Dune: Awakening Hands-On Preview: Okay Sandworm, You Can Stop Eating Me Now

Okay, Dune: Awakening. Your Sandworms might actually be dangerous.

In my preview of Funcom’s upcoming survival MMO back in January, I mentioned I didn’t really feel threatened by the Shai Hulud during my nearly six hours of gameplay. However, after just one day during a nearly two week-long alpha test I was able to take part in earlier this month, that changed. 

I was eaten by my first Sandworm while investigating a crash that fell from the heavens into the desert inbetween myself and the major outpost in my region of the Desert, Hagga Basin South. As I poured over the wreck, hoping to find some valuable salvage I can either craft into a new piece of gear or sell for something more valuable, the ground started to shake, only to have the Sandworm make his appearance, popping out of the desert sand, roaring with might. I panicked and ran towards my sand bike, eager to get as far away as possible. 

However, like all good Sandworms, vibrations in the desert sand only make them all the more interested in your, and my vehicle was causing a ton of them. Within seconds my game’s camera pulled out into an incredibly wide view, just so I can see myself eaten by Shai Hulud in all its glory.

This wouldn’t be the last time this happened. 

In the alpha test leading into this preview, I was able to effectively replay the beginning of Dune: Awakening, retracing my steps from my preview back in January. However, the test didn’t end after those few hours, but instead I had the chance to explore the more dangerous region of the Vermilius Gap, which covers the first 10 - 20 hours of the experience. 

While much of what I played was the same as my earlier preview, there were some new experiences (such as that Sandworm wrecking me), and while I have a clearer picture of how multiplayer works now versus back in January, I am still left with plenty of questions about the eventual endgame of Dune: Awakening.

Becoming A Bene Gesserit 

Last time I played the Swordmaster, but this time around I wanted to check out something a bit different, so I went with the Bene Gesserit. And honestly, I didn’t think I’d like it in those early hours as many of the skills just didn’t feel impactful.

What did come in handy was a massively amped up sprint I would use to cross the desert in a pinch, especially if I knew a Sandworm was terrorizing things nearby. However it wasn’t until I unlocked more of the skill tree that the Bene Gesserit really opened up to me. 

One skill effectively acted as crowd control, where I could influence an enemy trooper to simply ignore me, allowing me a brief respite in crowded combat zones from being ganged up on. However, my favorite was a skill that effectively ported me behind an enemy, knocking them off balance and allowing me a quick strike with my blade. 

Once I figured this out, I felt a lot more comfortable with my Bene Gesserit choice. I still want to check out the Mentat and the other classes when the MMO launches in June, but figuring out the Bene Gesserit felt a bit like a puzzle locking into place for me - I started to just have a ton of fun popping up behind enemies or dashing around a battlefield, getting up close and personal with enemies or, in a pinch, getting away to heal quickly. 

Despite not playing a Swordmaster this time around, my preferred way to fight was close quarters with a sword. This became harder as I progressed into the second area and everyone had access to Holtzman shields and I simply didn’t just yet. 

Dune: Awakening’s progression feels pretty solid in the early game, but crossing that border from the starter Hagga Basin into the Vermilious Gap felt like a major ramp up in difficulty. The elements become harsher, the Shai Hulud is more menacing, and enemies are stacked with more technology to deal with you. I honestly felt unprepared for this new region when I first made my way into it on my speeder. 

Indeed, the first major area of friction came in a lab dungeon in the second area. Each enemy was equipped with shields and more powerful weaponry, while I was struggling to make my way through with just a rifle and a dagger that siphons my enemy’s blood with each strike. Battling melee enemies while getting peppered by darts from ranged weaponry started to feel a bit insurmountable, and I left so many backpacks of loot behind when I finally gave up and became determined to get a shield of my own. 

In fact, crafting that first shield in my blocky and hastily built base felt like a true achievement, and the next time I made it into the lab things went a bit differently. I felt powerful, chewing through enemies with my new sword and shotgun, utilizing my Bene Gesserit skills to get the jump on big enemies and take them out before their friends could rush in afterwards. The Disruptor also became a much used piece of kit in my arsenal, bringing down enemy shields and dealing quick death to them once they were defenseless. 

For MMO combat, it’s not bad, actually. I don’t always like how the camera snaps to the enemy Dune perceives as the main threat when I might want to brun down someone else, and melee still feelt a bit floaty on mouse and keyboard (and I really, really do not like the gamepad controls at this stage). I honestly can’t wait to see how it fares in PvP, because even in the few scattered War of Assassins PvP zones in the beta, I still never saw another player who was willing to give it a go. 

I did, however, meet up with some friends for the first time in Dune, toying around with the base access tools. I do appreciate that you can effectively set the permissions on both a per-character basis and just allow your guild or friends wholesale access to your sub-fief and everything inbetween.

While I didn’t get far enough in this test to create my own guild, I could see the potential if you could get some friends together to build, gather, and explore together from the jump. One base nearby me was a towering structure built between two cliffs, the base (and a massive garage for their vehicles) situated in the gap. Another was a sprawling complex with multiple stories that could only have built if someone just no-lifed and grinded for tons of materials or they had the extra help. 

I’m interested to see what tiny settlements crop up as more players get into Dune: Awakening and how many abandoned ghost towns we’ll see dot the landscape as the population progresses. There’s not way to simply pack up your base and move it when you move onto a new region. You simply copy the layout as a blueprint and abandon what you built where it’s at, ready for someone to come pick clean or claim for their own. 

