Home World 3 review

I need to know

Why? The third game in the legendary space RTS series.
Release date May 13, 2024
We are waiting for payment £50/$60
Developer Blackbird Interactive
Publisher Gearbox Publishing
Date reviewed RTX 4090, Intel i9-13900k, 32 GB RAM
Steam Deck Playable
Connection Official site

As Homeworld 3’s sleek, indomitable mothership prepares to fly into the unknown, accompanied by radio chatter and moody music, it feels like a homecoming. For newcomers, this is a striking scene; For experienced players, it brings to mind the original mothership preparing to leave Kharak, the beginning of one of the best strategy games ever created. It’s enough to make anyone tingle.

Homeworld 3 wants to remind you a lot of its legacy, especially in the scenario. Following the events of Homeworld 2, the mothership’s navigator, Karan S’jet, was sent on a mission to deal with an impending crisis, but never returned. 20 years later his protégé Imogen S’jet follows in his footsteps, having to once again set out on her own, without support, with a new mothership and a new fleet.

But where the original Homeworld often took a minimalist approach from its narrative to its map design, Homeworld 3 is relatively denser, with maps full of debris and terrain and a story that constantly asks you to take a break from the fun stuff. Can listen to boring conversations in obnoxious cutscenes that look like they were ripped from a bad 90s sci-fi game. The plot is mostly forgettable nonsense, and I must admit I checked it out pretty quickly. But the good news is that the missions are largely excellent.

Each of these puts the fleet in new danger, and some real disasters ensue. You will hide from enemies in the nebulae; commandeering huge, monolithic space complexes; establish elaborate blockades using turrets and mines to create corridors of death; and the sabotage of factories in kamikaze strikes. I even enjoyed the return of another ‘avoid asteroids’ slogan because nostalgia poisoned my brain.

The original Homeworld was truly revolutionary thanks to its 3D battles, but Homeworld 3 makes you appreciate cosmic conflicts much more thanks to its space terrain. Each mission is filled with screen-filling structures and asteroids that create defensible positions, choke points, and ambush points. How you approach a fight is much more important because you have maps that give you both advantages and limitations while still having complete freedom of action.

space jam

For example, in a later mission, I had to take out three battle cruisers (the strongest kids in the game) at the other end of the map. They were in a powerful position, suspended atop a huge factory surrounded by towers. Going in head-on or coming from above would give them plenty of time to beat me and destroy most of my close range ships. But this high position also gave me an opportunity.

I sent my fleet low, out of reach of enemy defenses, towards the bottom of the structure. Then, as the bulk of my fleet slowly moved up, I sent the cape bombers ahead of them (each ship has a special ability that you can activate once researched), they quickly managed to destroy several turrets. So when my frigates and destroyers showed up, they were able to squeeze in on the battlecruisers without being distracted. It forces you to experiment and figure out a plan of attack that’s more than just wondering which ships to bring into battle.

The complexity of the maps makes it difficult to control your fleet, but I found the default control scheme to be mostly up to the task of managing these challenging 3D battles. It’s easy to jump between huge maps and focus on specific ships and groups; The attack movement order means you can constantly keep up the aggression, and being able to choose groups of enemies to attack (allowing the AI ​​to prioritize targets) gives you leeway. Pay attention to the big picture. Thanks to a pair of preset control schemes and the option to rewire almost anything, you’ll be able to find your sweet spot after a little tinkering.

In some ways, terrain actually makes navigating space easier. Landmarks help you understand the scale of maps much better than infinite space, and I often found myself using the terrain when determining objectives and waypoints. However, there are still some quirks, such as ships deciding to navigate below a platform rather than above it, or large groups dispersing when you send them to a particular location instead of all trying to reach it. as close as possible to the location you marked. Pathfinding can sometimes be quite risky and requires creating a chain of waypoints if you want to keep your fleet’s movements precise.

Performance analysis

During my journey through space, I’ve had a smooth experience where only the most massive battles make a huge difference, but I also have a beast of a rig. Our Hardware Writer Nick Evenson has a full performance analysis, but here’s the quick summary:

“Homeworld 3 is mostly CPU-limited, but you’ll still need a good graphics card if you want to play the game at 2160p with maximum quality settings. Whatever hardware you have, don’t expect high frame rates, even high-end stuff in Heavy battles will eventually hit 60fps.” will fall below.”

