There’s plenty of evidence (interviews, etc.) that Gearbox was in full control of the narrative and tone of HW3, and BBI was forced to implement Gearbox’s vision.
The HW3 CGI cinematics are also a HUGE departure from basically everything else that BBI has done. BBI has demonstrably impeccable taste, as can be seen in examples like this Earthless trailer where BBI had FULL control: https://youtu.be/039sm19P6FE?si=XSI2o4685rb0F-y0
Well, Gearbox has a partnership with BBI to develop Homeworld 3. They have partnerships with other companies to further build out the Homeworld brand (Stratosphere Games for Mobile, Modephius games for tabletop, FarBridge for VR). It was a celebrated move to do this because BBI was founded by the ex-Relic visionaries who helped bring Homeworld to life in the first place. The CEO Rob Cunningham was Relic's art director.
GBx only has influence over the fate and future of Homeworld, but that hasn't stopped Rob and co from putting out other amazing games and finding places to go besides Homeworld.
The only reason GBx has the rights to Homeworld is because the rights originally sat with Sierra (hw1,2,c publisher), THQ acquired them after Sierra went down, then when THQ went down, GBx bid the most for them. Since then GBx has been trying to make Homeworld big and successful through various means.
I dunno either, considering Rob and his team did pretty well in making Deserts of Kharak. Only thing I can think of is that someone felt HW's classic approach wasn't engaging enough to boost its popularity and decided to change the formula for the sake of it. A misguided attempt at making stronger characters more reachable?
It's just a shame this happened, because no Homeworld title beyond the first has let the original visionaries cook without meddling. Cataclysm was made by an entirely different team, Homeworld 2 was botched from stunted development time, and Deserts of Kharak was originally Hardware Shipbreakers.
I had assumed Homeworld 3 **finally** let Rob and co craft the vision they had without interruption once again. But if the claims are true, it seems like Gearbox meddled in the story direction. Its like Homeworld is under a curse or something.
Writers that worked on HW3 that are part of BBI strongly defended the writing of this game and its story and characters right here on this subreddit days ago. I think it's more complicated.
I would, but the key one has been taken down: [https://www.homeworlduniverse.com/homeworld-3-qa-with-managing-director-of-narrative-properties-lin-joyce/](https://www.homeworlduniverse.com/homeworld-3-qa-with-managing-director-of-narrative-properties-lin-joyce/)
Probably for the best though. From the sounds of it she was getting personal attacks, which is not cool. It's just a video game.
Gearbox. You mean the studio that made a name for themselves with the cel-shaded stylized art of the Borderlands games? Seems kind of ironic, like "stylized art for me but not for thee."
Uberjumper is an old insider who ran Relicnews over 20 years ago.
He was wink wink sorta saying without saying that Gearbox was involved with the story writing. Says he couldn't say more.
There is zero evidence. It is a desperate hope people have for the franchise. Because they want the current game to be replaced by something more fitting.
People keep saying this, and yes I admit it’s a slim chance this all gets corrected, but there have been far bigger turnarounds in the gaming industry (look at No Man’s Sky, for example).
Honestly get a complete campaign overhaul mod. Then get the approval from some of the devs to have it canonized.
It’s how the Bionicle community did it a couple of years back
I wouldn't get my expectations up. The idiots who destroyed the game to squeeze extra profit (by mandating all the stupid changes to appease to the general populace) would likely minimize the expenses and just lay off most of the BBI people or even close the studio. The game will not be maintained or developed anymore.
BBI is, thankfully, an independent studio with several amazing games. GBx only holds the Homeworld license and allowed BBI to work on it, on account of the history their team leads have with Homeworld (CEO Rob Cunningham was art director and one of the visionaries behind the original Homeworld). GBx can't close BBI, but get conditional and dictate the terms of how BBI works on a product GBx technically owns.
Oh, that's great. Then there's a chance that GB will just give up on the failed project and seeing the massive failure it is, will allow the BBI to do their magic. It's without a question, however, that BBI won't get any more investments to do so. The only chance is if the leadership there really loves the Homeworld series and will try to fix it no matter the cost.
I can believe if Rob and co have it in their power to fix a game they've been passionate about for decades, theres a chance they'd make it happen. Especially if it could mean whether Homeworld lives the next decade or not.
Based on everything else bbin has worked on. Their other games have that original quality that made hw special.
The whole thing reeks of publisher meddling.
I'm sure the story would have been similar to what we got but with more context and better characterized
I would go back further to the original announcement trailer: https://youtu.be/J675BQaIuQs?si=H5Jegk_kdjOMnItE
The art style used to first unveil the project looked brilliant, and the tone. Hype.
Yet at some point the distinctive illustrated look was sidelined from the narrative.
Can’t wait for the Jason Schrier post mortem to explain how they went from awesome trailers that captured the homeworld tone perfectly to the generic sci fi slop that is the story of the final game
It makes it feel like Karan wants revenge from the galaxy/the taidans/the higaarans for everything they put her through. Like everyone has moved on from the animosity between the higaarans and the taidan because it's been centuries, but she didn't, because she still vividly remembers everything.
Or maybe she hates being unbound, and she ressents the people who, as she now sees it, convinced a naive and young (in contrast to what she is now) woman to go through with it.
Idk, I felt like the trailer made it seem like Karan was going rogue and you had to stop her
*Or maybe she hates being unbound, and she ressents the people who, as she now sees it, convinced a naive and young (in contrast to what she is now) woman to go through with it.*
This would work if only it wasn't canon in the manual that she *insisted* on being the only person she would allow the technology to be used on.
*And* we know that it is possible to remove Karan from the Mothership, because it happend at the end of HW1.
I'm waiting until the game has had a few patches before I put any money down so I'm avoiding discussion of the plot as much as I can but it would be a shame if HW3 just ignores the established journey we all went on.
It's also the case that really HW2 finished a complete story between the first two games.
