Stumbling around the desert world of Arrakis as I emerged from the wreckage of my crashed ship, I instantly felt drawn into the world of Frank Herbert’s Dune with those first steps. This was in large part because one of the first things I had to do was find water. Arrakis is a cruel, unforgiving environment, where every drop of water counts, something that Funcom’s latest survival game Dune Awakening highlights in its first moments.
I’ll admit, I found it incredibly ironic that Funcom invited us to fly out to the snowy, icy world of Norway to play a game set within a scorching desert planet. But the juxtaposition was felt keenly. As I prepared to bundle up in winter clothes, which will no doubt sit in a drawer once I get back to the desert of Las Vegas, to brave the sub-freezing temperatures in Norway, I had to figure out how to kit my character out to survive the scorching desert of Arrakis.
While the hunt for Spice might dominate the minds of the political elite, which means taking advantage of Arrakis for their own gain, those early moments of just hunting for an amount of water to not succumb to the elements are incredibly poignant. In a survival game, resources and access to those resources is everything, something Dune Awakening hammers home early.
In many ways, then, Dune Awakening feels like a natural evolution of the formula perfected by Funcom in their incredibly popular survival entry, Conan Exiles. Many of the core systems felt familiar as I moved through the early stages of Awakening. I gained experience, applied that towards unlocking new tools and technologies I could craft, and then simply put them to work. Rinse and repeat. It’s a loop that works, and it’s a driver for much of the early content I experienced in my nearly 7 hours with Dune Awakening last week at an event in Oslo, Norway.
Yet, those early moments in Dune Awakening are much more curated than other survival games, and I feel like this is a good pivot. Not only does it teach the basics of how to gather important resources, such as using the dew from the few plants that survive the heat of Arrakis for quick drinks of water, to learning how to identify the weakspots in mineral deposits and mining with my Cutteray, but it also provides structure so when Awakening does turn me loose, I am in a better position to survive.
Alt History Dune
For the uninitiated, Dune Awakening takes place in an alternate timeline versus the mainline series. In Awakening, Paul Atreides’ mother, Jessica, followed the orders of the Bene Gesserit and gave birth to a daughter, meaning Paul was never born. It allowed Jessica to be trained as a Truth Sayer, which then, in turn, meant she was able to detect the betrayal plotted against House Atreides and avoid the fate that faces it in the main series.
It’s an intriguing premise, and one that feels totally at home in Frank Herbert’s universe. As a result, instead of the story centering on the Lisan al-Gaib, Dune Awakening can tell a story with endless possibilities here. The world of Arrakis and the universe of Dune have become a battle ground where House Atreides and House Harkonnen vie for control over Spice and the wealth of Arrakis, setting the stage for much of the story - and end-game gameplay Dune Awakening is aiming to create.
According to creative director Joel Bylos in a presentation ahead of our game demo, the team found itself facing some constraints working with the IP holders and the movie studio creating the recent Dune series. This included constraints such as being unable to show the Fremen, hugely important people central to any story being told on Arrakis, nor could the team showcase anything that could spoil the plot before the films. However, one thing Joel said during this presentation stuck with me throughout my entire time playing Dune Awakening, and even a week later as finish this piece: constraints lead to freedom.
It’s because of those constraints that Dune Awakening finds itself exploring these alternative outcomes that seemingly snowball when one detail - the birth of a daughter instead of Paul Atreides - is changed. This excites me in a way I don’t think I realized it would until I found myself experiencing it firsthand.
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It’s no secret that one of my favorite video game adaptions of a novel is The Lord of the Rings Online. One reason why it works so well is because the developers have been able to tell their own stories set within the rules and confines of Tolkien’s world. Sure, it does follow the major plotline of the books eventually, with players taking part in the War of the Ring, but it’s not the focal point for much of the storytelling in that MMO, merely a backdrop.
The way Dune Awakening is approaching its adaption feels much the same. Familiar themes such as the rivalry between the Atreides and Harkonnens are at play, as well as the political intrigue that the entire Imperium plays against itself. The dangers of Arrakis that all in the books face is clearly there, from the weather to the hulking sandworms that stalk the desert. The board is set, and the team are clearly passionate about telling a Dune story, just their spin on that Dune story.
