Homeworld 3 has NO SOUL

Duuuude those rail point defense make no sense what so ever in the universe, not in this universe nor HW universe. WTF. And Sjet is ugly as a door, acctually the door knob is more charismatic. And they moved away from that dire and serious mood, the art style for the cutscenes were much more interesting leaving to the user's immagination which was great.

just watching playthroughs of the game told they didn't learn anything form Homeworld:DoK. Actually kind of happy that I passed this game over.

This is a good review. I ended up refunding my copy after 3 hours of play, I actually had performance issues in bigger battles and the 3d cutscenes were fucking horrendus to watch compared to the style I was used to with the beautiful concept looking paintings with narriation over them like in HW2 and Kharak. It's really strange because when i checked the credits for HW3, it had a lot of really good paintings they could have used!

sounds like they are trying to mass appeal it.

and ultimately killed it

There should be a law, where the EULA has to be posted public - befor you spend your money.

Here's a hot take

Pretty graphics doesn't matter, mechanics and story does

Dang. The eula made me pause too. Difference is I clicked refund then ans there.
I'll try the "demo".

I didn’t mind the game for what it is. I haven’t finished it yet. My only gripe is how much the main characters talk……. I’m used to homeworld 1 where fleet command only says a few things every mission. And you get more of the story by beating the missions.

The intel dude doesn’t sftu….. just give me our objective at the beginning and stfu, it’s my job to figure out the strategy as the battles progress….. that’s why it’s called a RTS. The developers in charge of these aspects obviously forgot that part.

Game is so bad I didn't even finish the whole campaign

Truth be told HW1-2 and their "remasters" aren't really all that friendly to newer systems so I'm happy just by an upgrade. Then again, I don't plan on buying it on full price.

HW3 is a good game, although the campaign is a bit short. I liked it very much, and I think it's a good continuation of HW1 and HW2 legacy.

You skipped the story, so its worth mentioning that unfortunately its DEI infested, like many "AAA" games these days. Definitely not worth purchasing. Adding Denuvo is just an additional nail in its own coffin. Do not support companies bad behavior like this with your money.

It seems your issue is the same I had with the RTS Realms of Ruin based on AoS Warhammer. The mechanics are so simplified, partly because it has to work on consoles, that it becomes really boring after a while.

Agreed. Homeworld 3 is a big letdown and I'm not buying it. Not until some super cool mods are released.

"This game plays exactly like the game did nearly 25 years ago"
No, it really doesn't. Not even close. Not even remotely in the same region. It may as well be a different genre.

No, the bar is not "higher" now. It is much, much much much lower. You have no idea how much lower expectations are now. Homeworld 1 was not about spamming ships. It had proper ballistics, it was mercilessly difficult on a first playthrough, and was full of clever strategy.
Against a stupid opponent, or a low difficulty AI opponent in skirmish/multiplayer? Sure, you could spam. In the campaign, and against higher difficulty opponents? Noooo.

"The genre has just evolved past that."

Uh... what? No, it hasn't. It went backwards. Anything less than a hardcore management-heavy title degenerated hard.

"Those same mechanics"
It doesn't HAVE the same mechanics! What are you talking about!?

"There's nothing new here."
Semi-true. There's nothing new. There's also almost nothing of the OLD here. They actively removed things that were present in games 20 years ago.

Ya i am struggling to even agree with you on many of the points. Like say the strategy part. Homeworld was always a 3d space game. You can move your ships as high or as low as you want. But is their any actual reason to do that? In 99% of the time No. Hell the only possible reason to do that is to do a cheeky flank. But that really is not even that necessary. As in the end it takes a very long time to do this with anything more then a fighter class ship. as really these maps are Mostly just empty spaces devoid of all terrain.

Combine this with the fact that you clearly didn't care about the story they made. Sure its hard to make a better story then 1 or cataclysm. Yes two had a shit story. But in the end, to grow board before 30 minutes. Meanings that you most likely gave up on it after the first mission. Not exactly what i would call an extensive overview of the story if you didn't even bother to finis the first mission.

And lastly, we all are hear for the Gigantic space battles. This is not going to be star craft where you need to micro each ship. to argue that not only should resources be Insanely tight. But that you should be punished at every step. Where one wrong move is enough to doom you to oblivion. Defeats the reason why Resource injections was a thing. This franchise was always and still is always about giant space battles. Where you are their to mainly watch the specitcal. Granted you could still micro each and every unit. But is it really necessary to enjoy yourself?

I don't think you really are that qualified to review this. Hell i haven't even played the game yet. and i know your review is kinda trash because you refunded it after playing a single skirmish and failing to finish the first mission. So going to argue your review has no soul.

60 dollars for a game that was remade by Disney... The story, the cutscenes, the campaign...

How to kill a sequel to a any beloved classic strategy game:
-reduce complexity, aka dumb it down
-reduce map size
-incease pace of gameplay to align with the attention span of the tiktok generation or something idk.

Sup com 2 bombed for exactly these reasons. Sad to hear that Homeworld 3 also falls victim to this

The giant superstructures are dwarfing the size of the ships so now its like playing with toys , patfinding and target priority are a mess. You need a galaxy map with rpg elements to conquer for endgame, just ship combat becomes boring fast.

