House Atreides favours guerrilla warfare and allies itself with the Freman, natives of Arrakis, while House Harkonnen uses its wealth to field armies of huge battle tanks. These are then spent on building units to aid you in your conquest, and “he who controls the spice controls the universe”.Įach of the houses has a distinct personality which is reflected by the units under their command. Harvesting spice from the sand dunes allows it to be refined and converted into credits.

Although Herzog Zwei predated it by several years, Dune II set a benchmark for RTS games that would become the norm for decades.Īs a player you get to choose one of three houses and battle for control of the planet Arrakis, the only place in the universe where the mystical substance called spice is to be found. Noticeably different from the adventure-strategy format of rival game Dune, (also released by publisher Virgin Games in the same year), Westwood’s Dune II is widely considered the father of real-time strategy games.

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