While you’ll have the chance to help House Atreides or House Harkonenen - or a mysterious third faction that Funcom teased us with at the event, though it was confirmed to me by Executive Producer Scott Junior that this third faction is indeed not the Fremen - you don’t choose this when you create your character.
Instead, your initial choices are largely cosmetic, except for your class specialization. Players can wield the power of the Bene Gesserit, take on the role of a Mentat, Trooper, Planetologist or, as I chose, be a simple Swordmaster. This will help determine your skills and role in combat especially whether you’re striking low with the blade or confusing enemies with your Bene Gesserit powers.
Welcome to Arrakis
Those first moments on Arrakis teach about the basics of crafting and survival, and then I was immediately thrown into my first dungeon-style content, equipped with just a Cutteray and a basic knife made out of spare parts I found.
While other survival crafters have you punch rocks or trees to start to get the basic resources you need to build and survive, Dune had me kill an enemy and loot his harvesting tool, the aforementioned Cutteray. It’s a really simple tool in practice, but before Dune could teach me even how to use it, I was blasting rocks with the Cutteray’s laser, wondering what I was doing wrong.
Instead of just pointing and clicking like most survival games would, Dune Awakening’s Cutteray tool has an Analysis mode that analyzes the resource you’re trying to harvest and shows you exactly where to cut to make progress. It’s so deceptively simple yet I daresay most of us in the room likely just started blasting away at first blush because that’s what video games have effectively taught us to do. I really like the minigame of scanning the item, finding exactly where to mine to get the most yield, and then tracing that line with my Cutteray. It’s pretty satisfying.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a survival game if I weren’t also just picking stuff up off the ground, such as fuel cells, minerals like copper and more. This first dungeon taught me that nothing should be left behind, especially as it could mean the difference between survival in Arrakis or swift death.
Traversing Arrakis is also a danger unto itself. When you’re not looking out for enemies ready to take you out and harvest your water, the sun itself can get you. Staying out in direct sunlight for too long can induce sunstroke, dehydrating you quickly and dealing damage if you’re not careful. Sticking the shadows is the way to go, so as I made my way around the various rock faces and cliffsides I would plot the fastest route from one shadowy area to the next, eager to keep the sun off my back.
When not dealing with the sun, there’s also the big elephant - I mean Shai Hulud - in the room. sandworms roam Arrakis, seeking out the most threatening set of vibrations it can find on the map. Running across the open desert is a test of speed, grit and in times, luck - or so I thought I would be.
At first I assumed that the sandworm would be right on top of me if I just booked it across the desert from one rock formation to the next. As I started my way across a small waveform meter appeared on my HUD, showing just how strong the vibrations of a nearby sandworm were. I would fall into a pattern of running a short distance, then slowly walking to bring down the vibrations, and then a run again in what became a rhythmic dance to get across the wasteland.
However, as the I got farther and farther in our gameplay demo, I had yet to really be threatened by a sandworm. So much so that I started to wonder whether or not this tutorial area was really being threatened by the sandworms at all.
The next time the vibrations got real strong, I didn’t relent. What’s the worst that can happen, I lose some of my early items? It’s not like I’d be losing a Still Suit or a shield like a mid to late game loss could bring on.
Yet when the worm emerged, it wasn’t right on top of me, but rather quite a ways in the distance, its hulking body reaching for the sky instead of towards me, an easy meal.Speaking with other journalists, it is obviously possible that the samdworm eats you, a friend of mine had it happen to him twice. But both times for hit it was mostly because he was looking for it, much like I was.
My hope is that this core feeling of being on Arrakis is tuned to be a bit more dangerous. Then again, I also want it balanced with Dune Awakening being a video game and you do need to be able to safely and quickly cross when needed - so hopefully my experience here where sandworms just stopped being a threat I worried about was an outlier and not the norm.
If You Build It…
It would not be a survival game without building mechanics. Dune Awakening’s building mechanics, even ahead of launch, are some of the best I’ve ever experienced. Again, like most of the survival crafting loop, everything feels like an evolution of the work done on Conan Exiles, which has some incredible building tools.
