Homeworld 3 Review

Homeworld 3 has finally come! Sands and Sinners! Will space magic truly prevail against the queen of the galactic security blanket? My PC and audio equipment is falling apart before my very eyes! My brain cannot process what it's seeing! Maybe the real Kharak was the friends we made along the way.
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Twitter: / lord_mandalore
00:00 - Intro
00:27 - Background
01:53 - Homeworld 3 Premise
04:20 - Visuals
12:50 - Music & Sound Design
17:06 - Gameplay Mechanics
27:04 - Story (SPOILERS)
41:36 - War Games
43:36 - Conclusions
44:20 - Credits
45:25 - To Escape
#homeworld3 #homeworld #gaming #games #rts

[@MandaloreGaming]

Homeworld on GOG - gog.la/BananaShipQuest EDIT: Since the 1.1 patch came out on June 10th, they have added in another skirmish map, more artifacts for War Games, and some of the unit behavior bugs are fixed. My audio equipment actually did start falling apart during this, and now the backend caption tool is broken so I'll try to get that fixed as soon as I can. I think this might actually be a curse.

[@LittleWeevil]

Witch Hunt never really left...

[@Gabriel-ok5ls]

hallo mandalore, have you ever heard about a game called sanitarium? i saw it some days ago and thought you might like it

[@jonathanfasd9671]

Brilliant from begging to end

[@collinlee5927]

I think the cats in your walls had something to do with it...

[@romainrondeau4242]

Salt it just in case. Might break the curse somehow.

[@Dext3rM0rg4n]

"The music is disapointing compared to previous game" "Fair enough" "It's also the best part of the game" "Uh oh"

[@whiteeye9584]

i don't get it?

[@Rok527]

@@whiteeye9584 It's a roundabout way of saying that this game is worse than previous entries in absolutely every aspect.

[@thenextguy32]

i assume that since theres so much voice acting the composer was told to be subtler or the resulting mix would be too mcuh

[@Razgriz_01]

@@thenextguy32 Which is weird since they got it right in Deserts of Kharak, which had the same in-game radio chatter with bombastic music.

[@MiseRaen]

@@Razgriz_01 It pretty much fits in the timeline of all the recent failed games. I think something happened in the development somewhere that changed the direction of the game.

[@planescaped]

"My project director told me I need to put a human face on things" Lol, a cry for help right there in the manual.

[@Spacefriend594]

A have a small mouth and I will scream subtly

[@personaignota]

@@Spacefriend594 I have a mouth but you can't hear me so I will write it down so you can read it

[@adamflyshotmail]

Might as well read "the devil himself forced my hand"

[@another505]

wash my hands clean moment

[@dominicius77]

I honestly don't get why people are reading that much into it. It's a common phrase that I can expect in a sci-fi that is either making fun of management or has dystopic themes. Either way, there is nothing special about it.

[@kayeskibbler647]

Mandalore trying his best to talk about what he likes in this game despite the rest is funnily a great example of "professionals under stress" voice acting

[@StyryderX]

He cracked like three times during the entire video. Not even the droods break him this bad.

[@tristanbeer1257]

@@StyryderX At least the droods were batshit insane from the start. THis is Homeworld we're talking about.

[@Catheidan]

@@StyryderX I think I've watched almost every video that MandaloreGaming has ever made and I don't recall him breaking as bad as he did at the end of the story discussion

[@CokoBlop]

Good one

[@MandaloreGaming]

Man

[@heckinmemes6430]

"Computer, increase size of Imogen to 1500%. Computer disable safety protocols. Computer engage program and send my will and testament."

[@USSMariner]

Barclay at his worst *still* has better taste than this game.

[@Marcara081]

It's especially funny when you consider that this is absolutely many peoples' fetish content. So just add it to the game. Why not?

[@thesenamesaretaken]

​​@@Marcara081they missed a trick not having her eat or stamp on somebody then, maybe have the antagonists be anthropomorphic wolves, and whilst we're at it they put enough diversities amongst the Higarans that not feeding the ir audience is just wasted potential (for extra spice, make Imogen explicitly Jewish, the Kushan story was very old testament and the Sjets are the elite caste so it fits). It could at least have been a game that fed niche fetishes instead of a mediocre game with weak writing

[@Stainlesssteele4]

Animating somewhat photorealistic humans with disney pixar animation principals really makes every cutscene look like a fake east asian mobile game ad.

[@Kamfrenchie]

yeah the main character's face looks so wieird or is it just me ? Isaac looks much less uncanny .

[@Alberich_Prince_of_Dwarves]

it looks like AI to me lmao.

[@SpaceTalon]

The fact that your MC looks like she picked up the call doesn't help either xD

[@tygonmaster]

@@Kamfrenchie I think in part it is because her face is, and this might come across as rude, but...androgynous. She has a pretty pronounced brow ridge and...her jaw....maybe that was the point: she being like, a representation of all of humanity, but you could stick her face on a male body and I would be none the wiser. It really just adds to the uncanny feel in some scenes.

[@luigisanchez1732]

It's not A.I, the Character expresions are key-animated by hand, it is not made using mo cap, that's why the expresions look uncanny and exagerated.

[@skinnyhamster5765]

"My Project Director told me I had to "put a human face on things" so here I am" It took 14 ppl to put together a story for this thing. And only 1 phrase from 1 true writer to burn it.

[@QT-Sei]

The story is of such low quality I would have expected one politically-motivated writer. Too many cooks in the kitchen, all with bad motives. They put the REAL writer on MANUAL duty. Jeez.

[@tatuira93]

I love how underhanded this sounds when you read it.

[@sharemation5339]

@@tatuira93 And the sad thing is, it is only that way if you have context. Sadly, we DO.

[@KingThrillgore]

Is there any truth to these folks being sweet baby consultants? I generally think the heat around them is mostly from people blaming their virginity on them but if Gearbox/BBI was farming the story out to this many writers, something straight up went wrong in production and they all need a stern talking to.

[@EminemLovesGrapes]

​@@KingThrillgoreit probably didn't help at all, more hands is always worse. But it didn't suddenly cause the story to be garbage. It was always garbage. Tge industry really needs to collapse again.

[@markointhesky]

37:00 >"Where would Karen S'Jett be if Kharak had not burned?" Presumably exploring the stars and making their toward Hiigara, like the plan was, just at a less breakneck pace since she was ALREADY IN THE SPACESHIP at that point

[@Thagyr]

Y'know, I never thought about that, and does seem like another point in the "Did the writers in charge even play the first game?" along with the 'Worse than the Gaalsien' quote.

[@markointhesky]

@@Thagyr HW3 is set, what, 150 years after the original? If they spent that time Enterprising it up and exploring their local space instead of making a Hail Mary for Hiigara, I'd give it even odds of Karan retiring (if she's even physically capable of doing so) from fleet command after about the normal lifespan of the Kushan, and someone realizing "hey wtf she's not aging" and keeping her in there. If they did make a beeline for Hiigara though, then I'd say they'd probably run into the Taidan by then and, bereft of the turmoil caused by the atmospheric ignition controversy, might have been able to wipe the Kushan people now, probably starting with the mothership Still a weird fucking question to ask tho

[@matrix3509]

"How does feel to grow old enough to see all of your favorite franchises turn to shit?" "Feels great!"

[@user-cs4su3ng9l]

Feels horrible

[@wombatillo]

​​@@user-cs4su3ng9lthey have destroyed almost everything but they're going further back every year. Next they'll start defiling MS-DOS era game franchises. They won't stop until every book, game, movie and tv series has been reimagined for the modern audiences. They are at war with us.

[@insaniam_convertunt_scientiam]

@@wombatilloIt’s not a war, it’s a bunch of low talent hacks with no good ideas and less personality

[@niallreid7664]

Redlettermedia reference.

[@EmperorSigismund]

@@niallreid7664 "I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!!!!"

[@HonkDinkRatTurd]

the trademark mandalore insanity laugh is like seeing your dad cry. it doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it means things are BAD

[@ms.blackfire2927]

so true when he laughs, it means things are that! bad

[@wither5673]

I felt that.

