hen Frank
Herbert began to
pen the first
Dune novel, video
games were in an
entirely nascent
form. In 1965,
when his iconic sci-fi work was
published, a mere handful of
games had been created, often for
looming mainframe computers as
research projects.However, in starting to build out his
world of interstellar feudal conflict,
political drama, and the desperate
mining of a powerful drug called
‘melange’ or ‘spice’, Herbert set in
motion a series of events that would
have a profound influence over the
real-time strategy genre, and even
the wider gaming landscape.
Herbert’s tale initially appeared
as a run of serialised pieces in
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
magazine. Soon after, Dune was
released as a novel, which would in
turn inspire numerous sequels
written by Herbert and later his son.
Such was the first book’s popularity
and influence on science fiction that
it inevitably attracted the attentionof Hollywood. Though, as it turned
out, the vast and intricate setting
Herbert had spun from words was
far from easy to adapt into a
celluloid release. Over the years
Dune movies have been panned and
canned, with David Lynch even
disowning his infamous 1984 film
version. In fact, it was 2021 by the
time a Dune movie arrived that most
felt was worthy, with director Denis
Villeneuve at the helm.A TALE OF TWO DUNES
Games, meanwhile – with all their
interactivity, intricacy, and freedom
from linear storytelling – proved to
be a little more suitable when it came
to communicating the spirit and tone
of Herbert’s creation.
Not that the effort to make a Dune
game started flawlessly. Developer
Cryo’s MS-DOS title Dune was
plagued by a hellish development.
Thanks to a somewhat bewildering
series of contract complexities,
divided opinions, publisher
acquisitions and other business
shenanigans, it was almost cancelled.
The story goes that when Cryo’s
game looked certain to derail from its
production schedule, Virgin turned toLas Vegas outfit Westwood Studios to
take its own shot at crafting a title
based on both Herbert’s novel and
Lynch’s film. Cryo then convinced
the publisher to proceed with their
release, and the quietly brilliant blend
of adventure and strategy made it to
the public via Virgin in 1992.
But then something extraordinary
happened. Virgin proceeded in
publishing Westwood’s version –
also in 1992, as Dune II: Battle for
Arrakis (or Dune II: The Building of a
Dynasty in the US). Was it a sequel?
It might have been presented as
such, but the games took very
different approaches. Dune II,
perhaps, just made it over the finish
line in second place.
Regardless, Westwood’s game
became a very important release. It
wasn’t the first real-time strategy
title, but confidently built on the
groundwork laid by RTS and MOBA
genre pioneer Herzog Zwei.THE ARCADE RTS
Westwood reportedly openly credited
Technosoft’s curious blend of 2D
action game and strategy title as a
core inspiration over Dune II. A Mega
Drive exclusive released in 1989,ABOVE: (^) RTSes have
come far – yet Dune II
set so much in place
30 years ago.
Dune II
COVER FEATURE