From RPS: "Right, housekeeping first. Dune: Spice Wars’ Steam page describes it as a “real-time strategy game with 4X elements”. An odd choice, considering Shiro Games themselves downplay RTS elements in a Steam blog. Spice Wars is as much 4X as the dead eyes of two smiley faces, and one with enough forward momentum as to make such tantalising lies unnecessary. Embrace your grand strategy! It’s like John Dune always said: “Fear is the path to the dark side, Malcolm Reynolds”.
Last year graced us with the excellent Slipways, and I’m aware some were left unsated by its puzzler-leaning play, still yearning for the fabled 4X-lite. Stupendous news, those people: once Spice Wars clicks, you can pop a victory screen in four hours. Perhaps less if, unlike me, you can avoid feeding expensive troops to hungry sandworms (i.e The Dickhead’s Gambit). And happy days everyone else, because this brevity doesn’t sacrifice both systems-rich and setting-faithful design. Every political or ecological factor on Arrakis is given due TLC, from trading water with Sietches to prevent raids, to bribing the spacing guild with regular spice shipments. Not everything is equally impactful, but they all converge in an engaging melange of Dune-flavoured decision making."
Dune: Spice Wars has today received a free update, as well as the game's first paid DLC for PC and Xbox Series X|S.
VGChartz's Chinh Tran: "As demonstrated by our finalists, strategy gamers had a lot of variety in where they would spend their time executing meticulous moves and mulling over decisions. Although the following games offer different strategic experiences and force gamers to consider different elements, their core aspects remain similar. And no matter what you decided to play, you were guaranteed a mental workout."
Review - Dune: Spice Wars is a satisfying 4X game, but it is not without its issues; the biggest problem is the complexity of the systems
