, it turns out to be a very crude and inappropriate retcon. And how could some no-name traders threaten a faction that clashed with the Taiidan Empire itself?..
The official key events of the HWU timeline
So, all this plot seems like somewhat cheap fan service, almost verbatim repeating the beginning of HW2 (which also somewhat fan-servicely repeated HW1, which is not surprising after the total reboot of Homeworld Dust Wars, cutting off everything unnecessary and getting HW2 from it - and I guess we would get some more of it in HW3 beginning) with the reuse of key moments from the series. Why it was necessary to use them for a new story is unclear: the HW OG galaxy is barely used, apart from it there's the HWM galaxy, and two more are just mentioned. There is a lot of place for localized events, like HWC thing or a new conflict with Tyrra Soban as a Soban Mercenary Fleet Command having Super Carrier Group in the Vaygr Reaches without the need of pulling out Karan S'jet and Kushan Mothership - and that would perfectly explain a low number ships under you command, being as well a mild prequel to HW2/HW3 events.
In the end, they could have just remade the original campaigns, no-one would be against it.
Maybe they will try to explain where the first Mothership gone, or how the dumb Kushans figured out that they are having The Great Hyperspace Core, but this could have been done without such somersaults.
In any case, this will occur between the GSY 9525 (HWC) and GSY 9625 (HW2). Among the other known dates there are few:
- GSY 9550 Hiigarans reveal ancient documents about the true nature of the MS GHC (HW2PR)
- GSY 9586 The last of "Perdition" class Missile Destroyer of original Kushan Fleet is retired (HWM)
- GSY 9595 Fleet Tactical Debates (HW1)
Perhaps, it's around GSY 9580's (AHL 70's), as the first date is a bit too early, and the 3rd is fanonical.
The new enemy, overall, is somewhat a crude alternative to the Beast from HWC, which was also born out of the necessity to use already prepared assets. But there could be some Vaygr and Makaan backstory included. All in all, the game could have been openly called Homeworld Vaygr Reaches. Maybe that was the plan, who knows?..
First Play
Nope. No miracle. It's just bad - from graphics to UI/UX, from the design to plot... Paul Ruskay music should be evacuated out of here, and this ship should be abandoned and forgotten, should be Kharam…
My Conclusions
Well... When Gearbox acquired Homeworld franchise with a promise to develop it, there was a hope for a brighter future for it, and a hope that Aliens Colonial Marines story was just a bad luck. But it seems that the new owner started to abuse HW franchise, having it everywhere and cheap, from pinball game to this.
- Homeworld Remastered Collection
was unfinished, thanks to modders and developers who eventually brought the version up to 2.3
(HW1 -> HW2 script converter didn't always work, making the HW1 campaign more like a mod,
HW1 Classic is based on prerelease Raider's Retreat version making it buggy) - Homeworld Mobile
mobile F2P that took a very long time to get on a rails, and which still can't produce a PC client (however, it even succeeded comparing to others HW's) - Homeworld Deserts of Kharak
a short unmoddable prequel with DLC reskins, plot holes and retcons (but it's beautiful!) - Homeworld Revelations
A tabletop RPG system - can't tell anything about the game system itself - but it felt lacking of a final proofreading (though it was a quite nice lore addition book) - Homeworld Fleet Command
A tabletop wargame with poorly thought-out game element layout, low-quality models, lack of a proper story campaign (!), and rules that are still being corrected to this day - Homeworld 3
A game that was rushed to be released on March 8th, but the demo showed that its UI, UX, graphics and gamepad-style ("strategy-lite") game design weren't ready for release in a month, and then it was moved from Women's Day to Mother's Day...
And, finally, we're here with Homeworld Vast Reaches.
I don't know, maybe it's desperate time requiring desperate acts, and Embracer case have affected the decisions, and with Take Two the things would change - well, these guys have Rockstar GTA and are financing Ken Levin's Judas, you know... And by the way - HWC developer, Barking Dog is now Rockstar Vancouver!
Well, OK, maybe I was a bit harsh here, maybe the gameplay will turn out to be quite good. Some screenshots are tagged with the word "Hercules", and perhaps the FarBridge studio was working on something of their own when they were approached with a lucrative offer to rework it for another franchise. Maybe the IGN journalist is right, and the game will be pretty decent. Maybe even the story will be tolerable. We'll see. Anyway, I don't have VR-set.
But I can imagine a story flip for this one to have it somewhat justified: it could be something of virtual Sobani-Radaa tests - with Radaa being a friendly merchants selling this neuro-simulators simply setting themselves as an enemies (with all the greatest faction ships) not offend anyone else, you know like common military training agenda. Wargames, HW3 style ;).
And this could bring an interesting question - why would any post-Karan Fleet Command need a screen of any size instead of some kind of full-scale Virtual Reality set? And what about making some crippled veterans to become for example, cruiser Unbound full-time if this kind of operation is now quite a regular thing?..
Links
Read More Of Homeworld
- Homeworld: Timeline
- Homeworld: The Stranger Things
- Homeworld: The Stranger Things II
- Homeworld: Cartography
- Homeworld: XenoLanguage
- Homeworld: XenoLanguage II
- Homeworld: Hyperspace Technologies
- Homeworld: Population
- Homeworld: Endless
- Homeworld: Bentusi
- Homeworld: Kadeshi
- Homeworld: The Beast
- Homeworld: Kiithid
- Homeworld: Kiith S'jet
- Homeworld: Kiith LiirHra
- Homeworld: Hiigarans
- Homeworld: Sajuuk-Khar
- Homeworld: Swords of Kharak
- Homeworld: Karan Sjet Ain't Getting Younger
- Homeworld: Baserunners
- Homeworld: Kickstarter
- Homeworld: Taiidani Fleet - The Key to a Victory
- The Pitch. Homeworld2: Emergence
- The Pitch. Homeworld2: Taiidani Mod
- The Pitch. Homeworld2: The Beast Mod
- The Pitch. Homeworld: Kharak Total War
- Gamedesign: Homeworld Series As An Example of RTS Unit Systems
- Games: 3DS RTS