[@d.r.643]

At least he's not being haunted by a witch. This time.

[@gilthreyblaunce]

The ring 2 laugh gets me every time

[@mikecampos1193]

SSeth will leak out.

[@Sorrowborn]

Three women start bickering about their beliefs, half the galaxy dies as a result cores are ruined, hyperspace travel fucks up and most of known civilisation is now doomed to a slow, grinding death as transport of needed serrvices and goods disappears. The three Bickering women most affected.

[@JustStop19]

I am telling you, Sweet Baby Inc. definitely fingered this story!

[@thewanderer1317]

Time to return to the desert

[@redline841]

"Glad I'm not them." -Kiith Somtaaw

[@madkoala2130]

This sounds like Witcher: Blood origin plot.

[@relishcakes4525]

And that's how I met your mother.

[@sweet-lara]

I remember that in one of the last Homeworld reviews you identified that "the stakes are too high for personal drama" when talking about the fleet's radio, and for me that perfectly resumes the problems you had with the story of 3.

[@sauceinmyface9302]

Homeworld always felt like a series that should focus more on civilizations and armies. Elements of stuff like castes, system of beliefs, and intercivilization politics.

[@hypothalapotamus5293]

​@@sauceinmyface9302 "This is the Garden of Kadesh. For thirteen generations, we have protected it from the unclean..." Ah, Hiigarans being Hiigarans.

[@Ninjat126]

A lot of fiction manages to make "personal drama getting in the way of stopping a world-ending threat" work. The problem here is that a "reluctant hero" seems less and less sympathetic the more control they have over the situation, and the more urgent the threat actually is. If the stakes are "the Chosen One is a kid that must learn magic to overthrow an evil dictator," you can have a whole arc where they try to reject their Heroic Destiny and run away WITHOUT making them seem unsympathetic. They're a literal child, they're burned out, why can't someone else defeat the dark lord, etc etc. Meanwhile every time Imogen Homeworld stops for an acapella session another billion people die, and it makes you wonder who the hell chose to allow her that kind of power and authority.

[@patron8597]

"Your parents were nobodies, but your Grandmother was the -Emp- leader of the Kiith S'iet."

[@StrikeWarlock]

S'jet still gets to have the prestige it gained a hundred years prior yet Somtaaw's relegated back to their Miner emblem despite saving the entire galaxy.

[@hypothalapotamus5293]

​@@StrikeWarlock Is homeworld cataclysm even canon? Did Somtaaw really save the galaxy if they put it in danger to begin with? If someone leaves a carriage unattended and then stops it from going into traffic at the last second, should that person really be applauded for saving the baby?

[@sipofsunscorchedsarsaparil6052]

​@@hypothalapotamus5293 Last time I heard it was "dubiously canon". And yes, they absolutely do deserve the recognition. The cargo could have ended with the pirats or worse having nobody to stand up to the beast by the time things turn bad.

[@hypothalapotamus5293]

@@sipofsunscorchedsarsaparil6052 I always thought of it as a fever dream. Cataclysm goes pretty Star Wars Legends+Babylon5+event horizon in a way that other homeworld titles don't. Looking back, you are right that the Turanic raiders would have found it, but a cutscene also implies that Somtaaw management wanted the ROI from the beacon for themselves and possibly took a lot of unnecessary risks that the main voice actor disagreed with. Was it good practice to research the capsul aboard the Kuun-Lan? Probably not.

[@sipofsunscorchedsarsaparil6052]

@@hypothalapotamus5293 The leadership was not much better than the other parties that could've gotten hold of it, but at least the captain of the ship was ready to save everything.

[@SirGiff]

A fantastic illustration of a lesson Armored Core 6 should have taught everyone: good characters don't need faces.

[@Jokoko2828]

Armored Core as a franchise proves you can have decent-to-good writing without showing anyone's face even once.

[@retroicdescent]

aka its okay to identify as your online alias irl. Very based and Zoompilled.

[@strugglesnuggledslime7040]

Somewhat random trivia: There actually were faces created for characters in the first AC,even 9-ball.

[@RomanvonUngernSternbergnrmfvus]

@@retroicdescent I’d rather not see faces than these “peoples” faces in this hack job of a game

[@johnthomason9980]

Honestly it's a lesson Homeworld as a series should've taught people

[@chilledsoda9]

"My project director told me I need to put a human face on things" has the same feel as the POW blinking out "torture" in a TV interview.

[@sethleoric2598]

Described it perfextlt

[@ALEXANDER1318]

Or the devs of Black & White 2 refusing the insane demand of Peter Molyneux to animate realistic genitalia on the Creature Avatars.

[@lildaffy1695]

The Halo TV show in a nutshell

[@KingOhmni]

@@ALEXANDER1318 lmao, really? I did not know that. I ‘member being quite disappointed with Black&White 2 as it just felt rather forced city builder as opposed to do what you want god sandbox. I was never sure if it was Peter being Peter or publishers pushing then trends on a novel but popular IP. Sounds like it was Peter after reading that.

[@fus132]

@@ALEXANDER1318 Only for the Red Dead Redemption 2 to shamelessly steal the idea years later {sarcasm}

[@Raxxoish]

Imagine having a villain whose sole motivation is "billions must die". Not even as a means to end, just her objective.

[@canttellyousorryaboutthat716]

This can work well. Funny necromancer man from DND; industrial revolution edition basically wants this. Unfortunately, this is homeworld 3. I don't understand how a product can be this fucking disconnected after it was done well three other times. Nothing is internally consistent, nothing makes sense!

[@invidatauro8922]

The motivation is not teh issue. It's that they try to make me feel bad for her with a "She's just lonely" explanation.

[@The1337guy1]

​@@invidatauro8922It's a weird trope in a lot of recent stories. The writers create these evil people then try to white wash it with the weakest "excuse" possible. It's such blatant insecurity and narcissism that you wonder how these people even function in society.

[@bernardoheusi6146]

Thanos but boring?

[@SergeantExtreme]

@@bernardoheusi6146 At least Thanos had flawed reasoning behind his madness. He wanted to take the concept of "survival of the fittest" to its most extreme implementation by forcing a new era of evolution. A villainess wishing billions would die because she was just lonely was so.........female......

[@TheAmpsych]

The two biggest influences on this game: 1: Homer : oh wait I heard how this ends it turns out the secert code is the same nursery rhyme he told his daughter. (The Simpsons, Colonel Homer, 1992) 2. Pantene Conditioner commercials.

[@inquisitorowl5215]

It's genuinely incomprehensible to me that a Homeworld game that came out after Deserts of Kharak could have a story THAT BAD. Like, Homeworld 1 and Cataclysm are absolute slam-dunks with regards to not just their stories but how they TOLD their stories, then they stumbled with Homeworld 2, corrected with Deserts of Kharak, and then smashed themselves in the balls with a rake at the finish line here with 3. What the fuck.

[@lorecow88]

The DIE kiss of death.

[@araamahasla555]

A couple of letters for you: D E I. You can google who and how, or get banned outright if you ask them directly on the forums.

[@piragintheevercorpulent1526]

​@@araamahasla555Are you really claiming that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is somehow responsible for bad writing here? Get out of here and go push your stupid agenda somewhere else.

[@nerdyvids1]

@@lorecow88care to elaborate?

[@-u-waa]

​@@nerdyvids1 tl;dr scaremongering lmao

[@zanethezaniest274]

Maybe the real Homeworld 3 was the giantess stuff we experienced along the way.

[@victoriacecilia3926]

I haven't watched the video yet. What the fuck is this about? what? It can't be

[@nadontcare9684]

@@victoriacecilia3926 Genesis Rising permeates us all, friend.

[@cardiv5zuikaku944]

​@@victoriacecilia3926 Giant woman like Reaaaly big woman Never thought you see that in Homeworld do you, me neither, MY EYES

[@warhound8496]

💀 I unfortunately know the channel Mandalore showed

[@HonkDinkRatTurd]

​@@victoriacecilia3926 please respond to this when you're done watching. come join the big space feet gang that we all didn't want to join :)

[@Comkill117]

“The lullaby is the key.” Wait a minute… (Pulls mask off the game cover) “Metroid: Other M?!” “Yes, and I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for you meddling Kushaan, and your mangy Kiith.”

