Choicest VGM - VGM #432 - Emperor: Battle for Dune - Victory is Inevitable

Harkonnen cutscene from Emperor: Battle for Dune


Track composed by David Arkenstone

To my knowledge, there have been three Dune games developed by Westwood Studios: the classic 1992 RTS Dune II, a remake in 1999 called Dune 2000 and finally Emperor: Battle for Dune in 2001 which ran on a proper 3D engine, the Westwood 3D (W3D) engine, precursor to the Strategy Action Game Engine (SAGE) which would be used for games like C&C: Generals, C&C 3 and Red Alert 3.

I played all iterations of Westwood's Dune games but I was blown away by the soundtrack for Emperor: Battle for Dune. Unlike previous Dune games where Frank Klepacki did a lot of the composition work, the soundtrack for Emperor: Battle for Dune was split among three composers: Frank composed for the Atreides, Jarrid Mendelson for the Ordos and David Arkenstone for the Harkonnen.

Today I've decided to feature the most memorable track from the game which actually happens to be for my least liked house: the evil Harkonnen, but it's hard to ignore how badass this track actually is. It's like a mixture of glorious marching music, space synths and metal. I mean, it's probably the most heroic piece of music you'll ever hear while playing as the Harkonnen, and they're not usually the heroic type.


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