I wish the blueprints would copy more than just the base structure, but would also copy the console and crafting stations you’ve placed in there as well - and I wish there was some sort of resource recoupment when you abandon one to move onto a new region, but I do appreciate that there is something in place to help make building the next base a bit easier. 

Grouping And Desert Frustrations

That difficulty spike moving into the next zone did have me questioning whether I wanted to dump more time into the test (knowing I was going to have to do all this all over again just a few weeks later come launch). Sandworms were a lot more dangerous while enemies (at least until I got a shield of my own) at times felt insurmountable when in larger groups. It’s here where I really wished I had more time to play with some of my friends who where also in the test, but schedules didn’t always align to make it so. 

In fact, I think the difficulty spike necessitates grouping. Unfortunately, there isn’t really anything in Dune: Awakening pushing you in that direction, at least in these early stages of the survival MMO. There might be a voice over saying that playing with friends will make the harsh desert sands easy to overcome, but there isn’t a system in place really nudging players in that direction, even when at one of the outpost social hubs where I was more likely to see other players more often than not. 

I just wish that, for a game as harsh and unforgiving as Dune: Awakening is setting up to be, that there was more of a push early on to get into a group, whether a PUG to tackle a nearby desert lab dungeon or to pick apart a shipwreck for valuable salvage. 

Additionally, while I understand Arrakis is a harsh and unforgiving place, it might be a bit too unforgiving in spots. As unthreatened by the Sandworm I felt during my January preview, this was absolutely flipped in this test. 

While dying in combat does suck, dropping some items for someone to come along and loot if you don’t get back to your backpack first, it’s a bit more forgiving than the Shai Hulud thanks to Dune’s generous respawn points. Instead of being forced to respawn back at a bed in my base, I could typically just respawn at the start of the dungeon, most of my kit still intact, and go back and grab my dropped gear. 

The Sandworm, by contrast, is just devastating if you’re eaten while traveling back to your base loaded down with loot. More than once this happened to me where I effectively had to start over, losing hours of progress because of an unlucky Sandworm appearance that even my turbo-equipped land speeder couldn’t outrun. 

It does create an incredibly tense moment, crossing the dunes knowing that I could lose everything at a moments notice. But once the worm appears and the camera starts to pull back, that tension turns to frustration, knowing I’m going to have to start gathering and rebuilding everything - and eventually have to go right back out and redo everything I just did. 

I’m no stranger to loss in MMOs - I play EVE Online for goodness sake. I have thousands of hours across many, many survival games like ARK, Conan Exiles and more. The amount of times I’ve lost expensive ships or heavily laden bags of gear in combat to other players, or my own hubris, is more than I can count. But each time that loss felt like I could learn something from it, and I came out the other end more prepared and able to tackle the rigors of each a bit better. 

However, losing everything to the Sandworm just doesn’t have that same feeling. Sure, I could move a bit faster or find a better route between all the various islands of cliffsides and save zones to get me where I need to go - except for those times where the only way to an objective is a 1000 meter jaunt through open desert. 

What I think makes it feel bad is just the randomness of the Worm’s appearance at times and how death just feels unavoidable it saps my will to want to continue. 

It could just be me, I’ll fully admit, especially when I have limited time to play on a deadline and having to repeat hours worth of gameplay multiple times in a day just doesn’t feel fun. 

Heading Into June

I still have so many questions as we head into June’s release date. I’m glad that Dune: Awakening got its delay, if I’m honest, as it does allow for the some of the bugs and jank to get worked out ahead of time. Though I am incredibly happy with the performance. Playing with all the settings maxed on theRTX 5090 and even the Razer Blade 16 laptop we’re in the process of reviewing, framerates were always high and I never really experienced any of the issues of stuttering and more that tend to come with Unreal Engine. 

The upcoming test in May is another chance for Funcom to gather as much data and stress the servers as much as possible so that we can get a relatively smooth launch as well (though, let’s be real, this is an MMO, so expect issues). 

However, I’m most interested in seeing how the actual MMO elements will fare come June. Up until now we’ve only really been able to experience the early to early-mid game of Dune. There’s a lot of establishing your character, learning the ropes, and early crafting on offer, but nothing that speaks to the broader PvP, Deep Desert, and political endgame that will, ultimately I think, come to define the Dune: Awakening experience. 

As it’s being described by Funcom, I’m outrageously excited at the possibilities of the Atreides and Harkonnen war that could unfold with players on each side vying for control of the Landsraad. As someone who pours over EVE Online player battles and intrigue, Dune: Awakening has that same potential if all goes according to plan post-launch. But there is no way to meaningfully test that ahead of launch, so much of how this all works and what doesn’t work in the process is completely up in the air. 

That all said, despite my frustrations, I an stupidly excited for Dune: Awakening. I cannot wait til jump into Arrakis and take on the desert when the stakes feel real and not simply tied to a world wipe in a test. I want to get my friends together and truly unlock the power of the desert, fly our Ornithopters across the world, and even try to corner our own little segment of the Spice market down the road. 

And I can’t wait to take part in some of the survival MMO’s early battles for control of Arrakis post-launch. The pieces are here for the making of a great game, so we’ll see if Funcom can truly put them all together come June.