Homeworld 3 Review by Homeworld Vet.

[Varathius]

Very Important: I use this 1990s review scale: https://imgur.com/a/W4rc7lT

Like several here, I played all of the Homeworld games, heck, it's what got me into Eve Online back in the day. I got all achievements in the Remaster edition because I love the series. I also played Homeworld: Cataclysm which I actually enjoyed the most, of all the amazing games. Anyway here's the review and some things that baffle me with certain comments. Also, I am going full old-school 90s review here, I hope that is ok for you all?

Graphics: 9/10

I am playing on a 3080 and the graphics are beautiful, I have encountered rarely any performance issue and play on the settings provided with auto-detect. Zero crashes, no lag, game runs absolutely stable on latest Nvidia drivers.

Sound: 7/10

Definitely a bit of a downgrade. There are some beautiful tracks but but some Homeworld 2 tracks got you pumpin in battle and you could enjoy the music. Here, however, you barely notice the music playing at times, beautiful yes but too often monotone-ish/boring borderline.

Gameplay: 6/10 (This, the devs can patch to be a 9/10, it's up to them!)

I am using the classic controls here, but it's what I expected:
- Maps too small, you are thrown right into it all
- Mothership just there to build, no real tactical purpose, secondary abilities I rarely used on hard difficulty, just pointless. The Mothership needs work ! The missile it launches is a joke, shot down easily by PDGs.
- Still too many smaller but somewhat annoying bugs!!! Check bug thread.
- Campaign too short, let's hope for more "extra story related missions by the devs"

Story/Lore: 7/10

Admittedly, I expected a bit more, yet I do not understand the outcry here by so many. Homeworld games were always brief, yet to the point with the story, but based on some comments one might think Homeworld always had a huuuuuuuge story. But yeah, you need to rely on outside of the game reading material to notice that Hiigarans were actually the bad guys since the start and their luck was that Bentusi were too soft-hearted (eventho Hiigarans betrayed them also before HW1, betrayed them in terms of a full-out-surprise attack under false pretense), but the Bentusi still gave them some great tech and pointed them the right way once HW1 started. I know reading my last sentence will be a surprise to most, because well, no Homeworld game ever taught anyone this, didn't it? You had to go off the game to find all of this out, so to me, Homeworld always had a story but never a jaw-dropping one but it definitely held someone's attention. Thus I am a big perplexed about the outcry here, yes, it underperformed but it seems people try to compare it to Elderscrolls or Fallout lore.

MP/Skirmish: (Not rated, needs work)

- Homeworld games do not shine at MP, I mean, it's one of these games where hardcore vets dominate and even with YT videos you'll have a hard time, it just never appealed to me. More fun battling AIs, like Sins of a Solar Empire style.
- SP Skirmish shows great potential but severe balance issues as it is, frankly, at this stage it's totally not there yet, needs work, so I can't grade it yet but this is a good thing, Devs can put some serious time into this and make it shine.

Verdict so far: 7/10 (devs still have the possibility to make this a 8/10 game!)

Conclusion:
Graphics definitely don't disappoint but you are thrown often too close of the action with in-game objectives triggering waves and more waves of enemies. This is often accompanied by nice soundtracks which could however been better and more alive. Also, your mothership appears to be only there to produce ships, it's of not much use otherwise, and yet too many smaller bugs can make this game annoying if you are not willing to overlook it (for instance, each time you destroy an enemy capital ship Fleet Command announces the loss as being yours, or resource controllers being useless and need to be micromanaged in the midst of a battle), and so on...
Skirmish shows a lot of promise once more work is being put into it. The game over all is very solid and good, do not let anything fool you about the game being bad!

Personal Recommendation:
Homeworld vets and fans need to get this, a complete no-brainer.

To people new to Homeworld, by all means play the Remastered Edition, try and find a way to play Cataclysm (comparible with older devices, check GoG), and then you can play this once it has a price-drop. Deserst of Kharak also deserves a go.

What I would love to see:
- Complete overhaul in some AI of certain units and programming (mistakes such as announcing friendly capital ship loss when you destroy an enemy is an embarrassing mistake)
- Complete overhaul of Mothership
- Extra Story Related Missions. HW2 had a go at it with Raider Retreat but that was it, I am hoping/expecting more Missions here, story related but with MORE room to play with ! Maps too tight !
- Skirmish needs immense improvements!

What I hope not to see:
- A lack of Devs attention and just handing things over to the modding community
- Leaving the game as it is !!!

[eckhardf]

Nice review and it follows my own thoughts closely.

I agree that Cataclysm is definitely worth playing...I got it from GOG - It is now marketed as Homeworld Emergence due to a naming conflict with World of Warcraft I think.

[Joko]

Nice review, after 15 hours of playing I totally agree with you.

[Bracken Alistair]

Originally posted by AngelFireOmega:

The score for story/lore is too high. I'd give it a 5/10.
Telepathy is never a thing in previous Homeworld games.

Dont think thats true, Taiidan emperor temporarily knocked Karan out by telepathy or something at end of HW1, just before the giant meteor mission.

[Lilith]

Originally posted by Knightspace:

Originally posted by AngelFireOmega:

The score for story/lore is too high. I'd give it a 5/10.
Telepathy is never a thing in previous Homeworld games.

There was for like

5 seconds in one cutscene, when Riesstu knocks Karan out for a bit. Other than that, not mention of it at all.

The story was written by someone who never even heard about Homeworld before, and Martin joined in waaaay too late to fix anything.

well, Homeworld 2 introduced/retconned the trinity hyperspace cores. Homeworld 3 introduced navigator super abilities *shrug*

[Viper]

I like this. People seem very polarized on the game, either loving it or hating it. I respect people that don't like it, there are definitely some glaring problems with the game, but overall I seriously enjoy it. It feels like Homeworld.

The worst problem is Gearbox (and by extension Take Two) ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the development process by laying off some of the original Homeworld devs to keep their bottom lines intact. The more I see, the more it feels like BBI wasn't able to make the game they wanted to, just like Hardspace: Shipbreaker.

[TheOrangeBox]

Originally posted by Viper:

The worst problem is Gearbox (and by extension Take Two) ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ up the development process by laying off some of the original Homeworld devs to keep their bottom lines intact. The more I see, the more it feels like BBI wasn't able to make the game they wanted to

They needed more people to complete the game and I'm sure BBI found themselves in a difficult position with the sharks circling around them boning their developers.

Kudos to BBI to have pulled it of in the condition they've found themselves, the roadmap looks great and they're on the right truck to add the third in the series.

[Kyorisu]

7/10 for Story? lol
Now gameplay because this part actually matters. It's flat out broken. Ships won't stay in a cohesive formation. Once you have a few Frigates you really start to notice how bad everything is. What's more many units just don't seem to do anything like Ion Cannon Frigates. Did you just build a BC? It has two Ion Cannons but you wouldn't know because it never fires them.

Here's a simple experiment. Start wargames build some frigates and tell them to guard the carrier. Now move the carrier through a bunch of enemies. Watch as all your frigates engage enemies and forget about their guard order until the enemies are dead. That's not how you guard a target. You stick with it and shoot what you can.