Not only did they not progress to keep up with current gaming standards and expectations—they regressed. I wish they would just fix Homeworld 2 Remastered to not be so unstable, implement better mod support and to take advantage of better hardware. I won’t bother buying Homeworld 3 unless it’s on deep discount and modding has essentially addressed a lot of the gameplay concerns. This is a mediocre, off-brand $30 rendition of Homeworld 3–not the game the community expected. I was excited about the Wargames potentially being a fun new campaign mode, but not anymore.

thanks for the info, I was really surprised by the low ratings... this video did a great job at confirming what I was struggling to understand. saved me 60 bucks!

savage, succinct, and 100% accurate without being mean. This is a great, fair review.

Old school Homeworld fan here, thanks for saving me money and your vids are really well designed!

Sorry I have to disagree. The combat is not the same as the last games, it's significantly dumbed down. The new game offers far less opportunity for tactical play.

For example:

- In the old games you could disrupt the enemy fleet production by going after their resource operations. In 3 the enemy has unlimited RU's and doesn't harvest resources.
- In the old games you could use disruption frigates to hide forces and set up ambushes.
- In the old games you could use tactical hyperspace jumps to reposition your Capital ships.
- In the old games we had more than one type of Corvette.

space moba. spam mobs with spam powers.

So a guy that knows hes not going to like a game before buying it reviews it? Kid youre an idiot.

I paid full price, went through the entire campaign. Was it fun? yes, for 9 hours. Now..in h1 and 2 and cata, we went to skirmish fights, with mods. Now, the people who made the complex mod, are developing their own game haha. I think this is the last homeworld game i buy at all. It had a good run, but they killed it.

"Plays exactly the same as the previous games" - I really disagree with this, there's no subsytem shooting, or small fleet engagements. The resources on the map expired really fast and it was basically who can produce more the fastest. Units were extremely disposable. I dislike it because it plays so differently.

I feel like you did not give the game a proper chance.
But you do bring up some interesting points.

I've said it for other creators: Homeworld 2 with Complex mod is closer to what Homeworld 3 should have been.

I mean, you're not alone with your opinion, but I found it fascinating that you were able to gather this much insight into the game, both campaign and skirmishes, with just one hour of gameplay before you refunded it. Truly astonishing.

I wish it played like the game from 20+ years ago. It plays worse and that’s the problem.

No Soul, thats a good way to summarize it

The campaign is a mess. The ugly 3d cutscenes instead of the beautiful black and white scenes. Imogen trying to make facial expressions in the dialogues. There are no allies, no diversity in missions, just head-on battles. The resources are not constrained, so there is no feeling of loss when an important ship is lost.

the story was so bad.........feels like pvp
nothing mystery

To me, Homeworld was all about the story. Now it feels like we've been delivered a souless hunk of junk.

Thanks for the superb review. Btw did you try Helldivers2?

Sub 30 minutes of the campaign is just tutorial and a blanket move on to an asteroid or ship just means this guy doesn’t know how to use the V key.

I really disliked the control system. Their old controls, aren't like the old controls. I used to be able to just hold down ALT and a little eye icon would appear and I could zoom into any ship anywhere with it instantly. It made the battles very immersive. Now I can't do that, the feature is completely gone. I had to constantly F around with my mouse wheel just so I could look at something and even then most of the time it would zoom me way past what I wanted to look at.

I'm so disappointed. I was so excited about this game coming out as I've been a loyal player since the first one. It's such a let down.

The feminist that okayed the story (who works for Gearbox) , or rather changed the story, has pink hair and a ring nose - she also believes in divwrsity.

Ive been hyped for HW3 for a long time... until I've seen few vids and some good reviews. As a result HW3 has not even made it to my wishlist... and I need to mention that my wishlist on steam is almost as big as library of already owned games there (200+ titles in each group). I've played HW1 and HW2 in times when these games were new. I agree that what HW3 offers is just... same thing with slightly better visuals. But for me the biggest issue was the campaign - short, boring and just slightly interactive, with so many cut-scenes and pre-set situations, that it seems like a movie or something. I would expect from HW3 great campaign with really good gameplay. And some major improvements in battles. To be honest, HW3 looks arcade'ish to me - whenever I feel like playing good space tactical game I would run Nebulous: Fleet Command or - slightly less tactical, nonetheless still solid - Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2. And there are more titles like these on the market already.

I don't know how anyone can think this game plays "just like it did 25 years ago." This game is so much worse in so many ways.

But then, you don't really learn much about a game if you only play it for the duration of a Sponge Bob episode.

Wokie. "HW3 not as bad as HW2" LEARN TO UNDERSTAND GAMES KID

Thank you for this review - I was blown away by HW 1 and loved the music which seemed to resonate with my soul - I had misgivings about this game as it seemed like it was sooo over hyped. Appreciate your honesty here.

This game feels like it was initially designed for mobile gaming first and then halfway through changed tact

It's not even about it being the same, it's gameplay-wise even less. No subsystems, EMP, tactical jumps...

I bought it today and so far I really like it. I played all previous Homeworld games, including Desers of Kharak. They made a lot of improvement to UI and management.
I guess that people have strong nostalgia for this series, first game made a great impresion for it's time. If somebody woud play them for the first time in reverse order i doubt that oldest ones woud be perceived as the best.

They took away homeworld mobile for this empty excuse of A game

"this is spoony"

wh..who? what? man you made me feel like I saw a ghost!