[@PorusHorus]

"And your sidekick, Battlestar Galactica Season 4!"

[@DieHardjagged]

LOL

[@telapoopy]

the baby

[@Deafmonkey21]

Sommy-sommy-taaaaaw!

[@Marcara081]

Thank you.

[@TrueLegateDamar]

If you want your villain to be sympathetic, maybe DON'T have them explicitly kill billions of innocents at the very start over what essentially were hurt feelings and egomania?

[@USSMariner]

That still doesn't preclude them from being sympathetic. The issue is that it's framed as if they *shouldn't* be subject to shocking ball torture until the heat death of the universe as punishment.

[@Marcara081]

Yes but you see, you believe in justice which clouds your eyes to the possibility that you can empathize with the villain and see that by virtue of feeling that way, it's legitimate because you can't disprove feelings, right? It honestly like tweens wrote this: 'But what if the villainess really felt that she had to do it? How can you blame her when if you felt that strongly, you would do it too?' They unironically do not understand justice. Like, they made content that just can't grasp something with a higher ethical obligation than personal validation.

[@ItsRyanHello]

B-b-b-b-b-but the villain is female! You HAVE to pity her!

[@Stef3m]

The lead narrative writer is a bad person and know it but she want redemption (for free) so she wrote this cringe absurdity. How far May I be from reality?

[@FrostbiteDigital]

​@@Stef3m It's because the character was a self-insert. That's why they've victimized the villain.

[@kingleech16]

“Security blanket Mega-Hitler” might be my new favorite insult.

[@arthur_mcjonhson1608]

A.K.A Chuck Mcgill

[@admiralamel9563]

Steven Universe ahh story.

[@apehawk]

both this comment and the two replies are golden

[@JoshGolus]

My favorite part was when Jane Homeworld said "It's homing time" and grew into a massive giantess to stare deeply into the other giantess' eyes.

[@boredlands3561]

keep going...

[@Laneous14]

She finally understood that the power was in her all along. The character arc is 'believe in yourself'. It's never been done before.

[@jamesrobsonza7752]

And then they had giant sesbian lex

[@secretname2670]

@@Laneous14 halt infidel, do not entertain these jests any longer!

[@momon969]

My favorite part is where Lady Dimitrescu said 'This Village has Evil Residents.'

[@Atlittle104]

Imogen's design makes me think the artist only ever saw hair in a dream. Even when shes not in the magic space room, she looks like she's underwater somehow.

[@baiwatch1]

She looks like she’s wearing a cosplay wig.

[@Stef3m]

I think that it's supposedly to be in fact immersed in some kind of liquid, the problem is that hairs are crazy and totally unrealistic like they are made of plastic and it's the same in the magic space room where it should be in the air

[@KatoFW]

I saw someone defending the music in this game saying “at least it’s not something lame like adagio for the strings like the entirety of HW1” I never wanted to reach through the ward and bitch slap someone so bad

[@exilestudios9546]

the music is good in 3 but its always WAY to subtle and understated for a homeworld game

[@jimmyjones8676]

People like that make me wish this was real kzbin.info/www/bejne/jnm0iqNur7NnZsk

[@IrrelevantPlease]

@@exilestudios9546 all of the melody is gone, its just rhythm now

[@Adeon55]

The choral version of Adagio for Strings (Agnus Dei) is synonymous with Homeworld to me. Perfect contrast to the professionalism of your officers trying to swallow their emotions during the impactful moments in the story while you float in the vacuum of space, soaking it all in.

[@mrosskne]

HW1's music was quite dire.

[@jamesrule1338]

"Feels like a YA novel." Ouch.

[@sainsburyshopper]

That’s not a burn, it’s an immolation.

[@thedude4840]

God I hate how much it’s right to. My (mom/grandma/mentor?) was the greatest navigator ever, and now I am over educated child with low to mild social awkwardness must now lead people into battle. It’s Enders game WITH LESS MATURITY.

[@spectr__]

Feels like they asked an AI to write an YA novel.

[@Salantor]

At least there were no two almost identical love interests for her to choose. But there were two ladies kinda fighting for her attention... Shit...

[@xalrath]

while not writing the Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis wrote a very interesting book called the Screwtape Letters, the core concept of was a senior devil writing letters to his nephew about how best to do the whole tempting humans into sin thing. at one point, the subject of churches comes up, and Screwtape has opinions about the best kind of priest: consider Father "G", who believes his congregation verges on atheism, and so has watered down his sermons so much out of fear they won't be receptive otherwise that he's the one who shocks them with his unbelief now instead of the other way around. this is mildly funny because that was explicitly CS Lewis' idea with the Chronicles of Narnia: "kids are stupid, so I'll dumb down my favorite Jesus allegories enough to entertain them." it is also the root of the problem with YA writing in general. when you set out to dumb your story down enough so the audience cannot possibly miss the moral you're trying to provide, you may succeed, and you may fail, but succeed or fail *it's going to be a dumb story* you have to trust, on some level, that your audience is smart enough to get what you're going for. and accept it if they don't. this weird preemptive defensive cringing posture helps nothing!

[@ryanlorenzo5003]

Bring me back to barely surviving space plague ship zombies as an out of their league mining fleet.

[@Solstice261]

Source code was lost sadly, imagine a world where the remastered collection included cataclysm, that was the plan, also f*** blizzard for forcing them to change the name to convergence

[@siralexander3359]

It truly was the best one

[@theCrazyXII]

Wait, didn't kiith somtaaw get an updated logo as part of the beast slayers?

[@CommanderBohn]

Blizzard had nothing to do here. It's a certain Randy who was too paranoid.

[@Solstice261]

@@theCrazyXII sadly cataclysm was called non cannon I think, at least until it becomes cannon again because it is an easy instant success remaster

[@harrisonrenner8147]

I'm genuinely convinced that the writers in this game have never actually played a Homeworld game before and just got the cliff notes version of the lore from the guy who wrote the manual. There are so many instances where they seem to forget or ignore stuff that happened in previous games, even when they were major plot points. For example, the Incarnate queen seems to act like she's the only person in the galaxy who's integrated herself into her ship, aside from Karan and Imogen. So I guess the Bentusi never existed? Or the fact that they say it's impossible for objects to hyperspace through solid matter, even though that's like half the plot of DoK. As for that out-of-place line about the Gaalsien, I imagine the meeting between the new and old writers went something like this: "Hey, who were the bad guys in the last Homeworld game?" "The Gaalsien, but-" "Perfect, thanks!" "-but they weren't exactly-" "That's all I needed, bye!"

[@mulattoman]

Yea the game sounds like it got the Star Trek Discovery treatment, or as I like to call it, the Kurtzmann/JJ effect.

[@lessterrible8099]

I always thought Karan's head was shaved because they had to surgically augment her to make her an unbound, but i guess it was just style because OC do not steal wants to have super long loreal hair

[@TheNapster153]

There's a bit more to it. Homeworld Cataclysm sort of gave us a glimpse to what the original Hiigaarans looked like, and it was clear they had a look that featured short, almost fully shaved hair. But yeah, I fully like the idea she was shaved to make way for her cybernetic implants. I also envisioned her being far more akin to a synthetic humanoid than an organic one. Again, a byproduct of sacrifice for the species.

[@RazorsharpLT]

Eh, honestly even in the early pre-release trailers Imogen had hair Didn't have such a massive chin, though.

[@BigEasy2112]

I genuinely miss when Karan S'jet was just a national hero because she was fleet command during HW1. She wasn't the Chosen One getting fought over by rival chosen ones.

[@DC-hw7fw]

Earned versus placed in the position because of nepotism. Not a very compelling story.

[@michaelandreipalon359]

When in doubt, just deem HW2 and 3 as apocrypha so to support this.

[@AlastorL5]

tbh i've gotten pretty used to just disregarding sequels when they mess up the stuff I liked about the older entries in a series

[@user-cl3vy7pw8s]

Imogen was born "great", while Karan had greatness thrust upon her.