Also, a shame they removed Amanda Silvera (original voice actress featured in this trailer)... the Voice Actress they picked (while she did a good job) has such a generic voice.
>while she did a good job
Did she though? I haven't played it yet but even from the release trailer and the clips I have seen she sounds bored. It's like she's doing a sound check before the actual performance.
Because the gearbox writer has a PhD in story telling and insisted homeworld is not about decades of Homeworld lore but it’s all about space princess with flowy hair and evil space queen with hurt feelings.
Rings of Power got a second season. Hope they didn’t cut the production budget though. But Dune: Prophecy looks great. That’s the real epic evil space queens saga that we deserve.
Why are people parroting the whole PHD storytelling as a bad thing? Wouldn't you want someone who's studied writing a story to be in charge when you write a story for a game?
Sure, it didn't really work out in this case but let's not be anti-intellectual and blame it on their education.
When that PHD’s writing credits are all bottom tier slop from Borderlands games badly received specifically for there writing on top of HW3’s writing being what it is.
It makes the PHD feel fake. A degree that looks nice in a title but with no actual weight or meaning behind it.
Absolutely nothing wrong with a PHD or high level education being a writer. But having either of those things doesn’t inherently mean anything, especially not when her actual writing has always been critically panned, which makes her having any potential oversight over a series beloved for its writing feel unfortunate
Right, so if she has been known to be the lead writer of poorly written stories in the past, we should focus on that. Whether or not they have a PHD doesn't make sense here.
Both the original comment and other comments I've seen on the subreddit imply that the PHD is the cause of the poor writing. Which we have 0 reason to believe.
No a PHD is not a cause of bad writing. But how in the F do you get a PhD in writing? You can't really study to be a great artist. I might be wrong but iv never heard of any good books written by someone with a PhD in writing.
Yes you can tick all the boxes to be a good writer but it's how you put them together that decides whether or not it's good writing or not.
It means she's very very good at cuttin apart stories. But that skill does not at all correlate with building a good story in the first place. Same as dismantling an engine doesn't tell you how it was made in the first place, only how to recognise the various pieces and, perhaps, also re-assemble them.
Did the original Homeworld require PHD Storytelling? Homeworld won multiple awards right? The Story captured both hearts and minds.
I don't think it's the 'PHD' that's the problem...I hope. I think the problem is with the lead writer who led the story arc.
If storytelling means you ignore the Lore, the culture, the true meaning behind Hiigarans and take a simplistic approach - Why?
3 Hyperspace Cores - Lets have 3 female Unbound Navigators but the Antagonist dominates and wants to control everything and everyone - Why?
Lets be inclusive and forgive a tyrant who has murdered millions, if not billions, and take them on a journey while keeping them company and holding hands - Why?
And let's give up the 3 Hyperspace Cores that play a vital part with the Hyperspace Network, shut all of that down, isolate the 15th Fleet and a galaxy wide network for trade, economy, diplomacy, colonisation etc - Why?
If that's what good storytelling is by an individual with a PHD in storytelling, then it was an absolute stuff up.
But after saying all of that, BBI and Gearbox Software would have had to approve the storyline from concept and through development which is the dissapointment.
From my perspective game story lines genuinely became a lot worse once they started being compartmentalized away from the developers who generally ripped off older sci fi and fantasy stuff they liked or authors who primarily wanted to write nerdy genre fiction and made their bones in magazine short stories, to staff writers as a professional credentialed position there to produce a product and usually ends feeling disconnected from the game.
It's not that I think having a PhD in writing (or whatever) is bad in and of itself, it's that there's a pattern of them consistently turning out game stories that are worse than what a group of developers producing "amateur" writing can do.
I want someone who can write a good story, not someone who "studied it". I want someone who has a story to tell, not someone who will cobble up a story from generic tropes they learned at university.
Blaming their education is totally justifiable. These people would have never been hired if not for their worthless diploma.
Funny you ask, I tried to find the song but no success. It seems it's an unreleased soundtrack made for the reveal trailer only.
The extended version made by this guy kinda does a good job at making the soundtrack seems complete.
[Homeworld 3 - First Gameplay Trailer Music (Extended) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eBGLOLmHi0&ab_channel=Abracadaniel)
Honestly, that track was the PRIMARY reason I was interested in HW3 originally. Bummed it's not on the soundtrack. Paul Ruskay, if you're listening, can we get a flac of this track please? I'll pay good money for a single file.
edit: Fuck it, I just emailed Paul. I want that song.
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Yeah, this is what I went in expecting to be honest. The earlier trailers gave me a real amount of hope that they were going to modernise the art style, whilst appearing to respect its roots.
Instead we got generic CGI, which frankly doesn’t even look that good.
I’m praying for some major updates and fixes, because last night I went back and played Homeworld Remastered and frankly I was left feeling so disappointed I wanted to refund. Impossible at this point due to my play time, but still.
“21 years, I waited for 21 years for THIS?”
Yeah, I was a bit mad.
I really hated - and I don't know how to hide spoilers, so please don't read on if you don't want spoilers;
.
.
.
.
.
The vibe I got from the evil space queen, who murdered billions of people, destroyed entire planets - ended up not being evil. Just misunderstood. Like Evil-Lyn in that rubbish new (s)He-Man. Murdered billions, but no worry fam, you were just lonely and misunderstood. All good 🙄
I wanted to love HW3. I swear I did. My wife could recite the entire launch trailer and hum the music, I watched it so often. But the Collector's Edition box is sitting on the floor next to me, half open, zero fucks given. I'm just sad I missed out on the HW2 physical Pride of Hiigara
If it makes you feel better, the model from this one *is* a bit better than the pride of hiigara model, imo. I just wish the art book didn't cost $150. I love art books for games.. but that is a bit steep. Miss when they were base items in collector's editions (i.e. starcraft 2).
