After spending a little over a year in Early Access, Northgard studio Shiro Games' real-time strategy Dune: Spice Wars has now finally been unleashed alongside a sizable update. Version 1.0 brings with it House Ecaz as a brand new faction, numerous mechanical reworks, the often-requested ability to scale the UI, and naturally, a whole bunch of bug fixes and balance tweaks to help tie everything together.

What all of this looks like in action, as well as what Dune: Spice Wars is even trying to do, that you can check out through the freshly posted launch trailer. Have a gander, it's a fairly short one:

Unfortunately, there is a bit of bad news as well. The story-based campaign that was teased all the way back at the start of Early Access has not been implemented. There is a Conquest Mode that serves as a sort of pseudo campaign, but it's a lot less personal and just doesn't have the same sort of impact. So if you were waiting all this time for a hefty, singleplayer focused and narrative driven experience to arrive before diving into Dune: Spice Wars, I'm afraid you're out of luck.

That said, the actual gameplay is quite solid, as you would expect from the team behind Northgard. So if you're a fan of Dune, don't mind the lack of a story, and you're mostly in it for the multiplayer action, chances are good that Dune: Spice Wars will still end up being a nice bit of fun.

Whatever your thoughts on the matter may be, you can check out some of the player reviews and learn more about Dune: Spice Wars over at Steam. Enjoy!