How to Play Dune II – The Maker: Open Source Strategy Remake of Amiga Dune II Game

Last Updated on October 6, 2023

One of the greatest 16-bit era real-time strategy titles was Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty. After morphing into the Command & Conquer series, the Dune II game was forgotten for years – until now.

What is this new Dune II game?

Dune II – The Maker is an open-source remake of the original Dune II game, and has just released version 0.7.0. Boasting graphical and gameplay improvements, new maps, bug fixes and improved balancing, there is even the option to compile the game under Linux (although that isn’t entirely stable at this stage, so one for the future perhaps).

If you somehow know nothing about Dune, either in terms of Frank Herbert’s books, the 1980s movie by David Lynch, the new Denis Villeneuve adaptation, or simply Dune 2 on the Amiga or old PCs, simply think of Command & Conquer but with different backstory and unit names.

The fact that an open source remake of the Dune II game exists is music to my ears. This is a game I spent hours at on my Amiga 1200, in the days when I knew that my system was superior to my uncle’s creaky IBM that played Sim City well, but that was about it, really. But this is about more than just Amiga vs IBM PCs… Dune II is a really good game that any RTS fan should check out.

And now that this open source version exists, you know have your chance!

How to play Dune II: The Maker

Getting started with this remake of the 16-bit classic is straightforward. The download is available for Windows (a Linux version can be compiled – refer to the GitHub) and can be downloaded via the link on the Dune II: The Maker website.

Once downloaded, unzip the contents of the D2TM-x.x.x.zip (where the “x” represents the version number) file and double-click the d2tm.exe file to run. You can refer to the controls.txt file to find out how to control the game.

Learn more at the official Dune II: The Maker site where you can download the game, and support the developers on Kofi. You can also keep an eye on progress at Dune II: The Maker‘s GitHub page.