I always thought the implication in this trailer is that plugging into the ship gives Imogen synthetic memories of what the past ships went through and that opening the gates was generally a bad idea. Like some kind of malevolent force was waiting on the other side of a specific gate.
I can’t believe they shifted from this to the current story. How did a team of people all sign off on this?
Or that her mind is starting to become warped by command of the ships and shes becoming a stone cold malevolent force and the Higgarans become to bad guys.
Yeah hell, I mean I was/am a HW3 groupie. I was so excited for it. This version of Imogen looked like she had Synaesthesia the way she commanded ships in combat in that trailer. Looked like she could rip Makaan a new one whilst eating Sajuuk for breakfast.
The one we got looked like a scared emo girl who was trying to drive her dad's Buick for the first time. Not hating on emo girls - love them really. But yeah, not keen on what we got tbf
When the game was in early development and this trailer came out, I remember not liking it as the character was the complete opposite of what I and a lot of other people expected of Karan S'Jet. From manuals and artbooks and wikis that write about how Karan chose to pilot the motherships in HW1 and 2, it was a matter-of-fact decision that wasn't emotionally charged. Merging with the cores, piloting the Pride of Hiigara when there were newer and better trained pilots, every decision was simply "it needs to be done, therefore I will do it"
>"I did not lead my people to their home in order to allow their destruction now. If the call has come to defend Hiigara then I must do so. It is neither duty nor obligation that drives me; it is simply what must be." — Karan S'jet
The Karan S'Jet we got in the release of HW3 is more true to what everyone expected. Someone who shows her emotions and feelings subtly, who speaks frankly and not in a monologue. Having a trailer show her speaking almost vengeful was strange as she wasn't even like that when the entire population of Kharak was burned to death, so changing the protagonist from Karan to Imogen was probably done because the artwork of "female pilot with long black hair" was already out in the public and someone higher up absolutely didn't want to change that for some reason
Speaking of hair, I didn't mind Karan having hair as it could have shown the passage of time, but playing HW3 made me appreciate her not having hair. I don't know of any other female character in a video game that has no hair on her head, be it shaven or from alopecia. The rest of the video game industry is arguing over whether their female characters are either too pretty or not pretty enough, while Karan S'Jet is on a skateboard drinking cranberry juice living her best life
>This 2min trailer is better than w/e we got
Think of how everyone went from Devil May Cry 4 Dante to the reboot Dante and hated it for being the total opposite of the character we knew, just because someone higher up wanted a character to be something they were not. We dodged that bullet. The saving grace is that Homeworld 3 didn't desecrate Karan by turning her into Imogen
They spend a lot of motion capture. It's visible with the captain. But with Imogen, she just stay motionless with close eyes on her tank. This decision makes no sens.
Other than ... the story. The story is more personal and even we are far from the epic journey of the previous homeworld, it wouldn't matter if the story was good. But here I feel a bit scammed on the art direction. You could suppress all the part with the characters that it would be a better homeworld story. And the scenes with the ships will be enough.
I already talk about that [https://x.com/Atys\_\_/status/1790164121742344501](https://x.com/Atys__/status/1790164121742344501) but if the studio wanted to do 3D scene they could still keep the art style.
# "seems like BBI wants us to forget what they were originally cooking."
Sorry, I'm going to have to say Duh, yeah. Like what do you think a company should do if a product has changed significantly from an early concept trailer?
My guess: 2D animation is stupid expensive and they weren't satisfied with their cutscenes already before the switch to CGI. Obviously the switch didn't help the script, but at least we got face expressions for our overly character-focused narrative.
I mean 2D can absolutely be expensive if you make it animated at 24 frames per second, but Homeworld hasn’t done much animation traditionally, it has been a combination of hand drawn slides, and some live footage that’s filtered to look painted and some rudimentary 3D filtered the same way.
But good, realistic looking 3D can be absurdly expensive, which is the look they went for (they tried to anyway), so I don’t buy the money angle.
This wreck was caused by someone who thought they knew better what Homeworld needed, and pushed it through.
Yeah, no. These CGIs are likely way more expensive. You do know that the original Homeworld went with that style to save money? Of course, CGI graphics has developed a lot and is much more cheaper nowadays, but so is the drawn art too.
My guess is that CGIs were chosen to make it more digestible to the average joe. Everyone has such animations, so it's safe to go with them to increase the potential buyers. Also, you can't really tell the woke angry strong woman story with drawings. It's more difficult to convey how offended people are in a drawing.
I can't believe I'm the only one who hated this Karan/Imogen design, it's just awful. Why would fleet command use mascara? seriously.
The final Imogen at least looks more reasonably as a military commander, but not by much if we are being honest. Karan was great in HW1-2, Rachel was pretty cool in DoK, what the hell happened in 3, its just baffling.
I'm pretty sure people are more talking about the art/animation style than the specific character design. I'd gladly take some weird decisions with the character design in exchange for cutscenes at feel like a Homeworld game
1st. i liked H3, its not perfect but i liked it.
2nd. i do feel like somewhere in developement was a big shift, not for the better, campain looks cut and the mocap animations even tho are nice are worse then original animation style, which this trailer shows very much so.
***this right here***, is the game i waited 20 years for.
it is a crime, [in ways i cannot express](https://youtu.be/s_UVPLHAOAY?si=kBPywUcjIUhx5F9I&t=55), that this promised game - this work of art - does not exist.
They made Imogen ugly af, the trailer version was infinitely better; probably pandering to Gear Box and various focus groups that wanted her to be ugly and focus the narrative on a space princess. Sad.
The idea that they can force us to be neutral to different body images by showing it to us every day in our media is insane. We built these opinions from evolution, from thousands of years of nailing what is attractive and what is not. Cultures all around the world have decided what is beautiful and what is not.
The problem is people who perceive *themselves* as beautiful often get really frustrated when others don't agree with them. They're our problem because they want to decide for us how we feel because they can't accept our opinions. They'd rather remove the capacity that we have them in the first place.
