Movie delay be damned, Dune: Imperium - Uprising brings the battle for Arrakis home

10.11.2023 - 16:07 / polygon.com / Denis Villeneuve

Even though its release was delayed by over a year on account of the COVID-19 pandemic, Denis Villeneuve’s Dunewas both a critical and a commercial success. So too, it seems, was Dire Wolf Digital’s ambitious board game Dune: Imperium. When Polygon reviewed it in early 2020, we called out its easy-to-learn deck-building mechanics and its lightning-fast pace. Since that time, the game has gone on to achieve an excellent reputation among fans of strategy board games, and it’s been supplemented by multiple excellent expansions. So what’s up with this sequel, Dune: Imperium — Uprising?

Oddly enough, Uprising faces a similar hurdle as it comes to retail this November. The game is rushing into the busy holiday shopping season with all guns blazing: cards decked out with the likenesses of the film’s theatrical cast, a series of in-depth developer diaries to explain itself, and even a surprisingly low-key private tournament hosted by hype manufacturer Mr. Beast. But once again, the movie that the game is based on has been delayed, this time on account of the strike between the Screen Actor’s Guild and the AMPTP.

Can Dire Wolf succeed again in the face of these headwinds? Time will tell, but the good news is that Dune: Imperium — Uprising is excellent.

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There’s yet another wrinkle this time around, however. Uprising isn’t a sequel in the traditional sense of the word. It’s more an augmentation of the original board game, to the extent that it’s fully compatible with all of the existing expansions already on the market. But its updates to the original game are both significant and substantial, making them well worth the $60 price point. Additionally, Dire Wolf has packed a few curious goodies inside the box — including an all-new six-player game mode.

Just as in the original, Uprising’s deck-building mechanic should be familiar to anyone who has played similar games in the genre — including Dire Wolf’s own Clank! series, but also games like Slay the Spire, Gloomhaven,and Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game. Each player at the table manages a short stack of cards, which can be purchased from a communal pool that sits along the sideboard. The satisfaction comes in tailoring the number and type of cards in your deck to create the most effective engine to advance your strategy.

The biggest change from the