[@DC-hw7fw]

@@user-cl3vy7pw8s Karan adapted and became great, or closer than Imogen

[@Anacronian]

I 100% believe that in an earlier draft, Karan S'jet was the bad guy of this game, and then they got cold feet.

[@xalrath]

in fairness to them, with this level of writing on display, that would not have ended up better

[@thomasderosso5625]

That's the vibe I got from the "caught between an ignorant giant and a mad god" line.

[@InternetHydra]

I think a company with the initials of SB or an equivalent wrote/managed this and thinking anything else is a waste of time.

[@StyryderX]

@@xalrath It's still possible to fuck up this kind of twist depending on how invested the fans are with the turncoat character.

[@xalrath]

@StyryderX yeah if you think the yelling about them killing homeworld is bad now, imagine if you'd actually personally killed Karan S'Jet for suddenly turning evil for some reason in this game

[@ZeroPointAlpha]

Me 45 minutes ago: Oh boy! Mandalore's reviewing Homeworld 3! I can't wait to see how awesome it is! Me 45 minutes later: :(

[@whyudoit4009]

tis tragic i agree

[@trustytrest]

Me reading this comment: "Ok" Me replying to this comment:

[@Stef3m]

It's a galactic tragedy but not in the way we expected

[@greaterdanemark2397]

Imagine being a random sailor/pilot and learning that all this was for a lullaby and loneliness

[@Marcara081]

That's cosmological horror, unironically.

[@mrfantasy9583]

>You are going to burn very bright my little star "You're gonna burn alright"

[@pnutz_2]

Fuck turning off the UCs, too much work getting to the panels and into that room with all the lightning. Dark age ending everytime.

[@kanabis134]

​@@pnutz_2 tracer tong's special ed ending..

[@DarkSamael55]

*smack lips* *hyperspace jump initiated* "what a shame"

[@cheekibreeki4638]

Number one, thats terror.

[@DarkSamael55]

@@cheekibreeki4638 Number two, that's terror.

[@BobMcBobJr]

Everything is gone. Homeworld is burning. Homeworld 3 is being consumed by a firestorm. The game's story has been destroyed. All mechanical functionality destroyed. Significant salt in low internet orbit

[@WindFireAllThatKindOfThing]

And Mandy hasn't even tried it's little brother, Homeworld: Vast Reaches (VR) on Quest Actually, scratch that. If you hate 3's mechanics, Vast Reaches might actually be the panacea. But it ain't the originals either.

[@thebigj3033]

With that salt line you have single handedly outdone what 14 writers tried and failed to do.

[@KingOhmni]

I never played Homeworld really, tried it after watching Mandy’s video on the first one. It’s weird cos I know I’d have loved it as kid but as an adult I was just like, meh. Too many systems and I’m tired after work. Regardless. My point is I’m laughing my ass off IRl like at that. “Significant salt in low orbit.” Line. Like. I shed a tear when I heard that everything is gone segment in Mandy’s video. Such was the emotional power of that one scene. So I started off thinking this is a solid homage comment. Then you went and sent my sides into high orbit. I still await their return. Thanks for the belly laugh good sir.

[@TheJaskier666]

The main female writer did not survive interrogation

[@michaelzimmerman1745]

@@TheJaskier666 HERE HERE

[@chrisschmidt2245]

Nobody: Homeworld Writers: Let's make a deeply personal character drama... Fans: O...okay? Kind of a big departure thematically from previous entries, but if you think that's best... Homeworld Writers: ...and we'll give it the same energy as a $5 book from Walmart. Everybody: But why?

[@markointhesky]

this game has polluted my mind with another question if Karen is bald, presumably to make room for the neural implants necessary to link her to fleet command, and every other "unbound" we've seen is bald too, WHY DOES IMOGEN HAVE A FULL HEAD OF HAIR?

[@ElGreco15]

They put the implants in her chin

[@86pp73]

If it's not painfully obvious by the end of the video, Imogen is *special*. The plot of this game is just a Great Value YA novel, sadly.

[@Stef3m]

Because is a space genius

[@AtomicCarp]

The best part of "worse than the Gaalsien" for me was that the commander of my most powerful ship at the time... was a Gaalsien. And then we sent Intel straight to HR for sensitivity training

[@HonkDinkRatTurd]

those ship-levitating, prophecy-spewing, mask-wearing, red-shipped, kharak-thumping, sand-loving, sajuuk-sucking....... GAALSIENS

[@piragintheevercorpulent1526]

CALLS FOR INTEL TO STEP DOWN AFTER CONTROVERSIAL ANTI-GAALSIEN STATEMENTS.

[@vandarkholme4745]

Damn we have to push you up

[@Henskelion]

If he's going to compare them to fanatics, wouldn't it make more sense to reference the Kadeshi or the Vagyr?

[@MarktheRude]

@@pbradics3670 No. They did not. Even the timelines were completely screwed up in DoK despite manual for HW1 being freely available online.

[@ReallyNotTrixYT]

* Notes similarities between Ava and Imogen. Finds out that Borderlands 3 and Homeworld 3 shared writers * Yep, that checks out

[@Razgriz_01]

Having them bring in a fucking Borderlands 3 writer was a massive RED FLAG.

[@mikecampos1193]

​@@Razgriz_01aren't they part of that sweet baby inc and this is not already a compromised place I'm not lying they literally ruined games that they went after a Brazilian guy for literally just pointing out the fact that it's on your website.

[@Razgriz_01]

@@mikecampos1193 Gearbox was already pushing the same sort of stuff SBI was known for, way before already. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the people in SBI came from Gearbox.

[@acceptablecasualty5319]

@@mikecampos1193 Just calling the problem of infantile people reaching positions of narrative authority due to ideologically backed monetary incentive "sweet baby inc" (which is at this point defunct due to being a PR disaster) is BRUTALLY reductive. But yes, that is kind of what happened, in the ROUGHEST sense.

[@sillylittleowlguy2392]

RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNNDDDDDDDDDDDDYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!

[@Hazmatt4700]

This is the "We can write better then those old people" that brought us ST:D and Boy in the fridge.

[@RepublicOfUs]

I love that the acronym is "STD".

[@ARStudios2000]

Whats ST:D?

[@Hazmatt4700]

@@ARStudios2000 start trek discovery

[@YourCRTube]

"The synthetic hyperspace cores I designed were perfect" tell you everything you need to know about the writing.

[@Marcara081]

'I designed synthetic perfection,' is a philosophical quandary all its own.

[@BBMMTR]

HW3 be like: Billions died, my parents are the most important of our people ever, my grandma took care of my problems but.. i'm just a girl...

[@feelingveryattackedrn5750]

Yeah exactly why is she (and the narrative) treating her like the protagonist of enders game when shes both A) a full grown woman and B) already intimately familiar with everything happening in the universe.

[@stevenharper9108]

@@feelingveryattackedrn5750 Yeah, but the audience might not know. So, someone has to ask questions they should already know the answers to over and over. It'd have been too hard to write a story that didn't need constantly explain itself.

[@chaptap8376]

@@stevenharper9108 It's almost like it's fine with the audience not knowing some things. Like not knowing every character's appearance in HW1 with all the mystique that brought.

[@wombatillo]

​​@@stevenharper9108Maybe they should have built a new world and a new story if it's been so long that they have to explain everything to the audience that doesn't even remember HW1 or HW2? Or better yet how about not messing around with the old lore and style because they think they know better and "I can fix him!"

[@Sujad]

@@stevenharper9108 They should abolished the role of Intel in that regard and had some snot nosed lieutenant interact with her. The whole start was incredibly unseemly. Manjaw S'Jet sounded like she just got out of school and the mothership was launched, incomplete, from an underground base instead of being constructed in space for reasons I'm not stupid enough to understand. Why you should even have had to travel to find the giant slab of your ship's hull in some other star system compounds the idiocy of the entire endeavour.

[@Dranlia]

A sympathetic villain can work sometimes but seriously, some writers insist on making villains who have committed the worst crimes ever the ones worthy of redemption. And give them the dumbest reason ever for being evil.

[@onandover1]

maybe they are projecting their own values onto said villain?

