As announced at the Game Awards last month, Dune: Spice Wars is the latest strategy game based on the classic science fiction novel, which spawned and influenced the entire RTS genre thanks to Westwood’s Dune 2 – and the new game may be adding one of the biggest parts of that game, in the form of the House Ordos faction.
1992’s Dune II: Battle For Arrakis by Westwood Studios is one of the first proper RTS games and its influence reaches all the way to the strategy games of today. In a new post by Dune: Spice Wars developer Shiro Games, the team talks about its influences – acknowledging Dune 2 and even the boardgames – and suggests a very specific piece of Dune gaming past may be coming back.
Houses Atreides and Harkonnen are the only confirmed factions in Spice Wars so far, but Shiro says it has three more in the works before launch “and more later”. The team specifically acknowledges House Ordos, presumably realising that fans of the classic Dune games will be asking about them.
House Ordos was mentioned in a Dune Encyclopaedia but never appeared in the books, and was fleshed out by Westwood for Dune 2 and Emperor: Battle For Dune. Shiro Games acknowledges this past, and while the developer says that it’s focusing on factions from the books, it does not rule out adding House Ordos in the game. “We’re starting with what’s in the books,” the post reads in its answer about the Ordos, “and we’ll see what would be best beyond that during the Early Access”.
While there was a definite influence from several Dune elements in Westwood’s Ordos – such as the technology-focused Tleilaxu – the faction made an interesting addition to Dune’s lore, so we’re sure many fans would be happy to see them return in Dune: Spice Wars. The game’s looking very promising already, so hopefully it’ll launch in early access soon so fans can try it out.