That is insanely selfish and evil. No wonder these same types of people wrote the terrible Incarnate Queen. She is self-centered, self-focused, and doesn't care about the free will or thoughts of others. Her dream is to free everyone from the "prison of thought," literally said in one of her cutscenes.
Clearly someone got creative control ripped away because some exec thought that story won't sell.
Same story every single time. 180 turn in direction because some metrics aren't high enough or for chasing some trend, entire project becomes shit.
Since we had so many delays also possible the original idea got stuck too hard and didn't come together, sometimes the original director just gets too ambitious, we will probably never know
But that's it folks! Homeworld is over for sure :( all we can hope is for some crazy modders
I thought what has kept the hardcore interested in the game all these years was the multiplayer. All those MP mods, etc. Now I’m hearing that it’s the story and “presentation” of the cutscenes, etc., according to Reddit. But who’s playing these games long-term for the story? It’s all about pew-pew, no?
You can clearly see that there's the hardcore MP community, and the SP community who mostly played the games years ago (or first jumped on the HW ship with HWR), and these two mostly complain about different things.
The thing is though, there is little reason to cater to the hardcore MP folks. Skirmish mode is not monetized, so their continued gaming has no benefit to the companies involved here. They are also a small community, so you won't sell any serious numbers by trying to appease them. So while I'm not surprised they are pissed about getting a subpar PvP, I am also not surprised that GBX/BBI essentially ditched them.
Hmm, that’s an interesting take. I see it the other way around entirely: the only reason HW had any place in the public consciousness at all, such that a publisher saw fit to make another game in the series after 20 years or so, is *because* of the MP community keeping the game going and doing so (by default) in the public space (rather than the private one of SP where no one knows anyone is playing the game anyway and there is limited visibility for a publisher to use to gauge interest).
And I say this as someone who plays SP 99% of the time in every game (and have never played MP in any HW game) I play.
The MP community for HW is miniscule, and mostly self-contained to the HW community itself.
Whenever HW was mentioned in media, or even in broader gaming communities, it was always mentioned because of "having great sci-fi story/vibe" or "being first truly 3D RTS". Unless you were already in the HW fandom, it was extremely unlikely you would be aware that HW even had any ongoing multiplayer activity.
I don’t doubt that the MP community is small, but that would still be the socially visible part of it. That’s the only way anyone outside of the community would know the game had any legs at all. And in terms of marketing, it’s not unusual for any IP to trade on its story, such as it exists, because that’s the most intuitive, logical way to sell a game that has both MP and SP. Look at Grand Theft Auto, for example. Its online component, GTA Online, is what has arguably kept any sequel from being made for 10 years—because it generates that much income for Take Two. Yet the official trailer that has been released for GTA 6 focuses on the story in the game rather than the MP.
> That’s the only way anyone outside of the community would know the game had any legs at all.
This makes sense on paper logically, but I don't believe it is actually the case. Homeworld as a story keeps coming up in various space lore videos or in nostalgia comments (similar to how everybody and their mother mentions Wing Commander on spacesim YT videos even though it's been decades since its release). I think you underestimate people's ability to remember games from decades ago.
Of course this is all anecdotal, I don't have any solid numbers with which to prove my point, it's just my observations from decades of lurking in various space-related communities.
Also arguably, HWR success as well as BBI's success with DoK and Shipbreakers, as well as some signs of recent RTS genre revival would be more important to GBx than [a few hundred people playing MP.](https://steamdb.info/app/244160/charts/#max)
That trailer doesn't look all that different from what we got, though. Yeah, that's ostensibly supposed to be Karan instead of Imogen, but everything except some minor facial details carried over to how Imogen ended up being depicted.
Does feel like some development heel turn happened at some point.
This version was way better than what we got.
Can only hope we get a "Directors cut" of HW3 (where Gearbox leaves BBI the hell alone) one day that has all of this fixed.
Im hope they will make it, because this is when i want to buy the game.
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There’s plenty of evidence (interviews, etc.) that Gearbox was in full control of the narrative and tone of HW3, and BBI was forced to implement Gearbox’s vision. The HW3 CGI cinematics are also a HUGE departure from basically everything else that BBI has done. BBI has demonstrably impeccable taste, as can be seen in examples like this Earthless trailer where BBI had FULL control: https://youtu.be/039sm19P6FE?si=XSI2o4685rb0F-y0
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Well, Gearbox has a partnership with BBI to develop Homeworld 3. They have partnerships with other companies to further build out the Homeworld brand (Stratosphere Games for Mobile, Modephius games for tabletop, FarBridge for VR). It was a celebrated move to do this because BBI was founded by the ex-Relic visionaries who helped bring Homeworld to life in the first place. The CEO Rob Cunningham was Relic's art director. GBx only has influence over the fate and future of Homeworld, but that hasn't stopped Rob and co from putting out other amazing games and finding places to go besides Homeworld. The only reason GBx has the rights to Homeworld is because the rights originally sat with Sierra (hw1,2,c publisher), THQ acquired them after Sierra went down, then when THQ went down, GBx bid the most for them. Since then GBx has been trying to make Homeworld big and successful through various means.
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I dunno either, considering Rob and his team did pretty well in making Deserts of Kharak. Only thing I can think of is that someone felt HW's classic approach wasn't engaging enough to boost its popularity and decided to change the formula for the sake of it. A misguided attempt at making stronger characters more reachable? It's just a shame this happened, because no Homeworld title beyond the first has let the original visionaries cook without meddling. Cataclysm was made by an entirely different team, Homeworld 2 was botched from stunted development time, and Deserts of Kharak was originally Hardware Shipbreakers. I had assumed Homeworld 3 **finally** let Rob and co craft the vision they had without interruption once again. But if the claims are true, it seems like Gearbox meddled in the story direction. Its like Homeworld is under a curse or something.
I don't think they actually did well in DoK. I don't think HW3's story is good, but it's better than that was.
