Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
PC Gamer
PC Gamer
Tyler Wilde

Homeworld 3 brazenly flouts RTS tradition with units that talk to each other instead of you, their esteemed invisible commander

Homeworld 3

This is a tough call to make: Should RTS units cycle through the comforting traditional acknowledgments when you click on them—"ready," "awaiting orders," that kind of thing—or should unit barks finally evolve past the generic assertions of Command & Conquer and Warcraft? For the upcoming Homeworld 3, Blackbird Interactive is taking the latter position, saying that it's innovating on unit barks and that "the scale of chatter design" in the RTS is greater than the series has ever seen.

Those comments come from a new Homeworld 3 developer update which also teases the work Blackbird has done on pre-rendered cutscenes and in-engine environment rendering. There's some strong nebula work to admire near the bottom of the post, but the big section in the middle titled "No one can hear you scream" is what caught my attention, because I'm not sure I've ever encountered such a thorough breakdown of RTS unit bark theory.

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.