Spice is life, and it's about to flow in full as Dune: Spice Wars prepares to leave Early Access. Developer Shiro Games and publisher Funcom announced plans to bring Version 1.0 to Steam in September 2023. There's also a release trailer to go along with the news. The new preview shows off more of the real-time warfare and the various means of political sabotage at your disposal.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZJPQ2dRt-8

Dune: Spice Wars originally launched in Early Access on April 26, 2022. The 4X real-time strategy game tasks players with battling for control over Arrakis. Multiple factions—including House Atreides and House Harkonnen—are available along with key characters from Frank Herbert's novel. 

[caption id="attachment_399159" align="alignnone" width="640"] Screenshot via Shiro Games[/caption]

Tremors

In addition to controlling spice resources and pulling off acts of subterfuge to expand, you'll need to watch out for sandworms. Ignoring wormsign is a great way to lose your spice harvesters and troops. The number of games featuring any form of giant worm management or warning system in place is shockingly low. We'll take what we can get and consider it a bonus if a quality RTS happens to be attached. 

The folks behind Dune: Spice Wars previously worked on Northgard, a strategy survival game based on Norse mythology. Northgard launched in 2018 and received its latest major update in April 2023. Like Northgard, players seem mostly positive on Spice Wars so far. Hopefully this sandworm will boast a similarly long post-launch tail. 

If you're looking for more on how this one came together, the devs have been fairly active in showing off concept art and other details.

The post Dune: Spice Wars leaves Early Access this September appeared first on Destructoid.

The scariest person is often in the mirror

During today's PC Gaming Show, Shiro Games dropped a teaser trailer for an incredibly sinister-looking psychological horror, Decarnation, which is currently in development for PC.

While little detail pertaining to the adventure's narrative was revealed, the short montage depicted what seemed to be a young woman who finds her days and nights invaded by her own inner turmoil made flesh. Combining body horror, nightmarish imagery, and the type of horrors that can only be crafted in the human brain.

Check out the nerve-jangling trailer below, along with several other updates coming to other titles in the Shiro Games catalog. Decarnation will launch at some point in 2023.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YewfqKErHvM

The post Decarnation will see your inner demons become your outer demons appeared first on Destructoid.

Fight for spice and sand

The latest video game adaptation of the Dune universe will be playable this month. Real-time strategy game Dune: Spice Wars will launch into early access on Steam on April 26, 2022.

Developer Shiro Games and Funcom announced the news today, alongside another playable faction in the strategy game: the Fremen. If you've seen or read Dune, you're familiar with the Fremen. They're the people who call the harsh desert planet Arrakis home.

Fremen move better across open desert and are less likely to attract sandworms. They'll also be better at allying with the neutral Sietches. Arrakis is home turf for the Fremen, after all, so they'll make for formidable foes against the Harkonnen, Atreides, and Smuggler factions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lFx4wfc8Tc

Shiro Games' Dune: Spice Wars mixes elements of real-time strategy and 4X games. As the different factions vie for control of Arrakis and its much-coveted spice, players can try to establish bases, develop infrastructure, and wage war to win the planet. Or use subterfuge, politics, and diplomacy instead.

Getting a little spicy

This is only one of Funcom's Dune games in the pipeline, as the publisher also has an open-world survival game set in Frank Herbert's Dune universe in development too.

Dune has had a lengthy history in video games, as we combed back over in our retrospective last year. While its adventure game was also notable, Dune: Battle for Arrakis wound up being a landmark game for Westwood Studios. It's easy to say that Dune and the real-time strategy are pretty intertwined.

With the first movie getting a solid reception and more on the way, the door's open for Dune to get a video game resurgence too. Beyond getting some skins in Fortnite, that is.

The battle for Arrakis will kick off again later this month, when Dune: Spice Wars launches into early access on PC via Steam on April 26, 2022.

The post Dune: Spice Wars takes its strategy into early access this month appeared first on Destructoid.