Why did I start this post with Dune: Imperium Digital? Because I certainly would love to have Uprising available in digital format as well. I play this as a solo game against the AI, and that speeds a game up considerably. Dune: Imperium is a game which has a lot of interesting decisions, and human players tend to have to think a bit during their turn, especially if the move the previous player made just foiled their plans. Human players around a physical board also need to do a lot of other things, like shuffling cards and moving game pieces, which the digital version does a lot faster. The overall effect is that I have played a lot more round digitally than physically. And once you play the same version of the game repeatedly, you really appreciate a different version with different leaders and different cards.

For the physical version of the game, a similar consideration applies: If you have played the original Dune: Imperium many times, with and without expansions, Uprising brings you the joy of new game mechanics, new leaders, new cards, and the resulting new strategies. If you have played neither yet, and stand in your friendly local game store in front of the two boxes, trying to decide which one to buy, things get a bit more difficult.

At the most basic and neutral level, Uprising is a more complex game. On BGG the weight of the original Dune: Imperium is just a tad over 3, while the weight of Uprising is nearly 3.5. Right there, some players might prefer the more complex game, while others prefer the lighter version. My personal experience was that I brought both games to my weekly board game night, and I was able to set up, explain, and play the original Dune: Imperium within the 3-hour window of that event, while with Uprising we didn't finish the game in time and had to stop early.

On a subjective level, I prefer the original game over Uprising. I feel the original game had more alternative viable strategies; Uprising introduces sandworms, which double the rewards of conflict, and that makes it nearly impossible to win without them. As another example, the Research Station space in the original game gave you three cards, which is great if you are trying to win by buying The Spice Must Flow cards; Uprising changed the same spot to give you only two cards, and two troops. For me, Uprising often ends up to be more often frustrating: Because there is a more obvious "best" strategy, it becomes more frustrating if you draw a hand that doesn't support that one pathway; it also makes being the last player in the round a lot more frustrating, as the spaces left at the end of the round are less viable in comparison.

While I haven't had the opportunity to actually try it, I have my doubts about the viability of the Rise of Ix expansion with the new Uprising base game. It seems to me as if Rise of Ix had been designed to "fix" certain perceived shortcomings of the original base game, and Uprising does the same in sometimes similar ways. If you introduce both the Rise of Ix dreadnoughts and the Uprising sandworms into combat, that might be too much. And the Uprising spies seem a bit feeble if you already have the Rise of Ix cards that allow you to place an agent on an already occupied space. I could, however, imagine playing Uprising with the Immortality expansion to good effect.

The one area where Uprising is superior to the original version is the 2-player game. All versions of Dune: Imperium with all possible permutations of expansions are best played with 4 players. The 3-player game is still okay, but the solo and 2-player variants are only useful for getting familiar with the game. Uprising introduces "rival" cards, which makes playing against the House Hagal AI deck a bit more interesting, but I still wouldn't call it a good 2-player game.

Overall, both Dune: Imperium and Dune: Imperium Uprising are very good board games. If you like board games with a good amount of player interaction, and interesting decision making, both of these games are great for 4-player groups. I would recommend the original for new players, while Uprising is certainly a viable alternative for experienced players.