Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak
Skip · Strategy · 2016
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
SKIP IT.
The value isn't there at $49.99.
- Length
- 10.3h
- Value
- $4.85/hr
- Reviews
- 79% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 3 GB of memory, GeForce GT 440 (1024 MB) / Radeon HD 4890 (1024 MB), 8 GB of storage. Runs on Windows, macOS.
A ground-based RTS prequel to the classic Homeworld games. Assemble your fleet and lead them to victory on the shifting sands of Kharak in this compelling strategy game for PC from Blackbird Interactive.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
The lowest price on record is $4.99, set in June 2020. It has been discounted 61 times in the 11 years tracked here, typically at 90 percent off, with about 7 weeks between sales. Today it is at full price. The last sale was about 4 weeks ago, and on this game's rhythm the next one tends to arrive within 7 weeks.
Against its own genre it lands in the top 35 percent on value. It is pricier than 99 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 76 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Homeworld Remastered Collection ($34.99, scores 65) beats it on value, while it beats Homeworld 3 ($59.99, scores 2).
This site sampled 800 of its Steam-purchase reviews; none were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written September 2023 to September 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 42 percent of the 752 reviews written there were positive, against 79 percent overall, and those are 10 percent of everything written about it.
The drop-off
75% start to <1% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
23 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
What players say
The prequel of a classic. This is a fun game, a bit simpler than the original Homeworld, since all battles happen in the sandy dunes of Kharak. I like how this game has a linear difficulty curve: starts easy and gets harder as the game progresses. The story is very interesting and starts the original arc of Homeworld 1. Strongly recommend this game.
Translating the epic space strategy formula onto vast, sandy dunes makes for a stunning and unique sci-fi backdrop. Controlling massive land cruisers and armies across shifting terrain feels genuinely tactical and immersive. However, the flat desert maps can get repetitive, and the campaign pacing loses steam about halfway through.
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
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Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak scores 37/100 on the BANG Score (a skip). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/281610/homeworld-deserts-of-kharakThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 16, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.