When the player dominates Arrakis on the world map, the two other enemy factions ally against their common enemy. Later, when the three Houses divide Arrakis among them, the player has to assault and capture enemy territories. In the first few missions, the objectives are to successfully establish a base on an unoccupied territory of Arrakis, to harvest spice, and to defeat intruders. The player is a military commander from a House of their choice. War begins as deputations from all three Houses arrive on Arrakis.

To achieve this, he offers the sole governorship of Arrakis to whichever of the three Houses ( Atreides, Harkonnen, and the non-canon Ordos) delivers the most spice for him. Plot Įmperor Frederick IV of House Corrino is desperate for the harvesting of the valuable drug melange (also known as 'the spice'), found only on the planet Arrakis, to pay off all of his debt incurred on internecine wars with family members. Striking a balance between complexity and innovation, it was a huge success and laid the foundation for Warcraft, Command & Conquer, Age of Empires, StarCraft and many other RTS games that followed. As such, Dune II is the archetypal real-time strategy game. While not the first real-time strategy (RTS) video game, Dune II established the format that would be followed for years to come.

It is based upon David Lynch's 1984 film Dune, an adaptation of Frank Herbert's science fiction novel of the same name. Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty (titled Dune II: Battle for Arrakis in Europe and Dune: The Battle for Arrakis for the North American Mega Drive/Genesis port respectively) is a real-time strategy Dune video game developed by Westwood Studios and released by Virgin Games in December 1992.

Dune II free download