Homeworld 3 review: a lavish and often gripping RTS that is overly reliant on playing the hits
Spacefaring RTS Homeworld 3 is good sci-fi. Monolithic structures scorched with plasma burns. Sleek spacecraft. Alien sunrises. Itās also good sci-fi because its characters converse through reams of inscrutable but cool-sounding space science, and at no point does a grinning quipster tell a scientist: āWhoa there, professor. Why donāt you try saying that again… but in English!ā Basically, if your wishlist for Homeworld 3 has tone and atmosphere at the top, rest easy. At no point did I get the sense that Blackbird ever took making the first proper Homeworld in eight years lightly.
Homeworld 3 is also, on balance, a good time. I say āon balanceā because it took me about two-thirds of the 13-mission campaign to start comfortably navigating the controls, by which time other, more fundamental issues started to crop up. Unit disposability and clickmania eventually takes over from the measured tactical play these wonderful ships deserve. Also, the ānormalā campaign is mostly a glorified tutorial, which means some story beats didnāt hit as hard. (āThe mothership canāt take another hit like that!ā command screams, as an asteroid knocks off roughly 3% of my total health.)
Through all this, though, Homeworld 3 never failed to keep me pacified with dramatic, lengthy cutscenes, incredible vistas, gripping moments, and thoughtful details. It all left me with a solid appreciation that didnāt quite translate to a rip-roaring videogame time, but Iāll get into all that in a bit.
The game begins as scientist Imogen SāJet is preparing to enter the Hiigaran mothership, Khar-Kushan, as its navigator. This is a process where sheāll effectively become one with the enormous vessel, both physically and through a psychic link to the entire fleet. A Bad Space Happening known as āThe Anomalyā is spreading, disrupting gate travel and destroying ships. Now, previous Homeworld navigator Karan SāJet has gone missing. Well, donāt just sit there like a 2D chump! Get out there and command some ships to move around in 3D space and find out whatās happening.
Dogfights are spectacular, but tactics can give way to reaction speed. | Image credit: Blackbird Interactive/Rock Paper Shotgun
Itās this 3D movement that, alongside your fleet of units carrying over between missions, differentiated the series from its contemporaries back in ā99 when the first game released. Asteroid coming your way? A foolish flat-plane dwelling Warcraft orc would have to work-work on their headbutting skills, but you can just swoop underneath. Outnumbered in a dogfight? Ambush the fleet from above to get at those vulnerable topsides. This extends to formations, too, where command groups can be set to fly and fight as spheres or defensive walls. Later, youāll unlock minelayer frigates, able to lay diamonds or boxes of explosives to secure chokepoints on multiple elevations.
Of the 13 missions, one is a tutorial and introduction, but none of the other twelve fall back on the RTS skirmish staple of defending a base until youāve built up a force, then sallying out to crush the enemy. I actually wouldnāt have minded this at least once, since such missions are a good sandbox to try out different fleet compositions, but I think their absence comes down to providing tension in a series where you donāt actually build a base in any traditional sense. Youāll have up to five resource gatherers and your mothership for unit production, and any sort of defensive perimeter comes down to making sure none of them get blown up. Otherwise, missions usually offer up some twist on point capture, frequently with a big showdown at the end. There are hard limits on both individual ship type and ship classes, like frigates or strike craft. So resource management and high level tactics are often focused on how to effectively split your fleet to cover objectives, defense, and regular assaults so you donāt get overwhelmed.
Remember Beat Saber? I bring it up because itās my go-to example of a control system so recognisable and straightforward that anyone, whether or not theyāve held a controller before, can enjoy themselves with it in about fifteen seconds. Homeworld 3 is whatever the opposite of that is: a control system utterly specific to itself. Itās not unintuitive in the sense of being confusing or superfluous, itās just, well, not intuitive. Understandably so, in some ways, since it must support an unusual set of actions. This isnāt a negative assessment, itās just a new experience that will trip you up for a few hours, maybe longer.
When I did finally get proficient, using the default āmodernā control scheme, it was hard not to lean into the fantasy of flicking levers and and turning dials at the helm of some gargantuan battleship. Homeworld 3 makes you use your mouse and keyboard differently. Itās neat in a āthis is the closest Iāll ever come to owning the Steel Battalion controller without selling a kidneyā way. Itās just not immediately natural. Or, eight-hours-in natural, really. So, thereās your value proposition: you get two campaign playthroughs. One on normal to enjoy the story and learn the controls, one on hard to actually play the game.
Rougelike co-op ‘War Games’ mode lets you pick upgrades between missions. | Image credit: Blackbird Interactive/Rock Paper Shotgun
Is it a bad thing to have a gameās controls constitute part of its challenge, especially if youāre effectively playing a character taking on the terrible psychic weight of controlling an entire fleet of unbelievably advanced ships? That asteroid field, for example, would be even less of an issue if navigation was so user-friendly it wasnāt even a consideration. Something to ponder, maybe, while you’re grappling with the often useless āclick on empty space to bring up a 3D radial thingā because āempty spaceā is hard to find in a pinch due to all the background terrain. The āmovement planeā grid, which gives you a flat adjustable surface to vector movement across, is often the only reliable option.
