Overview
Set on the harsh, unforgiving desert planet of Arrakis, Emperor Shaddam IV has issued a challenge to three rival factions: the noble Atreides, the brutal Harkonnen, and the insidious Ordos. Whichever house can harvest the most of the invaluable Spice melange will be granted total control of the planet.
Players must build a military base from the ground up. You begin by placing concrete slabs to prevent building degradation, constructing refineries to process harvested Spice into credits, and building factories to produce infantry and vehicles. You must balance a delicate economy while defending against enemy raids and the terrifying, screen-swallowing Sandworms that roam beneath the dunes.
Visual Archive
Behind The Scenes
The Birth of the Modern RTS
Westwood Studios essentially wrote the sacred rulebook for the Real-Time Strategy genre with this title. It was the very first game to successfully combine resource gathering, tech-tree base building, and real-time combat across a fog-of-war shrouded map.
UI Innovations
Before Dune II, strategy games relied heavily on clunky keyboard shortcuts and drop-down menus. Westwood introduced intuitive, context-sensitive mouse clicking. You could click a unit, click an enemy, and the unit knew to attack. Without the foundation laid by this game, massive e-sports franchises like Warcraft, StarCraft, and Command & Conquer simply would not exist.