Dune: Imperium Uprising Review: Spies, Sandworms, and More Complexity

Dune: Imperium Uprising is an excellent standalone sequel that adds spies, sandworms, and a 6-player team mode to an already outstanding foundation. It's a slightly more complex experience, though I personally prefer the tighter balance of the original game with an expansion.

What Is This Game?

If you're unfamiliar with the series, I'd recommend reading my Dune: Imperium review first, as Uprising builds directly on that foundation. The core remains the same: you're leading one of the Great Houses on Arrakis, combining deck building and worker placement in a seamless hybrid. You play cards to send agents to board spaces, build your deck to shape your strategy, and compete in conflicts each round for victory points and rewards. First to ten points wins.

Uprising isn't an expansion. It's a standalone game that reimagines the original with a redesigned board, all new leaders and cards, and several new mechanics layered on top. The biggest additions are spies and sandworms. Spies occupy observation posts adjacent to board spaces and give you two powerful options: recall them to draw cards, or use them to infiltrate spaces that other players have already claimed. Sandworms are combat units worth 3 strength that, crucially, double all your rewards when you have one in a conflict. They require Maker Hooks (earned through Fremen influence) and can't be used in conflicts behind the Shield Wall until it's been destroyed.

The game also includes a 6-player team mode (3v3, Muad'Dib's forces versus Emperor Shaddam's) and an improved Rivals system for solo and 2-player games with eight different rivals across four difficulty levels. Uprising is fully compatible with all previous Dune: Imperium expansions, including Rise of Ix and Bloodlines.

What Works

The spy mechanic is a genuine improvement to the formula. One of the occasional frustrations in the original game was getting completely locked out of a critical board space. Spies solve this elegantly. If you've placed a spy on an observation post, you can infiltrate that space even if an opponent is already there. It adds another layer of planning to an already deeply strategic game, and the decision of when to recall spies for card draw versus holding them for infiltration creates interesting tension throughout.

Uprising also fixes several quality-of-life issues from the original base game. Solari is easier to obtain and remains useful longer into the game. Card draw and deck trashing are more common, which puts a stronger emphasis on the deck-building element. The Swordmaster now costs 8 for the first player and 6 for everyone after, which makes acquiring your third agent flow more naturally. Victory points require more deliberate effort to obtain, which keeps the game feeling tight throughout. Many of the rough edges that the original game's expansions addressed are already smoothed out here.

The improved Rivals system for solo and 2-player modes is excellent. The new rival cards give your AI opponents more personality and clearer decision-making, and the range of difficulty options means you can scale the challenge as you improve. If solo play is your primary mode, Uprising offers a more polished experience out of the box.

What Doesn't

The sandworm mechanic, while thematically spectacular, can feel unbalanced. Doubling your conflict rewards is enormously powerful, and in many games I've played, the player who invested in the sandworm strategy pulled ahead decisively. It creates dramatic moments, but it also narrows the viable paths to victory. The original game (especially with an expansion like Rise of Ix or Bloodlines) feels like it has more strategic diversity, with military dominance, faction influence, and deck optimization all feeling equally viable. In Uprising, ignoring sandworms can feel like a mistake.

The 6-player team mode is a nice inclusion, but I wouldn't buy Uprising specifically for it. At six players, there's simply too much downtime waiting for other people's turns. If I have six players at the table, I'd rather reach for a game designed around that count from the ground up. The team mode is a fun occasional variant, not a primary way to play.

Uprising is also slightly more complex than the original. The spy rules, sandworm restrictions (Shield Wall, Maker Hooks), and contract system all add cognitive overhead. None of it is difficult to learn, but if you're teaching new players, the original game remains the smoother entry point.

Replayability

Like its predecessor, Uprising offers tremendous replayability. The new leaders all have interesting abilities, the redesigned card pool creates fresh strategic options, and the spy and sandworm systems add new dimensions to explore. A typical session still runs about two hours, and the game remains engaging across dozens of plays. If anything, the improved Rivals system makes solo sessions more replayable than ever, with meaningful difficulty scaling that keeps you challenged as you master the game.

Who Should Play This

If you don't own any Dune: Imperium products and want to jump in, Uprising is a great starting point. It's a more polished base game experience with the late-economy issues already addressed and excellent solo/2-player support out of the box. Fans of the Dune: Part Two film will also appreciate the updated art and thematic additions like rideable sandworms.

However, if you already own the original Dune: Imperium and enjoy it, I'd actually recommend adding an expansion like Rise of Ix or Bloodlines rather than switching to Uprising. The original game with an expansion feels slightly better balanced to me, with more viable paths to victory. You can't really go wrong with either approach, but my personal preference leans toward the original's tighter design. Skip the 6-player mode unless your group specifically wants a team-based Dune experience and doesn't mind the downtime.

Final Verdict

Dune: Imperium Uprising is a worthy successor that refines many aspects of an already excellent game. The spy mechanic is a genuine improvement, the solo mode is better than ever, and the quality-of-life fixes make for a smoother experience. The sandworm strategy can dominate games in a way that slightly narrows the strategic diversity I loved about the original, but this remains one of the best deck-building/worker-placement hybrids available. Whether you start here or with the original, you're getting a fantastic game.