[@pavivier]

"you see, I to was sad once"

[@riesstiu2khunning]

Coming up next, a redemption arc for Riesstiu IV The Second!

[@KevinJDildonik]

Literally a meme already. "Yeah I killed babies. But I'm a gay trans black with autism and I was beaten as a child by a mother who was dying of multiple sclerosis" okay fine just take the money please just shut up.

[@jeremytitus9519]

_My Struggle_ by Baron Vladimir Harkonnen

[@madlysoldier5143]

I guess calling this "Sequel of Homeworld" or even "Homeworld 3" is just insult to everyone with brain. So I think that we should instead called this as "Homeworld (2024): My Immortal Fetish of Banban"

[@asdffdsa8885]

OK, here's an idea: What if the Incarnate Queen was a member of the Bentusi who had been cast out, and the Incarnate themselves are essentially a rogue branch of the Bentusi who have secretly been building their forces at the edge of the galaxy for centuries? We already know how powerful Bentusi technology is, enough that they could potentially threaten the Hiigaran empire without the need for stupid space magic (although the Bentusi ALSO have a deeper knowledge of hyperspace than anyone else, so weaponizing it doesn't seem out of the question). Instead of wanting to be friends with Imogen while also attacking her for no reason, the Incarnate Queen is bitter and hateful towards other unbound due to her being an outcast, and is furious that the Hiigarans are starting to train new navigators and potentially creating a new race of unbound, or something like that. It would also just be cool to see what Bentusi combat ships could look like (other than the super acolyte), instead of just rehashing the progenitor aesthetic. Their typical sleek, rounded ship designs would also contrast way better against the blocky shapes of the Hiigaran ships. I don't consider myself a good writer by any means, but I feel like I just wrote a better foundation for a story in 5 minutes in a youtube comment than what over a dozen people came up with after like 5 years.

[@totallynotavoyeur6977]

Good idea, but I'd add something else: After the events of Homeworld 1 and especially Homeworld 2, the few survivors of Kith Gaalsien did something like a 180° in mentality and are now staunchly opposed to mithologizing precursor technology or raising Karen S'jet as the Sejuuk' Khar, insisting that the Kushan should forge their own path forward instead of relying on precursor tech and embracing hollow superstition, lest they repeat a situation like Deserts of Kharak, and slowly rebuilt their numbers by recruiting both like-minded people and "Sleepers" who had lost everything when Kharak burned, but are also looked at as outcasts by most other Kith who have embraced Karen's cult of personality. You can keep Imogen's desire to demistify precursor tech and the synthetic cores which make even more sense now, and when the anomaly happens and Karen goes missing, there's a new point of tension about having to send a Gaalsien of all people to look for her since Imogen is still the vest person for the job, and a reason why Imogen would be insecure and akward about working with the crew, since they treat and consider her and outsider. If you feel like it, you can even throw in Karen having a god complex and fucking stuff up even more because she's the Chosen One and knows what to do and can't possibly fail, ad Imogen having to either reach out to her or bring her down.

[@asdffdsa8885]

@@totallynotavoyeur6977 Personally I think it's a bit of a stretch to imagine that any of the Gaalsien would've survived Kharak- even if they abandoned their religion I have a hard time believing they would've been allowed aboard the mothership or the cryo trays. I'm all for demystifying Karan and the hyperspace cores though, this game got way too deep into the whole 'space magic' crap. I can't believe I'm saying this, but if you want another side-villain then there's a really good one in the Homeworld mobile game of all things. The Kiithless Hiigarans, former members of the Taiidan who lived on Hiigara before the Kushan showed up. They refused to join the new Hiigaran empire and were essentially kicked off of their own planet, and are now seeking revenge against the Hiigarans. It's a really interesting point of conflict that the other games never really bring up, and there are probably plenty more races out there that were negatively affected by the Kushan showing up out of nowhere and taking over a galactic empire overnight. Not to mention how ironic it is that the Kushan basically exiled them the same way they were thousands of years ago. They probably wouldn't be strong enough to act as a major villain (and you could even make an argument for them becoming protagonists in a future game) but they'd be perfect for some one-off battles during the campaign.

[@faux9694]

I like your cut, gee. *slaps*

[@DaemonPrimarch]

"You're gonna burn very bright, my little star" coming from the same character who delivered the line "Kharak is burning" hit me in a way I didn't expect. And not a positive way.

[@user-cs4su3ng9l]

There was potential there that what makes me sad

[@seamussmyth1928]

Like a sack of wet mice

[@LANBobYonson]

Like it’d be in bad taste to diss a burn victim or someone who lost their house to a fire and say “burn!”

[@KneeNinja1]

@@seamussmyth1928 ...or surprise colonoscopy with a sack of wet mice

[@chieeftain]

My first thought upon trying this game out on launch was: “Oh man this is going to break Mandos heart.”

[@cardiv5zuikaku944]

Same Especially since he loves Cataclysm so much and wants more underdog story and not just focused on S'jet, even when I purposely not to spoil myself before I buy or see him review it, the moment I learned it is another S'jet story, I already thought this would annoy him. What's even more impressive is my expectation was already low, and it somehow get WAY LOWER than I anticipated

[@salamander4668]

It did break mine, thats for sure.

[@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051]

How does it feel to live long enough to see all your favorite franchises go down in flames?

[@salamander4668]

@@aldiascholarofthefirstsin1051 Feels great.

[@sicksock435446]

It was like watching "old yeller". He loved the series so much, dispite its flaws... having it end like this. It just hurts. I wish I could have shielded him from the pain.

[@nwahally]

"Homeworld 3's story is like seeing a wooly mammoth in your yard while also realizing it has leprosy. It's the worst I've seen in a mainstream game in a long time." And that is a very, very low bar.

[@Skaitania]

That story is just... Someone took Homer's Odyssey and decided a vampire romance/self-discovery side-plot would actually improve it.

[@drnuclei]

This truly is the Garten of Kadesh

[@Maragas11]

My favorite stream.

[@lupus3824]

@@Maragas11 What stream?

[@catinapint469]

there is no escape from the garten

[@dodgyd6778]

The Garten has fallen

[@epj0211]

@@dodgyd6778Millions must get Ban Banned.

[@QuestionableObject]

The star-trekification of the higaarans hurts my soul This isn't a dig at star trek, its just that homeworld wasn't meant to be star trek... So many unique things with their own styles and storytelling getting slowly homogenized into whatever's cool. Its like new star trek becoming star warsy, its all just unique things being turned into other things for no good reason.

[@MandaloreGaming]

When I asked one of my friends what he thought of it he called it Homeworld: Discovery.

[@QuestionableObject]

@@MandaloreGaming holy shit so real lmaooo

[@cliffdavidson5096]

At least discovery became decent later down the line. I just don’t know what to say about this game.

[@TheCityofTownsville]

​@@MandaloreGaming this hurts my soul

[@chasewilson3693]

​@MandaloreGaming mother of God, the mad man is 100% on the money

[@wallyhiggens5369]

Ive noticed a trend of genocidal characters geting treated vastly differently depending on their immutable characteristics and the studio over the last 10 years or so. At first it bothered me a bit but now it's just really funny and I try to remember those that made the story since people communicate a lot about what they believe (or how insane they are) in the stories they create. "Security blanket mega Hitler" that was great 😆

[@UnNuclear]

I hate that, for a while now, I've been at the point where I dread companies bringing back IPs that I have fond memories of. The last time I can remember an old IP getting a sequel and thinking it was as good as the previous entry was Bladerunner 2049. You could tell they understood Bladerunner and really cared about what they were making. Nowadays it feels like companies are grave robbing the IP cemetery looking to cash in on some nostalgia.

[@Laenthal]

This is the perfect term - grave robbing.

[@Razgriz_01]

They know what the ip looks like, but they don't understand it. Like HW3. Pretty on the surface, but everything else is NOT Homeworld.