I have to admit, without all this hardware, I would have liked some maps set deep in space. Full 3D movement already gives you plenty to mess with, and I miss the purity of its predecessors’ approach to space combat. Sometimes all it takes is a group of ships dancing around each other and trying to deliver a killing blow. That’s the magic of Homeworld – that elegant balance of complexity and simplicity – and sometimes it can feel like Homeworld 3 is trying too hard.

While each mission has its own flavor, unique objectives, and a new layout, your fleet always remains. When you start a mission, everything you created in the previous mission comes with you. If you did absolutely poorly on the last one, you’ll have a better start on the next one. But the pace of the missions means you usually still have time to prepare before things get heated. What’s disappointing, however, is that the player has no control over when a mission ends. Only one mission lets you choose the time to press the hyperspace button and leave. The rest throw you onto the next one as soon as you complete the main objective. This means you don’t have time to scavenge any remaining salvage supplies or resources or replace the ships you lost in the last battle.

And I needed some time to replenish my powers, because Wow, things are booming in Homeworld 3. Despite the HP boost BBI has given ships since the demo, most of them still can’t take much of a beating. Each ship feels like it’s a class below its older counterparts. When you first start fielding capital ships in Homeworld 1, they feel like beasts, but in Homeworld 3 they’re more comparable to corvettes and end up requiring a lot more babysitting. Support frigates help alleviate this with their powerful, life-giving beams, but once they’re taken out you’ll be faced with a lot of shipwrecks.

Although fragile, most ships fulfill their assigned roles perfectly, and when you form groups for specific missions and then throw them into kinetic battles against stunning star backdrops, it’s a joy to watch them operate. Using the formation system to turn groups of torpedo frigates into spheres of death gives a special pleasure. Likewise, it’s like watching a hulking battlecruiser slowly slide in between the enemy’s multi-beam frigates and your precious close-range ion frigates, taking most of the heat and shrugging off laser attack after laser attack—a giant piece of mobile cover bristling with turrets.

The campaign took me around 15 hours to finish, making it a bit more lively than its predecessors. But I doubt I’ll play again. Despite the quality of the missions, the heavily scripted AI means a second outing won’t offer much. Even when the AI ​​is aggressive, it never feels reactive, instead it feels like it’s just following a program. Sure it can stand up to a challenge, but only when the mission demands it, giving your enemy some significant advantages, but once you figure out the scenario, it can’t handle any surprises. This also means that he has no idea what to do when you don’t play him the way he should.

infinity war

Conflicts spice things up even more, with the AI ​​behaving more like a human player. While simple goals like destroying the mothership or destroying all enemy ships aren’t as exciting as the campaign’s, the sandbox nature of these engagements showcases the best of Homeworld. And of course, you can play as the bad guys, beating up the Hiigarans with your corvette-focused Incarnate fleet, especially its diverse list of ships that includes a dedicated capture corvette. This bad guy can pin down enemy ships and add them to your fleet, and while Hiigarans have this ability as well, they have to use solid but slow resource controllers for these heists, which means distracting them from the critical task of building your economy. Overall, the cast feels balanced, although not boring and symmetrical.

Then there’s the new mode: War Games. This… is not my cup of Earl Grey. It’s the RTS version of roguelikes, where each run only gives you a certain amount of ship equipment (leveling up unlocks more), which can be strengthened with artifacts you earn along the way. You’re bombarded by enemy attacks in every mission, and the longer you spend playing, the more intense they become. It punishes you for taking up your time. The AI ​​isn’t any more reactive than the campaign’s, but it’s certainly more relentless and exhausting.

Although it ostensibly lets you play solo, there’s no point in it without a co-op buddy. But even with a copilot in reserve, I don’t see the appeal. You face fewer options, less time, and more threats. None of this really plays to Homeworld 3’s strengths, and I’d rather dive into a co-op comp in skirmish mode. It’s good that the BBI has tried something new – it shouldn’t be entirely reliant on the past – but I’m afraid that’s not the point.

Homeworld was such a formative game for me that it’s hard to imagine anything could dislodge it. But Homeworld 3 shakes it up. Too much. Watching dogfights in the canyons of a frozen moon or bombers fortifying the walls of an industrial complex – praying some of them survive the turret fire – is undeniably thrilling stuff. But every time I had to sit through another terrible cutscene, babysit my capital ships, or do another War Games series, the wobbling ended. So this isn’t the Homeworld 3 I always dreamed of, but there are times when it comes pretty close to it.