What happened to the ending? (Spoilers)

Homeworld: Deserts of Kharak Homeworld: DOK Discussion
#1

After all the great in-engine and drawn (and even rotoscoped?) cutscenes, the game just abruptly ends after a brief look towards the sky. Sure, many of us here played the original Homeworld back in 1999, played the remastered version, we know what happens but the fact that this game doesn’t have even the slighest bridge to the chronological sequels really baffles me.

It’s even worse for my friend who’s new to the series - he spent the entire game listening to characters prophecize about the importance of the Primary Anomaly in the most cliche way possible (I understand the Gaalsien, but how would the others know?), and when he finally reached this objective, the ending credits just roll out. It was a non-story. Background information being hidden behind a paywall (the Expedition Guide) didn’t really help him making a more positive opinion either.

Homeworld 1 & 2 serve as good examples of a proper ending cutscenes with couple minutes spent presenting the aftermath. Since all the other cutscenes in DoK were built with so much talent I can’t really understand why there couldn’t have similarly been something like a two-minute ending representing the discovery of the guidestone, the hyperspace core, unification of the Kushan people and the decision to build the mothership. That would’ve been something of a cliffhanger, leaving all the new guys wanting to buy the remastered editions to find out what happens next. But with what we have now, is just more cliche prophecy without explanation, something we listened through the whole game. Why would anyone care?

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#2

If a long time player played it, it’s not much of a problem. But like you mean other new people to the game(s) might think it is very strange to have such a quick ending.

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#3

Wouldn’t it make sense for a new player to then move on ot HW1 and I dunno, literally see scenes of the last mission of DOK in the intro cinematic of HW1? There’s even a side by side comparison of HW1 intro cinematic with the scenes form the last mission in DOK, it flows perfectly from one to the other.

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#4

But I explicitly stated why I think this would be a bad idea considering new players. Why would anyone buy another game to find out why the sloggy one they just played is supposedly interesting and relevant? All it actually does is leave a bad taste.

From a newbies’ perspective, they play through the game listening to cliche prophecies how, by ways unknown, the Primary Anomaly holds the key to save the dying planet, or at least save the population. Players reach the Khar Toba, kill the bad guys and then find out it’s a wreck of a ship their people originally arrived on the planet with. And that’s it. How’s that going to save them? I don’t think they care.

As for your cinematics comparison, I don’t get what your point is - it’s just the baserunner arriving at Khar Toba. What the DoK ending is missing is the discovery of the Guidestone, the hyperspace core, and all the political/societal matters that follow. They’re something that the HW1 intro just really quickly explains as history, yet something that followed soon after in DoK’s timeframe. The ending could have focused on and expanded them.

Khar Toba would’ve naturally been the centerpoint of Homeworld origin story, but now it’s nothing but a gameplay objective.

#5

I don’t agree, at all. HW:DoK is very clearly advertised as the prequel to HW1. The two flow perfectly into each other. DoK is NOT about the guidestone. It is NOT about Hiigara. That is what HW1 is about.

DoK is about the Kapisi, about Rachel, about beating the Gaalsien that are sieging your cities and it’s about finding the Primary anomaly because your planet is dying.

As a HW1 vet you know that ultimately the HW story is about Hiigara but that’s not what DoK is about.

Also this leaves a large enough gap for plenty of additional singleplayer DLC. Trying to shoehorn everything that happens between the events of DoK, the discovery of the guidestone and eventually the construction of the mothership on top of what is currently in DoK would have made the game horrendously undercooked so don’t even suggest that those things should have been added into the game at launch.

According to lore (A lot of what is apparently in the prospectors guide that I still need to read) the whole Southern Kiith, Saliim, etc. needs to be sorted out and that’s potential for an entire campaign right there. But at the same time they need to tie the game, as is right now, into HW1 without taking away form the impact of the very first intro in HW1.

It’s like the end of HW2. I love HW2 and most of it is amazing stuff but that very last bit at the very end about the gates and the eye of Aran is a lot of unnecessary exposition that could have been kept to a manual and doesn’t mean anything in game. It would be the same with adding the guidestone and Hiigara and all that to the end of DoK.

#6

You’re missing the point entirely. Homeworld 1 was about getting “home”, surviving by reaching a planet where civilization can once again continue. DoK is about reaching the Primary Anomaly because it apparently has a key to people’s survival… except that we or the characters never learn what the heck it is, within the game’s content.

I don’t see how being a prequel or a sequel means not doing the least effort to be the slighest bit standalone for new people. Even Homeworld 2 quickly explains the previous game’s events together with the new background story/retcons. Adding a 2-3 minute ending cutscene to provide a pleasant ending to a story is hardly shoehorning. Sure, the mothership could be left out but the Guidestone and the hyperspace core were the real facts why Khar Toba was in any way important to the story. The game would’ve ended with a real concrete hope for the Kushan people.

If you want to make real comparisons, HW1 would’ve been the same way anticlimatic if they’d just arrive on Hiigara and rolled the ending credits. Instead we’re treated to a nice ending cutscene explaining the fall of the Taiidan Empire and the Kushans settlings back to their home planet, reminiscing their dead.

That is how stories connect possible sequels. I didn’t like HW2’s plot so I can’t really defend most elements of it, but there was nothing wrong with the structure. I understand what you’re saying but you should also consider that you’re making the point that HW2 has too much stuff at the end to be a standalone story, while I’m saying that DoK has too little stuff to be a standalone story.

A postmodernist “it’s about the journey, not the destination” approach always fails when the story arc is still a regular linear plot that just suddenly ends, especially in a game that spends hours hyping the importance of said destination.

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