[@Boamere]

343 did this to halo as well

[@86pp73]

​@@Boamere Nah, Microsoft did that to Halo, even when Bungie were still making games for the franchise. All that extended universe crap was Microsoft's idea, and that wouldn't have been an issue if it were not for the initial success of stuff like Fall of Reach and the ODST concept. Fans loved that (which is fair), which gave Microsoft leverage over Bungie and instilled an attitude that they knew better for Halo. The nightmare development of Halo 2 didn't help, either.

[@Boamere]

@@86pp73 How about both? 343 was a shit company

[@CrizzyEyes]

"The subject did not survive interrogation" was a memorable line for me, too. It encapsulates the subtle emotion and humanity behind the professionalism of the Hiigaran fleet command.

[@pitchblackgrue]

It's a very realistic way of bureaucratically papering over the nastier sides of war. "The interrogators were so angry they tortured the captive to death" gets turned into "the captive did not survive interrogation."

[@gilthreyblaunce]

I always loved that line just by how professionally it's done saying they murdered the prisoner

[@rewq435]

I first read it as Haligan fleet command, which just make sence.

[@c3nty2]

Yeah. I loved it because it showed how both sides could be very cold and hateful. But you (as commander) needed to focus on what was important for a PEOPLE.

[@AB0BA_69]

@@pitchblackgrueI like how it subtly shifts blame: "We didn't kill the captive. It was his fault for dying during the interrogation!"

[@nopenoperson8964]

Imogen’s hair is so bizarrely animated what on earth.

[@Cringe565]

yeah it just looks weird

[@86pp73]

AAAA hair animation

[@maxmaxmaxmax647]

her face is worse , like a statue of a pharaoh and whats with her figure did she have four dozen kids?

[@samueltitone5683]

@@86pp73AAAA is a much better description than “quadruple A” because it looks like a scream of terror.

[@bsherman8236]

Her outfit is like so bland too

[@RolandTheJabberwocky]

This is a great example of how you need to have space magic from the start or no space magic ever. Either you write around the paracausal stuff, or it feels like an ass pull when it comes in.

[@caiocbcn]

Wanna know something really insane? Apparently, some people data mined the game and found not used animations just in the style of the first game. They actually look good, and to top it all, they are half the length of the ones used in the game. That means this was not incompetence, it was malice.

[@conscript900]

I was gonna mention this too thank you for calling it out saved me the time

[@Sujad]

No surprise. Lin Joyce is your typical danger-haired feminist. There was no way she wasn't going to butcher the game so she could self-insert herself into the game. It's why Imogen got that serious case of manjaw compared to the earlier teasers and trailers.

[@Digolgrin]

Oh neat; I assume it probably still uses the same actual story and writing, but that's incredibly interesting.

[@czarkusa2018]

Reminds me of The Thing's prequel having near practical effects done for every near every scene... and then the suits decided they'd be fully replaced by 3D animation.

[@inciacci549]

Those are probably the content that was scrapped under the advise of SBI-related "consultants" that blackmailed and girlbossed their way in during development

[@DestructivelyPhased]

“The game basically comes with its own built-in group therapy mode.” Oh. Oh that’s good.

[@selectionn]

homeworld 3: brought to you by our sponsor, betterhelp

[@lisaruhm6681]

@@selectionn oof.

[@CheeseSlayer294]

The only thing I knew about homeworld 3 was my friend who’s a really big homeworld fan randomly pinging me one day and asked “hey you wanna play Nebulous Fleet Command?” When I asked why he wasn’t playing HW3 he responded with “playing homeworld 3 made me think, huh I should play Nebulous”

[@danilooliveira6580]

I wish I liked Nebulous more, because I love it in concept.

[@artemisfowl7191]

Fun fact, the developers of Nebulous Fleet Command are huge fans of Homeworld

[@CheapSushi]

just so people don't get the wrong impression, because I love Nebulous Fleet Command myself too but it plays NOTHING like Homeworld except for being ships in space, especially the current game setup until the Conquest mode gets added, but even then, how ships function and battle it out is more like a Cold War era submarine game but in space that uses radar instead of sonar. MP is based around 3,000 point system (where the fleet you build is a compromise based on weapons & systems that have points costs) with 10 ships max per person (most don't use that many). It's more methodical.

[@user-zn4db2rk7g]

can recommend its the nerdiest shit.

[@ThomasCarstein]

Haha, i thought "Nebulous is gonna get popular now" while watching this video 😄 Too bad about HW 3 thou... Gonna go fire up Nebulous now too.

[@kattankarl]

Game footage from 2000s era is so exotic, big budgeted games aimed at adults

[@soma8756]

i guess i can buy that the decade that gave us dante's inferno's marketing campaign could be considered exotic in the same way a goliath birdeater is exotic

[@ganymedeix9511]

There was tonnes of junk back then too. Just check out some of Mandalore's other videos if you don't believe me. It's like when people say "music in the eighties was better", it might seem true if you're only remembering Depeche Mode and The Human League, but it starts to ring hollow when you think about The New Kids on the Block or some shit like that.

[@Marcara081]

I remember Lost Odyssey and nobody remembers Lost Odyssey.

[@bronyhub]

What's with the 3rd game in a franchise focusing on multiplayer at the cost of their single player mode and (usually) killing the series? Homeworld 3, Dawn of War 3, Deadspace 3, Fear 3... Maybe this is why Valve never made a Half-Life 3?

[@greyfells2829]

Dawn of War 2 was already a huge step away from fun single player. The campaign is okay, the skirmish is awful.

[@SapFeaRon]

@@greyfells2829 eh, it's debatable. I loved campaign in 2 a lot more - more characters, better story and writing and i liked gameplay. Skirmish was boring, but dw2 multiplayer has bigger dedicated playerbase then dw1 so maybe they did something right. Very fun to watch at least. (indrid casts for example). Nobody liked dw3 tho. It failed to appeal to fans of 1 or 2, or someone like me who liked both equally. "But it's like starcraft and mobas" But i played mobas and starcraft for 20+ years and game still failed to hook me up. Oh and lore in dw3 is another story. Fucking backflipping terminators man.

[@davidcolby167]

When I heard "sands and sinners!" I said, 'Oh that's a neat phrase to invent!' and then they said it again and I nodded and then they said it a third time and I said, "okay, uh, please make a new phrase, please!"

[@balticpagan1495]

they only had budget for 1 phrase, cause they needed to ensure investors get theyr returns

[@soapdish124]

'Sands' being a common curse word for them, even as they left Kharak, was a really neat touch. "We regret the loss of the sands-cursed galaxy!" in cataclysm sticks in my mind. This has very efficently torpedoed my admiration for that choice.

[@TheKatamariguy]

Does make me a little nostalgic for Ace Combat 6. Go dance with the angels!

[@HonkDinkRatTurd]

​@@TheKatamariguythinking of that hello human resources meme but "go dance with the angels" is the handsome guy and "sands and sinners" is the ugly guy

[@Kurbling]

"Hyoargh! I think that enemy got, *the point!"*

[@terrasur4168]

34:10 "This is either Gran Gran or banned from a school zone." I legitimately choked on my coffee hearing this.

[@majormajorasic]

I LIKE YO CUT G

[@FrostbiteDigital]

@@majormajorasic *SLAP*

[@virginiasaintj]

"How does it feel to live long enough to see all your favorite franchises go down in flames?" is eternal

[@jj12343211]

A 45 minute long declaration of 'Homeworld 3 doesn't exist yet.'

[@rostokk2706]

Lin Joyce is known for New Tales from the Borderlands (2022), Tiny Tina's Wonderlands (2022) and Borderlands 3: Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck (2020). Meanwhile the writer for Homeworld 1 was writing the manual LOL

[@michagroth180]

Worderlands's story wasn't that bad. Torgue finally got to blow up the ocean

[@burgertanker7970]

New Tales from the Borderlands? That's explains literally everything lol

[@michaelandreipalon359]

The day Borderlands dies out, will be a glorious day indeed.

[@fz7788]

I remember playing borderlands 2 and thinking oh its not that bad, but i like the bad guys more. And then playing borderlands 3 made me realise why it was the case

[@jidk6565]

the Krieg DLC was a 10/10 how did they go so wrong

[@brandy1999]

Timestamps for the "Mandalore losing his sanity laugh": 35:50 40:32 40:47

[@mikecampos1193]

SSeth will leak out.

