Set amongst the unnumberable stars, my Interceptors bore down onto my enemy's recon ships. My strikecraft, equipped with a damage-boosting mod, made short work of the enemy craft, lasers tearing through the vacuum of space, finding their homes nestled into the now shattered hulls of my enemy.

However, at that moment, a new threat emerged - an enemy capital ship warped in on top of my fleet and that of my allies, aiming to wreak havoc. The moment-to-moment action in Homeworld 3's upcoming multiplayer War Games mode kept me on my toes the whole time during a press preview last week, and it's shaping up to be some great fun when Homeworld 3 launches next February.

War Gaming

The new War Games mode brings a repeatable, co-op mode to the upcoming space-faring RTS. Inspired by Rougelikes, Homeworld 3's new multiplayer mode pits players (up to three total each run) against waves of enemies in contained arenas, complete with randomized challenges to overcome. It sounds rather straightforward, and in practice, it is to a degree. 

Players are dropped into a pocket of space, complete with space debris to make the dungeon more visually and tactically interesting, and are tasked with building a fleet, gathering resources, and then completing the randomized objectives thrown at them.

What kind of fleet to use is decided before the War Game is launched. Players can specialize in a recon fleet for example, which gives you more scout craft to begin with, and as you progress by completing runs, you unlock more varied fleets. This initial fleet choice helps to define how each player in thr group is going to contribute to the overall goal, such as the Support Fleet specializing in helping repair ships and keep them in the fight. 

Completing (or even failing, as was the case in one my runs) sees the group hit hyperspace to the next area, reaching the end of the run after a few jumps. The challenges themselves, and the difficulty, ramped up throughout each run, and the actual challenges themselves were rather varied, throwing many different scenarios to flex our Homeworld 3 strategy muscles.

Into the Fray

Homeworld 3's excellent strategy gameplay is the focal point of the mode. As someone who played the original Homeworld titles growing up extensively, it felt a bit like coming home here. After a brief tutorial to remind myself the controls of moving ships in full three-dimensional space, myself, another game journalist and a Gearbox rep jumped into our first run.

Homeworld 3's War Games fosters teamwork from the first moments. Immediately my team started to plan how we would specialize to bring our fleets to bear in a balanced way, one specializing in support ships, another in Ion Cannon Frigates and Assault Frigates. Myself, I started to lean into Railgun Corvettes and Attack Bombers to support my Interceptor strike craft. I liked the ability of the Bombers to rush in and do massive damage, and the Railguns could act as a rear-guard sniper to pick off strangling enemies or just focus fire on larger ships from safety.

However, resources are needed to do all of this, and our Resource Collectors kicked into gear within moments of the War Game starting. Gathering Resource Units, or RUs, is crucial to keeping in the fight, especially as ships start to fall in the challenges to come. 

Funnily enough, as it's been a while since I've played a true 3D RTS like Homeworld 3, I started to forget that enemies could come at my resource collector's from literally any angle. Thinking my collector safe in the background, I began to move towards the first objective, which saw my fleet escorting an allied NPC fleet throughout the battlefield. 

Within moments of getting my carrier class ship into position, protected by my fleet of Interceptors, Corvettes and Bombers, my Resource Collector across the map started to get attacked by an enemy fleet that popped up underneath them. Peeling off some Interceptors to deal with that, my teammates picked up my slack by sending in their own strike craft to finish the escort challenge. 

Finishing the challenge gave each of us an artifact, a reward that augments a player's fleet. Some of the bonuses were effects like boosting Interceptor damage at the cost of speed, or increasing maneuverability at the cost of population for a ship type. It's a give-and-take, but it allows for some highly customizable fleets on the go, making things a bit more interesting overall. And, when done in coordination with the rest of the team, they can really focus your part of the firepower where it's needed most, whether it's boosting healing done or turning your high damage output up a notch to melt hulls into slag with ease.

The second phase of Homeworld 3's War Game wasn't any easier, as we were tasked with rescuing an allied NPC fleet from the enemy across the map. More incursion points popped up all over the arena as well, meaning we were going to see more frequent enemy attacks, and with more of them coming through. Ion Plasma Corvettes brought my Resource Collector down this time despite my keeping a squad of Interceptors there to protect them.

Suppression ships, which excel at keeping enemy fighters at bay, wreaked havoc on my smaller ships with their AOE fire, finally forcing my hand to build out Torpedo Ships to combat them. These long-range but fragile ships do great damage and can stay behind the front lines, picking off enemy ships with ease - so long as an enemy fleet doesn't sneak behind it in the end.

Thankfully, my teammate's Support vessels kept my fleets up in the air while the other's own Ion cannon-equipped vessels turned enemy hulls into scorching ruins ahead of us. After a fair bit of work, we were able to clear out the second room of this dungeon, moving on to the last and hardest wave.

In this room, we needed to take down three shipyards, with more powerful and even more frequent waves of enemies bearing down on us the whole time. Thankfully, the fleets we've built to this point come through hyperspace with us intact, so we were able to fend off the first attack with ease and move towards the first of the three shipyards. It was here I found my favorite unit to build: Assault Frigates.

Despite starting out trying to play the role of a bomber fleet, tearing in to drop ordinance and get out of there while my Railguns lockdown pursuing enemy craft, by about halfway through the second room I had started to shift tactics to face the challenges that were coming at us. 

And it's flexibility on the fly that I actually really enjoyed here in Homeworld 3's War Games. I wasn't locked into a specific role with the fleet, but could lean into other ways to help my teammates as the battle dictated. While my smallcraft still had a sizeable force of Railguns, dealing long-range damage, I had found myself piloting a fleet of torpedo ships and assault frigates to combat the larger and stronger fleets of our enemy. 

This paid off at the end, when as we destroyed the last shipyard, an enemy capital battleship warped into the fray right on top of us. However, armed with the fleet we had, from massive assault frigates, ion cannon frigates, torpedo platforms and more, the battleship really stood no chance. Scorchmarks began to dot the hull as we swept in with everything we had, and within a few moments, we were treated to an intense explosion and a Victory screen.

I honestly don't play a lot of roguelikes, but I can see myself playing a lot of Homeworld 3's War Games mode when the RTS launches next February. It's playable solo as well, something I tried throughout the last week as our build was still active, but it really comes alive with friends, each coordinating how to combat the latest threat.

My only real complaint right now is down to the arena itself. It's pretty one note, with effectively the same debris-ridden map each time we warped to a new phase. I'd love to see more variety, and with it environmental-based challenges to deal with, as we get closer to launch.

However, I'm definitely excited to play more and flext my wargaming muscles when Homeworld 3 lanches in February 2024.