Dune: Spice Wars multiplayer is coming this month
The early access 4X has already become the “most successful release in the history” of indie developer Shiro Games.
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That was quick. Less than two months since 4X strategy gameDune: Spice Warsrolled into early access on Steam, developer Shiro Games is gearing up to add multiplayer, alongside some new features built around player teamwork. Shiro Games offered a quick glimpse of the multiplayer at today’sPC Gaming Show.
Spice Wars' multiplayer mode will support up to four players, going at each other in free-for-all or 2v2 team matches. It’ll also support co-op vs AI factions, which is definitely going to be my preferred way to play. Just me and the homies, ganging up to bully Baron Harkonnen right off the planet.
Alongside the multiplayer update, Shiro will be rolling out “new synergy systems between factions” that it says “will open a vast number of strategies to help you crush your opponents.”
That’s the kind of thing I was hoping to see more of in Spice Warswhen I played it back in April. It’s a promising, breezy real-time 4X, and it’s full of familiar Dune names, like the Atreides and the Fremen and the Harkonnen’s vicious Sardaukar soldiers, but I still felt that Dune: Spice Wars could use more flavor text and more meaningful distinctions between factions. The synergy systems sound like a good start in that direction.
Shiro Games didn’t have an exact date for Spice Wars' multiplayer update, but it’s coming sometime this June.
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Wes has been covering games and hardware for more than 10 years, first at tech sites likeThe WirecutterandTestedbefore joining the PC Gamer team in 2014. Wes plays a little bit of everything, but he’ll always jump at the chance to cover emulation and Japanese games.
When he’s not obsessively optimizing and re-optimizing a tangle of conveyor belts in Satisfactory (it’s really becoming a problem), he’s probably playing a 20-year-old Final Fantasy or some opaque ASCII roguelike. With a focus on writing and editing features, he seeks out personal stories and in-depth histories from the corners of PC gaming and its niche communities. 50% pizza by volume (deep dish, to be specific).
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