I wonāt reduce the tonal pros and usability cons of these controls to a flat āneutralā. Each represents something notable. Controls all learnt, though, Iām not convinced thereās all that much depth in combat, or enough depth so tactical decisions seem like a priority over reaction speed. Maybe Iām asking too much here. RTS combat more or less always orbits some form of rock, paper, scissors, and Homeworld 3 has more incentive than most to play the hits. But the game offers such a convincing and absorbing simulation elsewhere that it primes you for a similar level of involvement where plasma meets hull. Yet I got through normal difficulty with the same tactics I developed for Warcraft 2 when I was ten: overwhelm with a big ball of units, and if youāre up against something particularly nasty, focus fire it down. Hard difficulty feels more substantial, as other mission objectives become more of a challenge with deadlier foe compositions.
There is some nuance to the clicking. Queuing the movement vectors for bombing runs is demanding in the heat of battle, and satisfying when pulled off. Each ship class has a hotkey ability that can transform an engagement when timed correctly, and arranging multiple command groups in different formations can be hugely powerful. I think a big issue here is that anything smaller than frigate class tends to start dropping like space flies a few seconds after starting a dogfight, which makes complicated maneuvers feel a bit pointless. Early on, when you only have a few ships available, you fight a frigate with tiny strike craft, and youāre told the armour on the back is weaker. You micromanage a few attack runs, therefore, and feel like a space genius. But things soon get far too hectic for this to be realistic unless you want to be paused all the time – and since pause isnāt available in roguelike co-operative Wargames or PVP modes, I got the sense itās just a concession for the campaign. Relying on it feels like a crutch.
You’ll want to take any opportunity to zoom right in to individual ship’s views of the action. | Image credit: Blackbird Interactive/Rock Paper Shotgun
Another issue with āplaying the hitsā is that it passes up the opportunity to meaningfully evolve the things that made previous Homeworlds special. Take that contiguous fleet: why not develop your relationship with them further through things like experience levels and promotions? Iāll get to this in a moment, but the plot here is so focused on a few characters to the detriment of the Hiigarans as a people that your little pilots just end up feeling disposable. Thereās an early scene where Imogen first realises she can feel the pain of every pilot in the fleet that dies in battle. Iād love to feel that too, but Iām having trouble summoning up empathy for any of the dozens of identical recon ships. A bit more survivability on both sides so dogfights lasted longer would make individual losses feel a lot more consequential. Iād love to tell your family what happened, firstname bunchahullpoints, but Iām afraid I have no idea how you died.
Zoom out, though, and Homeworld 3ās tone and atmospheric mix of somber duty and awed wonder is quite the special thing. Sci-fi storytelling always has a bit of a challenge in avoiding the cerebral becoming sterile. The Homeworld setting has a little of the space feudalism and techno-spirituality of Battletech, but it also strikes me as too interested in the how of it all, the technology, to fully slip into science fantasy. That intangible loneliness is still there though. That Homeworld feeling of being the head of a fleet of hundreds of vessels of unfathomable size, but still being very small and very alone in a vast unknowable space. As one cutscene captures masterfully, it evokes the more terrestrial wonder of deep ocean exploration.
The actual plot, while frequently gripping, triumphant, and tense, is missing something: Homeworld told the story of an entire people. This tells the story of, like, four people. Theyāre a likable bunch, well acted, but theyāre cast in whatās ultimately a fairly rote heroes vs. villains plot. Iād have liked to play a story less character-driven, more about the āwhatā and āwhyā than the few heroic āwhoā. This would have allowed space for little story snapshots of some individual pilots, and for tragedy and death and real stakes. Here, you meet the main characters at the beginning, and none of them really go through any sort of growth. It lacks the somber poetry I associate with the series.
Imgogen S’Jet is a strong protaganist, but the story’s focus on just a few characters weakens it. | Image credit: Blackbird Interactive/Rock Paper Shotgun
This isnāt to say I disliked everything about your tiny pilots. I’m a fan of how mid-mission chatter is handled, for one. Iām told Deserts of Kharak did this too, but Homeworld 3 gives you little pockets of conversation from your ships, updating you on how their thrusters are performing or other such minutiae. Some of these lines are designed to give you vital information during battle, such as if you set command groups, and one of them starts losing ships, youāll get a āgroup 4 is in troubleā voice line. It gets pretty extensive. Although I could do without being told āgroup 1 is taking heavy lossesā when really all theyāve lost is two of the cheapest ships. The dramatic advisor that cried wolf, and all that.
Homeworld 3 leaves me in the strange position where I want to play more of it, but Iāve basically had my fill of the campaign, Iāve got no interest in PvP, and War Games mode is silly difficult in single player. Itās like having a set of really nice brushes but no canvas, so to speak. I guess this is probably where mods come in – the game is supposed to be launching with built in support and tools on day one. I get that “Itāll be great with mods” doesnāt come across as a ringing endorsement, but to reiterate: Homeworld 3 is a pretty good time in a very good sci-fi setting. I canāt recommend it wholeheartedly, but Iām also hoping it finds enough of an audience that it paves the way for a more experimental sequel or expansion in the future – and if you’ve been longing for 21 years for a followup to Homeworld 2, I canāt see you being too disappointed.
This review is based on a review build of the game provided by the developer.
Genial