In the last Inside Dune: Awakening, we touched on how the team plans to reward players by following their chosen path through the Journey System. However, the storytelling balance between survival and political advancement stands out as one of the game’s defining aspects and it was one of the topics Joel and I spoke about at length. Funcom wants players to feel like they're part of an evolving narrative, yet one that allows them to not only embrace political aspirations, but players can opt to avoid them too.
Those familiar with the books or the film of Dune are abundantly aware of the titular character, Paul Atreides, and the trials he faced in his heroic endeavors. In our conversation about the story of Dune: Awakening, I had to also look at this from the perspective of an MMO player. Sometimes, players don’t want to be the Paul Atreides or Beast Rabban, and would rather try and live within the harsh world of Arrakis without a meta understanding of the Duneiverse.
In Dune: Awakening we know that this is set completely apart from the story we know. Most notably, this is a timeline of the Duneiverse where Paul Atreides wasn’t born, which would seemingly put players in a significant titular role as they progress through the story aspects of the game. Joel Bylos discussed the player’s journey in narrative terms while navigating the numerous story spoilers in the process: "There are chosen one plot lines and there are not chosen one plotlines."
“The one thing I'll say is just that you're not really expected to fill Paul's role in the game. Not at all. The player is just a prisoner who crashes on the planet, and then you play the game from there,” he continued. He mused on other MMO narratives like in World of Warcraft where no matter which side you choose you’re just ‘any recruited hero’, in comparison to a game like Age of Conan where you have the Mark of Asheron and play the titular character.
“I can't go down the path too far without spoiling it,” Joel joked. “But it's an attempt to try and solve both of those problems in the same game, which is super weird. And I know it will be strange to people, but if it pays off well, it'll pay off in a way that I think people will remember for a long time.” The main story, while not the primary driver of progression, is still a big part of introducing new players to Arrakis. Because of that, players will be introduced to a linear main story, one that explains how player-prisoners have ended up on Arrakis.
However, just because the main story is linear, that doesn’t mean that players should expect everything to be the same when they create a new character. “I think which faction you choose changes how you play. I think the main story is not the place for that.” He said. “The main story is not like… The Last of Us. Right. It's not a 60 hour main story.” In fact, what Joel described is akin to more of a few morsels of story events that you can come back to when you’re doing other things. You can choose to come back to these story missions for 15 minutes every few hours if you so choose, and move the story along as you’re doing other things.
Players should expect repeated playthroughs to change substantially based on their faction choices and how they decide to build their new character. Players will be encouraged to participate in their political faction of choice as they attempt to manipulate the Landsraad, shifting policies for all of Arrakis. However, you’ll be able to tell your own story in a way that ensures that the player experience can adapt based on individual preferences, including how active you choose to be in the integral game elements such as political warfare, exploration, survival, and the in-game economy.
The news that every player isn’t pigeonholed into being a titular character is certainly good for gamers who liked games like Star Wars: Galaxies where you weren’t setting yourself up to be the next Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader. Instead, you had options of taking part in an overarching story, or largely staying in a world of your own making as a crafter, pilot, or bounty hunter. In our next look inside Dune: Awakening we’re going to take a look at the survival mechanisms where Joel touches on how survival progression is balanced so that it is an ever present danger.