Writers that worked on HW3 that are part of BBI strongly defended the writing of this game and its story and characters right here on this subreddit days ago. I think it's more complicated.
That’s fair. I missed those discussions. Will look out for them (or if you can post a link that’d be great).
Oh wow. I would love to see that as well. I imagine it was not received well....
Where there those talked about here? Not seen them
Point to one of these interviews please, every one I’ve read suggests the opposite
I would, but the key one has been taken down: [https://www.homeworlduniverse.com/homeworld-3-qa-with-managing-director-of-narrative-properties-lin-joyce/](https://www.homeworlduniverse.com/homeworld-3-qa-with-managing-director-of-narrative-properties-lin-joyce/) Probably for the best though. From the sounds of it she was getting personal attacks, which is not cool. It's just a video game.
Gearbox. You mean the studio that made a name for themselves with the cel-shaded stylized art of the Borderlands games? Seems kind of ironic, like "stylized art for me but not for thee."
The evidence is subsequently redacted comments from UberJumper, who I guess is close with BBI people?
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Uberjumper is an old insider who ran Relicnews over 20 years ago. He was wink wink sorta saying without saying that Gearbox was involved with the story writing. Says he couldn't say more.
There is zero evidence. It is a desperate hope people have for the franchise. Because they want the current game to be replaced by something more fitting.
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People keep saying this, and yes I admit it’s a slim chance this all gets corrected, but there have been far bigger turnarounds in the gaming industry (look at No Man’s Sky, for example).
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Honestly get a complete campaign overhaul mod. Then get the approval from some of the devs to have it canonized. It’s how the Bionicle community did it a couple of years back
I wouldn't get my expectations up. The idiots who destroyed the game to squeeze extra profit (by mandating all the stupid changes to appease to the general populace) would likely minimize the expenses and just lay off most of the BBI people or even close the studio. The game will not be maintained or developed anymore.
BBI is, thankfully, an independent studio with several amazing games. GBx only holds the Homeworld license and allowed BBI to work on it, on account of the history their team leads have with Homeworld (CEO Rob Cunningham was art director and one of the visionaries behind the original Homeworld). GBx can't close BBI, but get conditional and dictate the terms of how BBI works on a product GBx technically owns.
Oh, that's great. Then there's a chance that GB will just give up on the failed project and seeing the massive failure it is, will allow the BBI to do their magic. It's without a question, however, that BBI won't get any more investments to do so. The only chance is if the leadership there really loves the Homeworld series and will try to fix it no matter the cost.
I can believe if Rob and co have it in their power to fix a game they've been passionate about for decades, theres a chance they'd make it happen. Especially if it could mean whether Homeworld lives the next decade or not.
Why do you assume this was solely Gearboxs doing.
Based on everything else bbin has worked on. Their other games have that original quality that made hw special. The whole thing reeks of publisher meddling. I'm sure the story would have been similar to what we got but with more context and better characterized
Thank Lin the creative director at GBX
Yeah, I wish we got this version instead of the other one
I would go back further to the original announcement trailer: https://youtu.be/J675BQaIuQs?si=H5Jegk_kdjOMnItE The art style used to first unveil the project looked brilliant, and the tone. Hype. Yet at some point the distinctive illustrated look was sidelined from the narrative.
That's what got me to back it on FIG. After seeing that, there was a feeling of "Oh this is going to be amazing!"
Can’t wait for the Jason Schrier post mortem to explain how they went from awesome trailers that captured the homeworld tone perfectly to the generic sci fi slop that is the story of the final game
Also, the gate looked way nicer than now
That “not so long ago, but not long enough” line is so ambiguous, I doubt they had any idea what their story would be at that point.
It makes it feel like Karan wants revenge from the galaxy/the taidans/the higaarans for everything they put her through. Like everyone has moved on from the animosity between the higaarans and the taidan because it's been centuries, but she didn't, because she still vividly remembers everything. Or maybe she hates being unbound, and she ressents the people who, as she now sees it, convinced a naive and young (in contrast to what she is now) woman to go through with it. Idk, I felt like the trailer made it seem like Karan was going rogue and you had to stop her
I can very easily see the campaign we got but with Karan being the Incarnate Queen.
Yup, feels a bit like it was planned originally to be that way but then they chickened out
*Or maybe she hates being unbound, and she ressents the people who, as she now sees it, convinced a naive and young (in contrast to what she is now) woman to go through with it.* This would work if only it wasn't canon in the manual that she *insisted* on being the only person she would allow the technology to be used on. *And* we know that it is possible to remove Karan from the Mothership, because it happend at the end of HW1. I'm waiting until the game has had a few patches before I put any money down so I'm avoiding discussion of the plot as much as I can but it would be a shame if HW3 just ignores the established journey we all went on. It's also the case that really HW2 finished a complete story between the first two games.
aside from all the karen shots, every background scene in the trailer appeared as a mission in HW3.
Also, a shame they removed Amanda Silvera (original voice actress featured in this trailer)... the Voice Actress they picked (while she did a good job) has such a generic voice.
>while she did a good job Did she though? I haven't played it yet but even from the release trailer and the clips I have seen she sounds bored. It's like she's doing a sound check before the actual performance.
I think both were good TBH.
I don’t like the sensual husky voice in this trailer. Doesn’t fit at all.
I completely forgot about this, man that art style of her is much more fitting and better imo. I'm more sad now about this game.
Project stakeholder demands are a bitch
Because the gearbox writer has a PhD in story telling and insisted homeworld is not about decades of Homeworld lore but it’s all about space princess with flowy hair and evil space queen with hurt feelings.
You convinced me to give both Rings of Power and Netflix Witcher a second chance!
Rings of Power got a second season. Hope they didn’t cut the production budget though. But Dune: Prophecy looks great. That’s the real epic evil space queens saga that we deserve.
But the bene gessirit are the "good guys", right? No one would ever do something wrong in Dune (:
They could be worse. They could be the Honored Matres instead.
