It seems that TV, movies, and video games will never run out of classic sci-fi and fantasy series to adapt. Everything fromThe Lord of the RingstoThe Witcherhas been adaptedtime and time again. The great thing about video game adaptation of stories like these is that they offer a new perspective on the world by giving the player control over how they experience and influence it. A lot of novels with rich settings are exciting to explore in a video game context, and one sci-fi series that’s tapped into this before isDune;a sprawling, influential series of novels by Frank Herbert.
Adaptations ofDunefor the screen are probably the most famous. One was made during Herbert’s lifetime, releasing in 1984, and in 2000 a miniseries took another crack at telling the story. It’s hard to adapt novels that are close to a thousand pages long into any format, but that doesn’t mean people won’t try.Dunehas had a few video game adaptations, mostly appearing in the 1990s and 2000s, close to whenDunemovies were at the height of their popularity. With a new movie adaptation ofDuneon the way, one wonders if there’s any hope for a newDunevideo game.
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Dune’s Earliest Video Games
The first licensedDunevideo game (simply calledDune) was an interesting mix of adventure and strategy, released for MS-DOS and other early home computers in 1992. Players took the role ofDuneprotagonist Paul Atreides and became responsible for both overseeing Spice mining and building up a military force strong enough to fight the scheming Baron Harkonnen. TheDunegame saw positive reception and good sales, with some critics saying that the game was actuallya better adaptation of theDunebooksthan the 1984 movie.
Dune 2: The Building of a Dynasty,also released in 1992,was not actually a sequel to the firstDunegame. Instead,Dune 2was a real-time strategy game in which players chose to represent one of the ruling houses of the desert planet Arrakis and competed with the other houses to take control of spice production on Arrakis. Real-time strategy games existed whenDune 2released, but it was a formative game for the genre.Dune 2established some important hallmarks of RTS games, including the fog of war that shrouds the map and the constant connection between base building and resource management.
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A Second Wave of Dune Games
A few years passed between these successfulDuneadaptations and the next games in the series.Dunereturned to video games in 1998 whenDune 2was reimagined for PC and PlayStation by Intelligent Games asDune 2000,which told a different story and incorporated full-motion video. Unfortunately,Dune 2000’s new story and graphical improvementswere met with mixed reviews. Intelligent Games and EA followed upDune 2000by cooperating on another real-time strategy game calledEmperor: Battle for Dunethat imitated many ofDune 2000’s ideas and was ultimately better received.
Emperor: Battle for Dunewasn’t the onlyDunegame to release in 2001. Cryo Interactive releasedFrank Herbert’s Dunethat year, which was a 3D adventure game based on the TV miniseries adaptation ofDuneby the (then-named) Sci-Fi Channel. Critics pannedFrank Herbert’s Duneand the game failed commercially, which contributed to Cryo Interactive closing its doors a few years later and cancelling its plans for an online RTS game calledDune Generations.Dunehasn’t returned to the video game scene in an official capacity since then, but maybe there’s hope for a second coming.
If the newDunemovie gets enough attention, then maybe a game studio will see what it can do with the IP too.Duneis truly a cornerstoneof the sci-fi genre, so it’d be great to see someone use next-gen consoles to bring fans back to the harsh world of Arrakis.
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