HOMEWORLD REMASTERED COLLECTION SPECS. SOFTWARE

'Purest form,' indeed this moment defined my time with Homeworld Remastered, assuring me that Gearbox's collection is more than a re-release with a quick HD coat of paint. Those clusters of debris remained there through the entire battle, a reminder of a failed defense. Then to my right, a ship burst, exploding into a red and orange flower of light and flinging debris in all directions. One of my battleships flew over another of my battleships, and I saw the top battleship's shadow pass along the bottom ship. I highlighted a handful of my ships, clicked on the nearest enemy carrier, and let the shots fly. The nebula in the background was a fiery red, glowing white-hot in its center and reaching out into space towards my fleet in wispy pink spirals. Ships were strewn across the screen, like tiny toys floating in an endless ocean of glittering stars. In my demo, I attempted to enter the Garden of Kadesh, only to be turned away by its protective forces and immediately thrown into an elaborate battle. Homeworld Remastered is the Homeworld of yesteryear in gameplay and scope. At the time, Gearbox promised that whatever Homeworld content it made in the future would strive to retain the game's tone in its 'purest form.' Since then, it handed developed on the IP over to Blackbird Interactive, a studio formed by ex-Relic employees working on Homeworld's spiritual successor, Shipbreakers. When THQ filed for bankruptcy in late 2012, and after a lengthy process of selling off the company's assets it was revealed that Gearbox had acquired the Homeworld IP. The Vancouver studio was purchased by publisher THQ in 2004, bringing the Homeworld franchise under the THQ banner. Homeworld and Homeworld 2 were originally developed by Relic Entertainment. Seeing footage of the original and new versions side-by-side makes the beloved classic look fairly dull compared to its shiny new release. Lasers trace glowing lines of light, tracing paths of annihilation from attacker to target in the darkness.

Projectiles leave trails of smokey whiteness in their wakes. Jagged edges of ships have been replaced with smooth, glistening surfaces, with starlight reflecting differently off painted hulls and bare metal. The game hardly looks like the 1999 at all, save for familiar situations and the sound. Edges and textures haven't been smoothed out, they have been completely built anew.

The work put into the remastered versions is immediately evident. Getting my hands on a demo build left me a little dazed. Additionally, the developers have merged all playable races from both games and added an online multiplayer component called the Homeworld Remastered Steam Multiplayer Beta, a service in live development designed to bring those once played Homeworld online, well, back home. The collection goes beyond a simple twosome of remakes: within the collection are not only the Homeworld and Homeworld 2 remastered versions, but the original classic versions of both games as well.

HOMEWORLD REMASTERED COLLECTION SPECS. SOFTWARE

Homeworld Remastered Collection, the bundled remakes of real-time strategy games Homeworld and Homeworld 2, will hit PC on February 25, Gearbox Software announced today during a panel at PAX South.

Homeworld remastered collection specs.