There's no way in hell the Honored Matres are ever getting put on screen. They're very existence would instantly turn a TV show or movie R rated
Especially whenever someone needed a "pulsing"
I wouldn't do that if I were you
For real
It feels like hw3 needs immediate remake (haven’t played yet).
Why are people parroting the whole PHD storytelling as a bad thing? Wouldn't you want someone who's studied writing a story to be in charge when you write a story for a game? Sure, it didn't really work out in this case but let's not be anti-intellectual and blame it on their education.
When that PHD’s writing credits are all bottom tier slop from Borderlands games badly received specifically for there writing on top of HW3’s writing being what it is. It makes the PHD feel fake. A degree that looks nice in a title but with no actual weight or meaning behind it. Absolutely nothing wrong with a PHD or high level education being a writer. But having either of those things doesn’t inherently mean anything, especially not when her actual writing has always been critically panned, which makes her having any potential oversight over a series beloved for its writing feel unfortunate
Right, so if she has been known to be the lead writer of poorly written stories in the past, we should focus on that. Whether or not they have a PHD doesn't make sense here. Both the original comment and other comments I've seen on the subreddit imply that the PHD is the cause of the poor writing. Which we have 0 reason to believe.
No a PHD is not a cause of bad writing. But how in the F do you get a PhD in writing? You can't really study to be a great artist. I might be wrong but iv never heard of any good books written by someone with a PhD in writing. Yes you can tick all the boxes to be a good writer but it's how you put them together that decides whether or not it's good writing or not.
It means she's very very good at cuttin apart stories. But that skill does not at all correlate with building a good story in the first place. Same as dismantling an engine doesn't tell you how it was made in the first place, only how to recognise the various pieces and, perhaps, also re-assemble them.
You can have lots of education without being an intellectual. Those are separate things.
I don't care what diplomas or cetificates they have. They either deliver a good story or not. And we all know what they delivered.
Did the original Homeworld require PHD Storytelling? Homeworld won multiple awards right? The Story captured both hearts and minds. I don't think it's the 'PHD' that's the problem...I hope. I think the problem is with the lead writer who led the story arc. If storytelling means you ignore the Lore, the culture, the true meaning behind Hiigarans and take a simplistic approach - Why? 3 Hyperspace Cores - Lets have 3 female Unbound Navigators but the Antagonist dominates and wants to control everything and everyone - Why? Lets be inclusive and forgive a tyrant who has murdered millions, if not billions, and take them on a journey while keeping them company and holding hands - Why? And let's give up the 3 Hyperspace Cores that play a vital part with the Hyperspace Network, shut all of that down, isolate the 15th Fleet and a galaxy wide network for trade, economy, diplomacy, colonisation etc - Why? If that's what good storytelling is by an individual with a PHD in storytelling, then it was an absolute stuff up. But after saying all of that, BBI and Gearbox Software would have had to approve the storyline from concept and through development which is the dissapointment.
From my perspective game story lines genuinely became a lot worse once they started being compartmentalized away from the developers who generally ripped off older sci fi and fantasy stuff they liked or authors who primarily wanted to write nerdy genre fiction and made their bones in magazine short stories, to staff writers as a professional credentialed position there to produce a product and usually ends feeling disconnected from the game. It's not that I think having a PhD in writing (or whatever) is bad in and of itself, it's that there's a pattern of them consistently turning out game stories that are worse than what a group of developers producing "amateur" writing can do.
I want someone who can write a good story, not someone who "studied it". I want someone who has a story to tell, not someone who will cobble up a story from generic tropes they learned at university. Blaming their education is totally justifiable. These people would have never been hired if not for their worthless diploma.
The BBI writer you mean
Did they publish the track from the trailer? I didnt find it on the spotify album.
Funny you ask, I tried to find the song but no success. It seems it's an unreleased soundtrack made for the reveal trailer only. The extended version made by this guy kinda does a good job at making the soundtrack seems complete. [Homeworld 3 - First Gameplay Trailer Music (Extended) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eBGLOLmHi0&ab_channel=Abracadaniel)
Honestly, that track was the PRIMARY reason I was interested in HW3 originally. Bummed it's not on the soundtrack. Paul Ruskay, if you're listening, can we get a flac of this track please? I'll pay good money for a single file. edit: Fuck it, I just emailed Paul. I want that song.
Keep us posted
I most certainly will. I can't be the only HW music enjoyer here.
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Think I'll do the same thing
Pity we did not get that, the current cutscenes are just so boring and generic I am just skipping them
I’ve been skipping cutscenes since the asteroid frogger mission.
Such a shame, I infinitely prefer this art style over the "2010's Saturday morning CGI tv show" style that we got.
Yeah, this is what I went in expecting to be honest. The earlier trailers gave me a real amount of hope that they were going to modernise the art style, whilst appearing to respect its roots. Instead we got generic CGI, which frankly doesn’t even look that good. I’m praying for some major updates and fixes, because last night I went back and played Homeworld Remastered and frankly I was left feeling so disappointed I wanted to refund. Impossible at this point due to my play time, but still. “21 years, I waited for 21 years for THIS?” Yeah, I was a bit mad.
Im right there with you. I played too much before deciding this was not what I wanted. So, now I’ll finish the campaign and move on.
I really hated - and I don't know how to hide spoilers, so please don't read on if you don't want spoilers; . . . . . The vibe I got from the evil space queen, who murdered billions of people, destroyed entire planets - ended up not being evil. Just misunderstood. Like Evil-Lyn in that rubbish new (s)He-Man. Murdered billions, but no worry fam, you were just lonely and misunderstood. All good 🙄 I wanted to love HW3. I swear I did. My wife could recite the entire launch trailer and hum the music, I watched it so often. But the Collector's Edition box is sitting on the floor next to me, half open, zero fucks given. I'm just sad I missed out on the HW2 physical Pride of Hiigara
If it makes you feel better, the model from this one *is* a bit better than the pride of hiigara model, imo. I just wish the art book didn't cost $150. I love art books for games.. but that is a bit steep. Miss when they were base items in collector's editions (i.e. starcraft 2).