[@mikecampos1193]

That means we're going to get a video very soon.

[@calebcoville4572]

It's always beautiful to hear his broken, pained laughter.

[@day2148]

ugh that line about the Gaalsien is so bad. After everything that has happened, the one thing I don't think Hiigarans would just brush off is 'religious fanaticism' as it has proven over and over again that those religions (i.e. Gaalsien, Kadesh) had their teachings for a reason. The real issue should be to understand what that reason is before they accidentally wipe out yet another group under all the wrong circumstances. It just feels like the writers are just inserting their own personal ethics/views into the story rather than trying to get any understanding of how Hiigarans would actually think.

[@invidatauro8922]

I see two reasons for why that line was include. The first is as you said, the personal ethic of the writer i.e. "These guys are religious, therefore EVIL!" The second is laziness. They needed a shoehorned reference to the previous game and went "Oh, who were the villains? Those guys? Yeah, mention them" I think both are equally likely.

[@BlinMachine11]

Who'da thunk we'd get a Homeworld sequel with a story bonkers enough to warrant a comparison with Genesis Rising

[@nerdyvids1]

Oh wow, the story got Mandalore to put his “hysterical breakdown laugh” from places like the BanBan or Druids streams in an actual video.

[@NazarovVv]

Fun fact, in the Historical and Technical manuals (aka the nerd zone, aka the backstory) of Homeworld 1, Homeworld: Cataclysm, Homeworld 2 for almost 300 pages combined the word "Human" is used exactly ZERO number of times. In the the technical manual for HW3, which is 80 but could fit easily in 10 if the old formatting and font was used the word "Human" was used 3 times. Make of that what you will.

[@TheNapster153]

Earnestly, as much as I love the game, making the characters human in Deserts of Kharak was a mistake.

[@woodwyrm]

yep, the last two Homeworld games plus cataclysm were very clear about the fact that the Hiigarans and the rest of the various peoples in the Homeworld verse weren't human, something that the HW3 devs apparently didn't give a shit about lmao

[@Sujad]

@@woodwyrm Except Karan S'Jet was clearly human from the box art of HW2.

[@woodwyrm]

@@Sujad *Humanoid* perhaps, but definitely not human.

[@Sujad]

@@woodwyrm How so? Beyond being bald she looked fairly human to me.

[@crumplepunch312]

I loved Homeworld, Cataclysm and Homeworld 2 back in the day. The subtle mysticism and lore of the setting were compelling and inspiring to me as a writer. This is deeply saddening.

[@Dext3rM0rg4n]

43:29 "The game basically comes with its own build-in group therapy mode" LMAO

[@0uttaS1TE]

You know shit's fucked when Mandy whips out the Goosebumps theme.

[@mikecampos1193]

And him giving an honest review of the game isn't going to help them down the road he doesn't want to hate the game but he isn't proud of what he sees in front of him.

[@DC-hw7fw]

@@mikecampos1193 Tbh, I have NO idea what they were thinking.

[@EnterpriseKnight]

It's fucked up when it's out of halloween

[@StrikeWarlock]

​@@mikecampos1193they knew he'd do this, it's the reason why he didn't get a review copy in the first place despite the glowing coverage he had for the Homeworld franchise.

[@robertasm20]

@@DC-hw7fw They taked money from ESG founds and hired consulting company for writing more inclusive story. So we have this gold.

[@TheL1034]

Never expected to hear a Homeworld game be compared to Genesis Rising, not the other way around. Now I feel fear. Edit: Fourteen people wrote this plot, and they all need to be found. And talked to.

[@sean7221]

They could all probably be found at Sweet Baby Inc

[@HonkDinkRatTurd]

​@@sean7221you have cropped porn as your icon brother... to follow the homeworld 3 trend of hamfisted bible references you gotta remove the log from your own eye before pointing out the splinter in your brother's eye :/

[@JohnSmith-ot4hq]

Is the sweet baby inc in the room with us right now?

[@Bluelyre]

Actually, they did work on this game.

[@RomanvonUngernSternbergnrmfvus]

@@JohnSmith-ot4hq are you gas lighting or intentionally ignorant?

[@disruptive_innovator]

Homeworld 3: when you miss the dart board because you turned 180 degrees around. oh well.

[@doublescoopovanilla5835]

The gorgeous song is actually "Agnus Dei." A classical hymn, not origonal music for the game.

[@punishedbung4902]

29:19 data miners have found remnants of old cutscenes in the files, and it goes to show that this latest rewrite took place incredibly late into development. It’s a shame, the old stuff looks way more in-line with what Homeworld is supposed to be. I misspoke: not data miners, it was people just digging around the game’s files. And don’t get me wrong, when I say “looks,” I mean purely visually. It could have been the same terrible story told using HW style black and white illustrations, but it might not have been Stinger Flynn’s Island bad, or giantess SFM fetish film bad. We’re just gonna have to wait for some disgruntled dev to speak out on what went wrong with this game, but I am more than willing to blame everything that went wrong on Gearbox.

[@deathpyre42]

got a good rec for a datamining site?

[@dylanwebb2]

they went full destiny?

[@-Markus-]

I dont think this is accurate. As far as I know the "datamining" has only presented concept stills which show a pretty accurate concept art of the cutscenes we ended up with. A lot usually change from concept to final. One thing is for sure though, the concept featured less close-ups on ugly women clinching their eyebrows.

[@finch3037]

any details on this? the only video i could find on this was from arch and i dont want to give him a watch

[@biggestouf]

Makes me wonder if the new rewritten story was written by committee.

[@reedman1337]

>Halloween music Oh, i can already feel it

[@magmat0585]

so it sounds like Homeworld 3 got some Hollywood level story writers

[@milosmilosmilos]

Jesus christ that story direction, the faces, the choice to make it a people drama etc. It's like someone took an Odyssey and wrote a sequel to be a WWF storyline. How is it possible to miss so much of what made the original Homeworld games so good and not only not get it but create the total opposite, undermining it's very core. This is so sad to watch, I was so hyped for this.

[@kyosefgofa]

"I know it's gotten a lot better but it is not time yet" STOP BLUE BALLING ME MANDALORE

[@theminecraft4202]

can't wait for the 7 hour review of TW:WH3

[@HiddenEvilStudios]

@@theminecraft4202 Mandy talking about Warhammer Fantasy is such great fun. Looking forward to his eventual next review of all the content we've had since the miserable launch.

[@cal.3626]

They even fulfilled his request, ironsides and landship

[@user-ve3rf8eh6b]

There is probably a future in which Mandy just decides to never make a Warhammer 3 video and tries to wait it out... Until we finally bully him into reviewing it 16 years later or something.

[@orrusfellin5150]

@@theminecraft4202 Well, you can watch Whitelight's 7 hour long review of Death Stranding in the meantime.

[@khoid]

31:30 "I Kinda wish I wrote a will before playing the f'in game" Freaking savage yet accurate reaction to homeworld 3. Don't worry I'm sure we'll find out that the ship AI is so bad because tether was spelt as teather.

[@RoyalFusilier]

That's barely even a joke, the infamous Aliens: Colonial Marines had subpar enemy AI for actual years because of a typo in the code.

[@caav56]

@@RoyalFusilier That's the referenced thing in above comment, yes

[@user-li8wj3lt2l]

At some point I wasn't sure if I was playing Homeworld reboot or watching Pixar movie about space heroes. It's a shame how bad whole plot was, they had plenty of storylines they could continue like expanding lore of Progenitors or gate to another Galaxy, even civil war led by religious fanatics influenced by some mysterious alien prophet could do well. Yet they just went for space magic and angry wine aunt flinging rocks at planets with her magical powers.

[@maddestlad3868]

We've fallen so far from "Kharak is burning". I actually started playing homeworld 1 JUST for the story and ended up really loving the gameplay too. Sadly I don't think this game has anything for me.

[@27volt]

Homeworld Cataclysm: Well well, look who came crawling back....

[@StrikeWarlock]

We wish, the fact that its not the Beastslayers emblem means that Gearbox doesn't think Cataclysm is canon.

