I’ve never been much of an RTS player; I’m terrible at multitasking, and my strategic acumen leaves much to be desired. Most of the great achievements in the genre have passed me by with nary a shrug, and even the all-encompassing appeal of StarCraft escapes me. Yet there is one title that not only managed to retain my fickle attention, but remains one of the most cherished games in my collection: Relic’s Homeworld.

I first became interested in Homeworld as a fan of Yes - the English gods of progressive rock - whose 1999 album The Ladder featured a video preview of the game. The album’s title track was to be featured in the final release, and lead singer Jon Anderson’s enthusiasm for the project intrigued me. Despite my ambivalence toward real-time strategy, I downloaded the demo, and was blown away.

In a nutshell, Homeworld does a lot of things right. But the game’s greatest achievement, and the one that kept me playing despite my tactical ineptitude, was Relic’s ability to make me genuinely care for an entire race, without once showing me their faces. The story follows the inhabitants of a hellish desert planet who discover that they had in fact been exiled from their original homeworld millenia before, and therefore endeavor to return aboard an enormous colony ship. Your task as fleet commander is to bring your people home.

Told through pencil-sketch animations and a minimal, almost poetic voiceover, Homeworld’s story acquaints you with the dreams and ambitions of a civilization on the verge of rediscovering itself. There is no gruff military hero with a dark past, no starry-eyed recruit eager to prove his worth, and no moustache-twirling villain. There are only the disembodied voices of your ship and your intelligence officer, giving you the information you need to complete your mission and little else. They describe objectives matter-of-factly, with full confidence in your ability; at this level of command, barking orders and urgently demanding success would be redundant. Aside from incidental snippets of combat chatter, these offscreen characters are the sole voice of your people, and their trust in you is absolute. This knowledge gives Homeworld’s gameplay far more relevance than usually expected from real-time strategy, which at the time had not attempted to seize the reins of narrative as linear RPGs had.

More recently, Introversion Software applied a similar technique to their action-strategy hybrid Darwinia, which casts the player as the defender of a digital civilization in danger of being wiped out by a computer virus. Beyond mere survival, however, these Darwinians have joined hands in preparation for the launch of their own polygonal rocket, with which they intend to explore their virtual domain. In this universe, the player represents a protective deity, complete with pixelated altars and spiritual gatherings. Far from being disposable pawns, these are tiny people, who love you and ask only that you shield them from harm.

Unfortunately, for the most part this “groups-as-characters” approach to the RTS genre has been overlooked as narrative has focused solely on the player’s achievements. Most strategy titles regard the civilization as merely a manifestation of the player, and I think this is short-sighted. Let him instead be the champion of his people, guiding them as one of their own, and greeted with trust and admiration rather than mindless obedience. The game, and your player, will be better for it.

~ by George on July 22, 2008.