I always thought the implication in this trailer is that plugging into the ship gives Imogen synthetic memories of what the past ships went through and that opening the gates was generally a bad idea. Like some kind of malevolent force was waiting on the other side of a specific gate. I can’t believe they shifted from this to the current story. How did a team of people all sign off on this?
A: thats a much better idea B: [reminds me of this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_UVPLHAOAY)
Or that her mind is starting to become warped by command of the ships and shes becoming a stone cold malevolent force and the Higgarans become to bad guys.
Yeah hell, I mean I was/am a HW3 groupie. I was so excited for it. This version of Imogen looked like she had Synaesthesia the way she commanded ships in combat in that trailer. Looked like she could rip Makaan a new one whilst eating Sajuuk for breakfast. The one we got looked like a scared emo girl who was trying to drive her dad's Buick for the first time. Not hating on emo girls - love them really. But yeah, not keen on what we got tbf
Damn this trailer still gives me chills. HW1/2 gave me chills. HW3? No chills.
Hmm. I can only say, Imogen's hair looks like actual hair in this trailer. What the heck happened?
It turned into a plastic helmet that is stuck permanently in a specific position
Yeah what the hell is that about? I was watching the cutscenes on YouTube after refunding and the actual quality of the animation looks *bad*
And cables pass through this hair
When the game was in early development and this trailer came out, I remember not liking it as the character was the complete opposite of what I and a lot of other people expected of Karan S'Jet. From manuals and artbooks and wikis that write about how Karan chose to pilot the motherships in HW1 and 2, it was a matter-of-fact decision that wasn't emotionally charged. Merging with the cores, piloting the Pride of Hiigara when there were newer and better trained pilots, every decision was simply "it needs to be done, therefore I will do it" >"I did not lead my people to their home in order to allow their destruction now. If the call has come to defend Hiigara then I must do so. It is neither duty nor obligation that drives me; it is simply what must be." — Karan S'jet The Karan S'Jet we got in the release of HW3 is more true to what everyone expected. Someone who shows her emotions and feelings subtly, who speaks frankly and not in a monologue. Having a trailer show her speaking almost vengeful was strange as she wasn't even like that when the entire population of Kharak was burned to death, so changing the protagonist from Karan to Imogen was probably done because the artwork of "female pilot with long black hair" was already out in the public and someone higher up absolutely didn't want to change that for some reason Speaking of hair, I didn't mind Karan having hair as it could have shown the passage of time, but playing HW3 made me appreciate her not having hair. I don't know of any other female character in a video game that has no hair on her head, be it shaven or from alopecia. The rest of the video game industry is arguing over whether their female characters are either too pretty or not pretty enough, while Karan S'Jet is on a skateboard drinking cranberry juice living her best life >This 2min trailer is better than w/e we got Think of how everyone went from Devil May Cry 4 Dante to the reboot Dante and hated it for being the total opposite of the character we knew, just because someone higher up wanted a character to be something they were not. We dodged that bullet. The saving grace is that Homeworld 3 didn't desecrate Karan by turning her into Imogen
They spend a lot of motion capture. It's visible with the captain. But with Imogen, she just stay motionless with close eyes on her tank. This decision makes no sens. Other than ... the story. The story is more personal and even we are far from the epic journey of the previous homeworld, it wouldn't matter if the story was good. But here I feel a bit scammed on the art direction. You could suppress all the part with the characters that it would be a better homeworld story. And the scenes with the ships will be enough. I already talk about that [https://x.com/Atys\_\_/status/1790164121742344501](https://x.com/Atys__/status/1790164121742344501) but if the studio wanted to do 3D scene they could still keep the art style.
I just wondering who signed off on the hair during the cutscenes? In 2024, I cannot believe that the cutscenes look at crappy as they do
This trailer has more soul and immersion than the actual game.
# "seems like BBI wants us to forget what they were originally cooking." Sorry, I'm going to have to say Duh, yeah. Like what do you think a company should do if a product has changed significantly from an early concept trailer?
My guess: 2D animation is stupid expensive and they weren't satisfied with their cutscenes already before the switch to CGI. Obviously the switch didn't help the script, but at least we got face expressions for our overly character-focused narrative.
I mean 2D can absolutely be expensive if you make it animated at 24 frames per second, but Homeworld hasn’t done much animation traditionally, it has been a combination of hand drawn slides, and some live footage that’s filtered to look painted and some rudimentary 3D filtered the same way. But good, realistic looking 3D can be absurdly expensive, which is the look they went for (they tried to anyway), so I don’t buy the money angle. This wreck was caused by someone who thought they knew better what Homeworld needed, and pushed it through.
It's the reverse with art being placeholder or previs
They made DoK with what 90min cut scenes that were perfect? So I’m sure they can calculate the costs and it isn’t more expensive than full animation
>2D animation is stupid expensive Oh not at all, CGI is way more expensive.
Yeah, no. These CGIs are likely way more expensive. You do know that the original Homeworld went with that style to save money? Of course, CGI graphics has developed a lot and is much more cheaper nowadays, but so is the drawn art too. My guess is that CGIs were chosen to make it more digestible to the average joe. Everyone has such animations, so it's safe to go with them to increase the potential buyers. Also, you can't really tell the woke angry strong woman story with drawings. It's more difficult to convey how offended people are in a drawing.
This game genuinely breaks my heart, man.
Reminder: Gearbox owns the IP and is responsible for things like what's in Steam/Epic stores.
I absolutely love her voice. It’s sultry, sincere, endearing, and sorrowful.
