While not the first real-time strategy (RTS) video game, Dune II established the format that would be followed for years to come.

Emperor Frederick IV of House Corrino is desperate for the harvesting of the valuable drug melange (also known as "the spice"), found only on the planet Arrakis, to pay off all of his debt incurred on internecine wars with family members.

To achieve this, he offers the sole governorship of Arrakis to whichever of the three Houses (Atreides, Harkonnen, and the non-canon Ordos) delivers the most spice for him.

Later, as the three Houses begin moving against each other territories, missions will increasingly focus on destroying or capturing enemy bases.

When the player dominates Arrakis on the world map, the two other enemy factions form a temporary alliance with the remnants of their armies.

In addition to enemy incursions, there are other dangers such as the marauding, gigantic sandworm, capable of swallowing vehicles and infantry whole but blocked by rocky terrain.

Structures will still gradually decay over time regardless of the presence of those concrete slabs, but they save repair costs in the long run.

Examples include only attacking the side of the player's base facing its own, and general inability to perform flanking maneuvers.

It was around this time that employee Graeme Devine (who later founded Trilobyte) introduced to everyone at the Virgin office a real-time strategy game on the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive console called Herzog Zwei (1989).

Virgin staff, including Clarke-Willson and Seth Mendelsohn (who later worked on the Ultima series), then went to Westwood Studios to talk about making a Dune game.

So I took it as a personal challenge and figured how to harness realtime dynamics with great game controls into a fast-paced wargame".

He also stated that, while "Herzog Zwei was a lot of fun", the "other inspiration for Dune II was the Mac software interface", referring to the "design/interface dynamics of mouse clicking and selecting desktop items" which got him thinking: "Why not allow the same inside the game environment?

[11] Originally released for MS-DOS in 1992, Dune II was one of the first games to support the recently introduced General MIDI standard.

At initial release, the game's setup utility lacked the means to support separate output devices for the musical score and speech/sound-effects.

Westwood later published a revised setup utility to enable users select a different soundcard for each type of game audio: digital speech, music, and sound effects.

[14][15] According to Westwood Studios, Dune II was a commercial success, with global sales in excess of 250,000 units by November 1996.

[23] Dune II received Amiga User International's Game of the Month award when it was reviewed in September 1993.

[38] Dune II was one of the most influential games in the real-time strategy genre, particularly in Westwood's own Command & Conquer series.

[39] Though not every feature was unique, its specific combination of a fog of war, mouse-based military micromanagement, and an economic model of resource-gathering and base-building became the hallmark of the RTS genre.

[3] Chris Taylor has stated that Dune II and Command & Conquer were great inspirations, driving him to leave Electronic Arts to create Total Annihilation.

There are also fan-made game engine recreations, like Dune Legacy, which aims for improved usability and controls while not changing the gameplay.