[@27volt]

@@StrikeWarlock Are we forever doomed to Cata erasure? Even though we had some of the most memorable moments in the franchise?

[@CharaSomtaaw]

The studio says that cataclysm is cannon. If you ask them to this day that is their response.

[@riesstiu2khunning]

@@StrikeWarlock The Beastslayers emblem is in the game...

[@BaconMinion]

I never left Cata, it's still the best game in the entire franchise.

[@jacktaylor6253]

"She was lonely" i am LAUGHING ON THE GROUND RIGHT NOW

[@chronoatog5650]

Me as a lawyer for a war crime committer "Your honor, she is sorry for what he did- but she said it was an, "Oopsy daisy!" and only did it cause she was lonely. I rule for her case to be dismissed"

[@Sorain1]

Honestly, they should have been the point where they left her to die alone, specifically as justice for the billions killed and enslaved by security blanket mega-hitler.

[@user-cs4su3ng9l]

Why are they always do this?

[@discipleofdagon8195]

The borderlands 3 writing REAAAALLLLY SHOWS

[@meekaboo_]

lol, throughout this I was thinking the game at least has interesting megastructures that I'd love to cruise around in and explore. I'm a freak for environments like that, enjoying the background scenery, and then Blame! Hit me with the 3 week elevator joke lmao

[@70rn]

The cutscene hair physics, clearly angling for a Pantene Pro V sponsorship deal.

[@theodorehodbor5080]

Honestly when you said the story was horrible for a moment I was terrified that they would've brought back the Beast from Homeworld Cataclysm and completely invalidate everything the Somtaaw did. Seeing just how bad the story actually ended up being though now I'm thinking them bringing back the Beast might've actually helped things funnily enough.

[@Hegataro]

If they brought back the Beast, you could do some, like, cyclical prophecy thing, like the Reapers in mass effect Instead they went for YA novel + modern "sequel after a long time" trends, where they just take terms from the previous entries and sprinkle them into the writing randomly

[@theodorehodbor5080]

​@@Hegataro It would be a very basic ass story but I could've seen something working where going off all the prophecy shit the writers like they could've said Imogen was destined to fend off some "immense evil" and then coincidentally the Beast re-emerges and starts spreading like wildfire now that FTL has been streamlined thanks to the Progenitor cores. They could've even had a story beat like here were Karan left to fend the Beast off herself and later on Imogen ends up having to fight a Beast-infected mothership while Karan's half-insane now begging Imogen to kill her in-between the Beast speaking through her taunting Imogen.

[@Hegataro]

@@theodorehodbor5080 It would be very "why the fuck does System Shock 2 bring back SHODAN", but it would be better than... whatever the fuck the game has

[@MoreEvilThanYahweh]

Bringing back the Beast at least wouldn't violate existing lore. The infection vector in Cataclysm was a single ship coming from outside the galaxy. Why wouldn't there be more attempts or vessels coming from the same direction or even an entirely different galaxy the Beast hit?

[@AAhmou]

Ehhh... I could see the beast returning just for a single level just to show how Higaran technology evolved to counter it. It wouldn't contribute to the main story but may be a different enough level gameplay wise to warrant it.

[@leech8303]

Mandalore refered to Titan A.E and Dora the Explorer while explaining a history about galactic scale extermination by the billions,so the coherency focused on doubts and the serious drama of the series has truly shifted that much.

[@malleablephi675]

Your reviews got me into playing the game. I got Deserts of Kharak as the first chronologically and was interested, but cautious what they had in store for 3. Really wasn't expecting this to be the outcome.

[@mortyjhones4068]

What I love about the story is how they end the game by DESTROING HYPERSPACING THROUGHOUT THE GALAXY. let us not forget those 'orignal 3 cores' did alot more 'just move the mothership around'. It is implicit in 1 and 2 they had a master slave relation ship with EVERY HIPERSPACE ENGINE ever built. And that whoever holds all 3 not only can open the way to Sajuk but control's ALL of hyperspace itself. this is the main resion Higara is so powerfull and important in the setting, they have all 3 MASTER cores. Good, Evil and Nutral gates all bow to Sa'ject.

[@stan-bi3hl]

Wait, really? We're adding Mass Effect 3 ending elements on top of Steven Universe ending elements? Does it go even deeper?

[@RoyalFusilier]

It is impressive that Homeworld 2 is still jamming us up after all this time.

[@OmegaZyion]

Actually, that was a retcon that Homeworld 2 did. It was never a thing in Homeworld 1 or Cataclysm. Hyperspace should be a tool, not a mythical piece of space magic. The stroytelling for the whole series dropped off a cliff after trying to make that a thing in Homeworld 2.

[@TrentR430]

You are incorrect that master hyper space core garbage was from 2 and DoK . HW 1 and Cata had none of that nonsense. Hyper space was a just another part of the story.

[@ahuras238]

One thing I liked about the first game, is that Karen became more machine than human when she became fleet command; it was her sacrifice. Here, it doesn't seem like such a big deal with the way the process is depicted.

[@Sorain1]

What's stupid about that (well, one thing) is that it could have been done well. Karen's was a sacrifice because it was experimental technology being used to fill a need they couldn't find another way to deal with. It took them years to be able to unwire her enough to exit the ship after all was said and done. They've had a LOT of time and recovered progenitor tech to study to make the process better. They could have used that angle to lean on the idea that with the improvements and advancements, less humanity has to be given up to pull it off, or even make a point that the less invasive connection system leads to less disconnection from humanity. If they had wanted Karen as their antagonist, they could easily have played off the Bentusi's mistakes and essentially established the following "The Progenitors did the 'Unbound' thing themselves, with much bigger ships and the resulting egomania/disconnect ended up leading to their destruction. The antagonist is that level of insane, Karen was going in that direction herself but somewhat clung to sanity, Imogen's less invasive connection (and regular disconnects because it's duration and scale that are the issues) means she has the clarity to see the problem and do something about it." Full on apply the lesson that having it all on a single person isn't wise and will blow up someone's ego to inhuman insane proportions. (ala the Tiidani Emperor or Makan.) Roll with that and have Karen's self destruction be to deal with an otherwise unstoppable Progenitor megalith base for the antagonist, while removing the temptation to link herself up to something like the Sajuuk again. (also partially explaining why it wasn't used again.) With the artificial cores making the gate network not the end all be all of travel, less invasive linking tech and an understanding that the problem exists (and is serious) the galaxy can go forward into a new era.

[@Comkill117]

This a thousand times. I was so confused here when they show her and she just looks like a fairly regular middle age woman vs. Homeworld 1’s cutscene art where she’s this weird like humanoid cocoon thing in the middle of a bunch of tubes and wires connecting to the ship because she literally is the ship.

[@Digolgrin]

@@Sorain1 Best part of that is, it can be worked into a metaphor for addiction, be it drugs, alcohol or anything else--and in turn as a passing of the torch from one protagonist of a previous age to another of the new age. i.e. the less we rely on our vices, the stronger we are as people. The previous antagonists, aside from the Beast, were all subject to this vice and now it has consumed the last player character, or something to that effect. What we got is... Very "sheltered kid learns about the world as she deals with an antagonist that just wants friends." There's nothing subtle about that, and Karan dies so that we can have that symbolic torch passing without the actual effort of saying profound with it.

[@Razgriz_01]

The Incarnate queen looks like Donkey from Shrek when she made that goofy ass smirk when Imogen turned giant.

[@Thariorn]

Man that conclusion was a brutally honest take. Sucks to see the canonicity of the games getting this....torn apart in order to tell someones fanfiction but to a huge audience. Man, youtube the industry, stuff is getting broken in so many aspects, often really no longer feel like fun

[@Maddin1313]

Imogen looks like a Mass Effect Andromeda reject 😂

[@johnmcshane4463]

you gotta forgive her, her face is tired from dealing with all these baffling story choices.

[@MagicWazam]

The game comes with a built in therapy group. Sickest burn I've ever witnessed

[@Zeurel]

20 years. 20 god damn years... for this.

[@Ye-Hu]

Lmao that ESG jaw-line