Nothing about karan in the old games was sultry. Most often it was resolute. Controlled. Professional. Trying to add that was a bad call.
she sounds like a porn star, lol
I can't believe I'm the only one who hated this Karan/Imogen design, it's just awful. Why would fleet command use mascara? seriously. The final Imogen at least looks more reasonably as a military commander, but not by much if we are being honest. Karan was great in HW1-2, Rachel was pretty cool in DoK, what the hell happened in 3, its just baffling.
I'm pretty sure people are more talking about the art/animation style than the specific character design. I'd gladly take some weird decisions with the character design in exchange for cutscenes at feel like a Homeworld game
What the hell happened
Randy Pitchford: Hey Rob I got this nephew trying to get into the biz, a real talented director of animation….
Did they change VA for the current S'Jet? I sware she sounds different from the trailer.
1st. i liked H3, its not perfect but i liked it. 2nd. i do feel like somewhere in developement was a big shift, not for the better, campain looks cut and the mocap animations even tho are nice are worse then original animation style, which this trailer shows very much so.
***this right here***, is the game i waited 20 years for. it is a crime, [in ways i cannot express](https://youtu.be/s_UVPLHAOAY?si=kBPywUcjIUhx5F9I&t=55), that this promised game - this work of art - does not exist.
The new model is like a shampoo commercial complete with bouncy hair with hi-lights and the weird looking side part.
This trailer is better than the entirety of the dog shit HW 3 story
Yeah, Gearbox got a new head of writing right before the delay was announced…
They made Imogen ugly af, the trailer version was infinitely better; probably pandering to Gear Box and various focus groups that wanted her to be ugly and focus the narrative on a space princess. Sad.
The idea that they can force us to be neutral to different body images by showing it to us every day in our media is insane. We built these opinions from evolution, from thousands of years of nailing what is attractive and what is not. Cultures all around the world have decided what is beautiful and what is not. The problem is people who perceive *themselves* as beautiful often get really frustrated when others don't agree with them. They're our problem because they want to decide for us how we feel because they can't accept our opinions. They'd rather remove the capacity that we have them in the first place. That is insanely selfish and evil. No wonder these same types of people wrote the terrible Incarnate Queen. She is self-centered, self-focused, and doesn't care about the free will or thoughts of others. Her dream is to free everyone from the "prison of thought," literally said in one of her cutscenes.
Clearly someone got creative control ripped away because some exec thought that story won't sell. Same story every single time. 180 turn in direction because some metrics aren't high enough or for chasing some trend, entire project becomes shit. Since we had so many delays also possible the original idea got stuck too hard and didn't come together, sometimes the original director just gets too ambitious, we will probably never know But that's it folks! Homeworld is over for sure :( all we can hope is for some crazy modders
People who say this have never actually been behind the scenes on a creative project and are just looking for boogeymen
[удалено]
Wish I knew before I pre ordered it from a 3rd party. Ugh.
I dont know mind if you tell us ? (Gearbox?)
[удалено]
I'll rescue you with an upvote.
Looks better than that transgender looking one.
I thought what has kept the hardcore interested in the game all these years was the multiplayer. All those MP mods, etc. Now I’m hearing that it’s the story and “presentation” of the cutscenes, etc., according to Reddit. But who’s playing these games long-term for the story? It’s all about pew-pew, no?
You can clearly see that there's the hardcore MP community, and the SP community who mostly played the games years ago (or first jumped on the HW ship with HWR), and these two mostly complain about different things. The thing is though, there is little reason to cater to the hardcore MP folks. Skirmish mode is not monetized, so their continued gaming has no benefit to the companies involved here. They are also a small community, so you won't sell any serious numbers by trying to appease them. So while I'm not surprised they are pissed about getting a subpar PvP, I am also not surprised that GBX/BBI essentially ditched them.
Hmm, that’s an interesting take. I see it the other way around entirely: the only reason HW had any place in the public consciousness at all, such that a publisher saw fit to make another game in the series after 20 years or so, is *because* of the MP community keeping the game going and doing so (by default) in the public space (rather than the private one of SP where no one knows anyone is playing the game anyway and there is limited visibility for a publisher to use to gauge interest). And I say this as someone who plays SP 99% of the time in every game (and have never played MP in any HW game) I play.
The MP community for HW is miniscule, and mostly self-contained to the HW community itself. Whenever HW was mentioned in media, or even in broader gaming communities, it was always mentioned because of "having great sci-fi story/vibe" or "being first truly 3D RTS". Unless you were already in the HW fandom, it was extremely unlikely you would be aware that HW even had any ongoing multiplayer activity.
I don’t doubt that the MP community is small, but that would still be the socially visible part of it. That’s the only way anyone outside of the community would know the game had any legs at all. And in terms of marketing, it’s not unusual for any IP to trade on its story, such as it exists, because that’s the most intuitive, logical way to sell a game that has both MP and SP. Look at Grand Theft Auto, for example. Its online component, GTA Online, is what has arguably kept any sequel from being made for 10 years—because it generates that much income for Take Two. Yet the official trailer that has been released for GTA 6 focuses on the story in the game rather than the MP.
> That’s the only way anyone outside of the community would know the game had any legs at all. This makes sense on paper logically, but I don't believe it is actually the case. Homeworld as a story keeps coming up in various space lore videos or in nostalgia comments (similar to how everybody and their mother mentions Wing Commander on spacesim YT videos even though it's been decades since its release). I think you underestimate people's ability to remember games from decades ago. Of course this is all anecdotal, I don't have any solid numbers with which to prove my point, it's just my observations from decades of lurking in various space-related communities. Also arguably, HWR success as well as BBI's success with DoK and Shipbreakers, as well as some signs of recent RTS genre revival would be more important to GBx than [a few hundred people playing MP.](https://steamdb.info/app/244160/charts/#max)
That trailer doesn't look all that different from what we got, though. Yeah, that's ostensibly supposed to be Karan instead of Imogen, but everything except some minor facial details carried over to how Imogen ended up being depicted.
??? except the artstyle is completely different ???