Homeworld 3 review: "Brings the series safely into the modern era"

GamesRadar+ VerdictHomeworld’s operatic space combat is as engrossing as ever in its third outing, although a weaker story and a slightly odd cover system dim the shine of its star.Pros+Spectacular RTS action+Diverse campaign missions+Interesting roguelike modeCons-Disappointing story-‘Space terrain’ concept a mixed blessing-A lot of bugs GamesRadar+ Verdict GamesRadar+ Verdict Homeworld’s operatic space combat is as engrossing as ever in its third outing, although a weaker story and a slightly odd cover system dim the shine of its star. Homeworld’s operatic space combat is as engrossing as ever in its third outing, although a weaker story and a slightly odd cover system dim the shine of its star. Pros+Spectacular RTS action+Diverse campaign missions+Interesting roguelike mode Spectacular RTS action Diverse campaign missions Interesting roguelike mode Cons-Disappointing story-‘Space terrain’ concept a mixed blessing-A lot of bugs Disappointing story ‘Space terrain’ concept a mixed blessing A lot of bugs Why you can trust GamesRadar+Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you.Find out more about our reviews policy. Why you can trust GamesRadar+Our experts review games, movies and tech over countless hours, so you can choose the best for you.Find out more about our reviews policy. Homeworld may have launched RTS gaming into 3D space, but even amid the infinite void, it still found a wall to put your back against. Relic’s 1999 classic was a near-perfect blend of spectacle and stress, lending you control of astonishing firepower while constantly making you feel like you were one wrong move away from annihilation. 25 years on, Homeworld 3 can muster that same mixture of awe and anxiety, but it’s a little less consistent in its execution. When all engines are firing, Blackbird Interactive’s sequel is astonishing to behold, while its campaign can be every bit as imaginative and intense as Relic’s original work. But the missions take a while to warm up, and they do so at the exact moment the story starts to go cold. Meanwhile, Homeworld 3’s big idea, to make that metaphorical wall you’re up against a literal one, is only intermittently successful. Fleet on the ground (Image credit: Gearbox Publishing) The core of Homeworld 3 is the same as it ever was, its balletic, elegiac space battles emanating from the mobile hub of your Mothership. This bladelike vessel is both the HQ you must protect and the factory floor of your war machine. From here, you build dozens of smaller spaceships that range from single-person fighters to kilometer-long battlecruisers, and direct them to fight enemy fleets across tightly crafted missions. In previous games, these battles took place in (mostly) empty space. But in Homeworld 3, space has terrain now. Every mission or match takes place around vast megastructures and landscapes, such as colossal space derelicts, destroyed hyperspace gateways, and free-floating ice shelfs. These, uh, space-scapes provide a dramatic backdrop to the action. But they play a direct role in the game too. At a basic level, the presence of terrain makes moving your fleet around slightly easier. Instead of having to precisely input the 3D coordinates of a move order using Homeworld’s patented movement disc, you can now often just right click on a bit of terrain like you would in a standard RTS (though the movement disc remains for movements across empty space. (Image credit: Gearbox Publishing) It’s a great idea in theory. But it’s more incidental in practice. Opportunities to use cover and tunnels are relatively scarce. In the campaign, you might take advantage of them occasionally during the early parts of a mission, but the larger your fleet becomes (both in number and ship-size) the less practical cover becomes. It doesn’t help that, compared to other RTS' that feature cover – like Company of Heroes – the benefits it provides in Homeworld 3 are not immediately obvious. The game tells you that units in a neutral stance will “try to use cover as much as possible”, but this doesn’t help you interpret when cover is being effective and when it isn’t. It lacks the clarity of CoH’s “soldiers placed behind this big stone wall will be protected from gunfire unless flanked or blown to smithereens”. The biggest problem with these megastructures, however, is they make your units seem smaller than in previous Homeworld games. Representing scale has historically been an issue for the series – your interceptors have always looked a bit like flies swarming around a cow’s backside during battle. But your Mothership at least seemed massive, helping you understand how “big” other ships were. Now, though, even your Mothership frequently appears tiny compared to the massive structures that constantly surround you. To properly sell the fantasy, Homeworld 3 needs levels which properly reflect the scale of the ships versus the vastness of the world. Ion the prize (Image credit: Gearbox Publishing) Another annoying element is that selecting a manufacturing unit on the map, like a Carrier or your Mothership, doesn’t automatically switch to their build menu. You have to do that separately in the drop-down menu in the top right corner, meaning you can easily end up building all your reinforcements on the completely wrong side of the map. When everything comes together, though, the rewards can be enormous. Even with the diminished scale, Homeworld 3 canpop offin tremendously satisfying fashion. Skirmishes between the smallest craft are impressive, as your interceptors' gatling guns spit glowing streams of projectiles at their foes. But this pales in comparison to a squad