Dune The Battle for Arrakis is a 1992 adventure strategy video game, based upon Frank Herbert‘s science fiction novel of the same name. It was developed by Cryo Interactive and published by Virgin Interactive.

Dune blends adventure with economic and military strategy. Loosely following the story of the novel, the game casts the player as Paul Atreides, with the ultimate goal of driving the Harkonnen from Planet Dune, while managing spice extraction, military, and later, ecology through the native Fremen tribes.

As the player progresses, his troops are equipped with weapons from “crysknives” to atomics, tap into Paul’s latent psychic powers and get acquainted with such characters from the book as Chani and Liet-Kynes.

Released for the Amiga and IBM PC compatibles, it was one of the first floppy games to be converted to CD format, which included footage of the David Lynch film, voice-acting for all speaking roles, and highly improved, 3D-rendered traveling and location screens. This version, a mix of the Amiga graphics and the extras of the PC-CD version, was also released on the Sega CD / Mega CD console.

The audio track, created by Stéphane Picq and Philip Ulrich, was released by Cryo (formerly Exxos) on the album Dune: Spice Opera.

Gameplay – Dune The Battle for Arrakis

The story is mostly based on the plot of the Dune novel: the player is Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto Atreides and Lady Jessica. The House Atreides was given an irrefusable offer by the Emperor Shaddam IV – mine the spice from the desert planet Arrakis, occupied by their longtime arch-enemies: the House Harkonnen. Duke Leto accepts the offer not only because of the wealth provided by Spice trading, but also to defeat the Harkonnens.

The game, seen always through the eyes of Paul, is a mix between real-time strategy and an adventure game. While the basis of the game is the strategy component, dialog between characters and a linear plotline give the game more depth than most strategy games. The player is also required to do some miniquests involving talking to characters and traveling to locations, which adds a small adventure game element.

There must be a balance between military and spice mining power. While having a strong military force will provide fast response to the Harkonnen, if Spice is not mined fast enough to keep up with the Emperor’s demands, the game will be lost. However, if there is too much focus on spice mining, Harkonnen troops can ambush a sietch, capturing all troops inside. They can only be rescued if the sietch is liberated. Since the game is as much resource managing as military conquest, balancing both is the key for successful completion.

Credit Roll (German)

Spice Trip

Turbulence

The Lego Tune

Radnor’s Scheme