Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak

First up: Linux compatibility. It's not officially supported, but it works perfectly under Linux when using Wine. Always good. Performance: my system is a Ryzen 5600 and a Radeon 6500XT. The game runs pretty well at 1920x1080 with all the options set to max (except annoyances like depth of field and motion blur, those are disabled for the sake of my sanity). It chugs a bit during some in-game cutscenes, but oddly enough runs perfectly during gameplay. Is it fun? Yes. It really is Homeworld in 2D - there's no fixed base and your "mothership" produces all your units. The difficulty level is about right - not a cakewalk, but not a punishing nightmare either. Combat feels satisfying and punchy, the music is pretty good and the plot kept me engaged. But it's not perfect. I'll say it up front - I've been spoiled by Supreme Commander. That, to me, is the absolute pinnacle of RTS gameplay. You can zoom in and out in Deserts of Kharak, but only so far. You can zoom out further to get a bigger overview of the map, but that's a separate mode which you need to toggle. SC let you go smoothly from being right up in the face of your smallest unit to seeing the entire battlefield. Not being able to smoothly zoom in and out is a bigger annoyance than it seems. Many other RTS games have a minimap, but not DoK. It wasn't present in Homeworld because the 3D nature and very large scale precluded it, but that's not an issue here and it would have been very useful. And there's no way to pause the game while still being able to look around, let alone issue orders when paused. It's also a very short game, even more so when you don't know what the level triggers are (which might end a mission earlier than you want). But all that said, I don't regret my purchase. I enjoyed playing it and I'd recommend it to any fan of the RTS genre.

As of May 13th 2025 the game is still playable here without having to install epic files or the launcher.

Disclaimer : This review is based on singleplayer campaign experience only - I do not plan to play MP. This game is very nice introduction to Homeworld story line, which now thanks to GoG is complete thanks to HW:Emergence (previously known as Cataclysm). The fans will find nice little things, newcomers will taste the the story of Homeworld. Even though the story is not going to win a price, it is very nicely written and I enjoyed it. The gameplay of singleplayer is... well rather straightforward, and I made it through smoothly with no great issues (unless I screwed big time). I appreciate the "checkpoint" autosave on longer missions. From strategical view, the game is rather... flat-ish. Even though there are few non-traditional elements (mobile HQ carrier and so) in the end most effective strategy in campaign is to get biggest units available and steamroll over enemy. Despite that I did not feel bored and I enjoyed the story while playing very relaxed RTS. Note: MP will probably find more use for smaller, quick units for rushes, hit'n'run, flanking and disturb actions, however not in singleplayer. The overall evalutaion is... difficult. The game is... nice, it definitely is worth of paying for and playing. I do recommend it. However, being ithe Homeworld franchise - it is very poor sister to the big three titles we already had. On the other hand... it fills the little gaps in story, it adds nice details and touch to the origin of Higaarans (you wont hear of them in HW:DoK and I won't spoil it). It has some good moments, but lacks the depth of the other HW games. Four stars it is then... but I would lower it to 75% for kind of missed potential. Nevertheless, I do recommend the game, especialy to HW franchise fans - not for depth of gameplay, but for the story. Nice game, worth of play.

Many aspects of the game lead to the assumption that it was originally developed for console and then ported to PC later. The Console game may have been good or very good but the PC port is pulled down by bad control scheme, annoying camera focus and the unskippable cutscenes, Bad Control Scheme: Controls are not remappable and the default Scheme is really bad. Uses arrow keys for camera because some keys of WASD are used for command shortcuts. I don't remember a game in the last 20 years that did not open the menu when hitting ESC key, this one does not use ESC key at all. Clicking on a unit at the bottom of the screen occasionally switches to tactical view instead because the HUD areas are not clearly divided. Camera: The screen has a crosshair, pointing to the camera focus, e.g. where it will focus too when zoomed. This is usually not where you intend to zoom and very annoying. Moving the Camera by Arrow Keys instead of WASD is a no-go. The scale of zoom is limited and forces you to switch in between tactical and direct view, which is also very annoying. Unskippable Cutscenes: A really annoying feature of the game is that you can't skip the cinematic in-game cutscenes and time runs ahead the same speed. It is usually the point where half of your fleet is destroyed because you can't issue orders to them and most units are passive. Also during those cutscenes, you can't select units by clicking, but if you have a control group defined, you can issue one last order during the cutscene. To sum it up, not recommended. If they would patch those "features" the game would be 4 stars.

Playing this after Homeworld 1 is a pleasantly different experience. It does a good job of being an 'immersive' RTS, if there can be such a thing, and, as a heavy machinery fan, I LOVE the art style. I applaud the way the Deserts of Kharak uses map topography much more richly than other RTS games, athough the topographical aspect of the overview map is opten unhelpful. I'm not quite willing to give five stars, though, because unit variety is limited, and what faction variety there is is sold as DLC. The Expedition Guide is worthwhilre, too, if you want to squeeze all the tasty Setting Juice from the campaign, and see some behind the scenes stuff.