of Ion Cannon Frigates firing white hot beams of death across several kilometers of space, or a group of Destroyers launching a constellation of torpedoes into the side of a battlecruiser until it bursts in an ice-blue explosion. Homeworld 3 sounds incredible too, from the naturalistic radio chatter that suddenly cuts off when the ship in question puffs out of existence, to Paul Ruskay’s magnificently eerie score, which lives up every bit to his earlier work in the series. Campaign supernova (Image credit: Gearbox Publishing) Visually and audibly, Homeworld 3 is a space game with vision. The same can’t quite be said for its narrative, despite showing some early promise. Set 20 years after the events of Homeworld 2, the campaign’s story centers around Imogen S’jet, descendent and disciple of the original games' protagonist Karan S’jet. Karan and her ship – the Khar-Sajuuk has been missing for most of this time, having departed to investigate an anomaly at the edge of space. When that anomaly starts causing massive destruction across several remote worlds, Imogen is tasked with following in Karan’s footsteps, and discovering the truth behind this bizarre interstellar enigma. The first half of the story is enjoyable, mysterious, and convincingly written. It starts with the traditional mission of putting your new Mothership through its paces, with coolly uttered technical jargon flowing between your subordinates as you boot up the ship’s various systems. When all’s ship-shape, you then inch your way toward Karan’s last known location, contending with raiders, sabotage, and asteroid fields as you do so. Yet while Homeworld 3’s story may stumble, the individual mission scenarios are more consistently compelling. Highlights include a vertical assault on a massive fortified shipyard, a spectacular siege defense where you hold off an army of vessels spilling out of an interstellar gate, and a ‘stealth’ mission where you need to sneak the Mothership through an icy ravine while using smaller ships to take out overhead patrols. (Image credit: Gearbox Publishing) The campaign is generally adept at twisting Homeworld’s mechanics in interesting ways, and stretching your capacity to use the resources at your disposal. It is a slightly shorter campaign than previous Homeworld games, with a difficulty level leaning a little too heavily toward the easy side. But the final two Homeworld 3 missions are both significantly longer and harder than those that come before them, with both seriously challenging your logistics as you take on scores of enemies on multiple fronts. It’s also worth noting that Homeworld 3 is pretty performance intensive, and while my experience was mostly smooth, some larger battles in the game’s latter half slowed my game to a crawl. Be my wingman (Image credit: Gearbox Publishing) Outside of the campaign, Homeworld 3 features the usual offering of multiplayer and skirmish modes, which let you battle against one or several opponents on maps of varying size. But it also adds a brand new mode called ‘War Games’, which aims to turn Homeworld into a rogue-like. After picking a specific fleet type, War Games launches you into a succession of increasingly difficult maps, which push you to complete rapid-fire objectives while also collecting “artifacts”, each of which lets you pick from three potential upgrades to your ships. Each War Game culminates in a battle against a capital ship, with rewards from your run letting you purchase more powerful fleet-types. Essentially, it’s a randomly generated mini-campaign that can be completed in around an hour. It’s a fun complement to the main campaign, with its fast pace doubling down on the frantic plate-spinning of the main campaign. Yet while War Games can be played solo, it feels geared toward cooperative play, as with one player you lose much of the scale associated with Homeworld’s space battles. It’s still good for a quick blast of Homeworld action, but if you want a full-fat Homeworld 3 battle without the aid of friends, you’re better off with the more traditional skirmish or multiplayer. Homeworld 3 doesn’t represent a major step forward for the series, but it does bring the series safely into the modern era. Its campaign could be bigger, its story better, its controls a little more refined. But most of what it does it does well, and when its combat engine really cranks the handle it is utterly sublime. I’d love to see Blackbird do more with the series, take the fundamentals they’ve rebuilt here and truly push the boundaries of the series. But if this proves to be Homeworld’s final foray into the final frontier, then it goes out with more of a bang than a whimper. 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Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien” 5Nightbitch review: “Amy Adams' disappointing dark comedy is all bark and no bite” 5Nightbitch review: “Amy Adams' disappointing dark comedy is all bark and no bite” 5 Nightbitch review: “Amy Adams' disappointing dark comedy is all bark and no bite” 1Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special review: “Ncuti Gatwa is as magnetic as ever in this delightful festive treat” 1Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special review: “Ncuti Gatwa is as magnetic as ever in this delightful festive treat” 1 Doctor Who 2024 Christmas special review: “Ncuti Gatwa is as magnetic as ever in this delightful festive treat” 2Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses” 2Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses” 2 Secret Level review: “An uneven experience with serious highlights that ultimately make up for the misses” 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