Frank Herbert's Dune

Frank Herbert's Dune from 2001 is a strategy-adventure title from studio Cryo Interactive that, unlike games derived from the film adaptation, draws its license directly from the novel and the name of its author. The player takes charge of House Atreides on the desert planet of Arrakis, manages the mining of the precious spice melange, builds bases and holdings, forges alliances, and resolves political disputes between the Great Houses, while the game blends strategic command of units and bases with adventure-style conversations, reconnaissance missions, and decisions that affect the story's further development as well as relations with other factions.

Unlike the purely strategy-genre Dune games produced by Westwood Studios, Frank Herbert's Dune places greater emphasis on story, dialogue, espionage, and the politics of the houses, making it more of a strategy-adventure hybrid than a classic RTS focused solely on building and combat. It is also not a sequel to the studio's earlier strategy-adventure title Dune from 1992, but a separate project with its own presentation, characters, and missions, created specifically around the name of the original author. The game was made as a standalone, book-licensed title released for Windows PCs in 2001 and was never ported to any console or other platform, so it remains a purely PC affair of its time. The individual missions are interspersed with live-action and animated sequences and conversations with envoys of rival factions, with whom the player can forge temporary truces or, conversely, sabotage them, bringing the period politics on Arrakis closer to the spirit of the novel than the purely action-oriented approach of competing strategy titles.

Why play it: Frank Herbert's Dune will appeal to players drawn to the world of Dune more for its politics, espionage, and the story of the houses than for pure military strategy, and who want to experience a version closer to the spirit of the novel than the film or purely strategic takes on the series.