I never felt early on that I didn’t have the materials necessary - the early area of the Hagga Basin is littered with rocks, copper, fuel cells and more, everything needed to build my first shelter.
I’ll admit: I am terrible at designing houses in games. Typically, when I play games like ARK: Survival Evolved or Conan Exiles, I play with my best friend, who is amazing at building in these games. I was reminded of this as I plunked down my first Sub-fief Console (effectively a territory claim item) and right next to me someone had already started to build an elaborate two-story structure, perfectly in line with the sloping sand dune to our left. It was a smidge intimidating when I completed my one room, four-walled abode, but it got the job done.
What I really like about Dune Awakening’s building mechanics is I didn’t have to research each individual building tile, from the walls to the foundations, to the roof. That progression mechanic always made no sense to me in games like ARK, where you’d have to spend your progression points to learn each type of wall, ceiling, floor tile, and more. Here all the structural assets were ready for me just to start building, making the experience early on rather frictionless.
I also like that I could effectively build the structure that I wanted with holographic blueprints, laying each piece out so I could see what the final product would look like before I committed the resources proper. You still have to fill in each part one by one, but it was a nice touch that took a lot of the frustration I typically have when building in video games.
Fuel cells I gathered throughout my short journey powered my house and the shield keeping it safe from the elements. This power generator has to be continually refilled, which acts as a resource sink that necessitates gathering and returning to your home base periodically. Some advanced items and gear, such as upgraded guns and knives, and even your first Stillsuit, can only be crafted using specialized structures in your base as well, furthering the importance of keeping your Sub-fief operating smoothly.
Another valuable resource you need to keep going is, of course, water. While you can harvest water in a Stillsuit while you run, the most efficient source, at least early on, is from fallen enemies. A Blood Extractor literally loots blood from corpses, storing it in a blood pack to then be purified back at your base.
I think this is a really neat nod to the fact that literally every drop of water counts on Arrakis and nothing is wasted, including bodily fluids. It very easily became part of the ritual of looting enemies to just extract their blood, then grab their items, not the other way around.
Purifying the water back at my base was also pretty painless, and I oftentimes had more purified water than I could carry with me. If you’re in a pinch though and need a drink, you can just drink the blood, but that has other effects you might end up having to deal with in the end.
The Slow Blade…
Combat in Dune Awakening is very interesting. Since standard bullets in the Dune universe are mostly useless thanks to the prevalence of personal shields, Dune Awakening takes this idea and instead of guns that fire traditional ballistics, they fire darts.
Gunplay in Dune Awakening feels very good. Even my early, barely cobbled-together pistol had a satisfying pop when I fired it at Scavengers for the first time. Combat feels pretty fluid as well; there is a dodge button that I found myself using liberally, especially in melee combat, and each movement had a weightiness to it that I enjoyed. I really liked that I could start a fight at a distance, popping off a few dart rounds at an enemy as I closed in, swapping to my knife to finish them off.
I do with there was a more dedicated lock on in melee combat - right now combat basically snaps to your nearest threat and the camera centers there. In instances where I found myself attacked by multiple enemies, oftentimes my camera would get in the way of me being able to attack who I wanted to, and without a dedicated lock on I struggled to get it to cooperate, most times resulting in my death.
This isn’t a game where you can simply swing your blade blindly, either. While not every enemy will have a shield protecting them, some do, so you’ll need to stagger them and then slowly push the blade through to the exposed flesh beneath.
The first time I fought a shielded foe, it was exciting. Standard swipes with my blade bounced off the shield, but it started to stagger them, allowing for the opening I needed to push through. Not every attempt worked, either, as one boss was able to shove off my push attempts a few times before one finally hit pay dirt. There is something inherently satisfying about finishing my enemy off with the slow blade. It feels less like I’m just doing more damage and more the feeling that I simply triumphed over a foe thanks to skill.
This does makes me incredibly curious how this will work in PvP. As I never had a shield of my own during our preview, I don’t know what the experience of being shielded myself feels like, and how that dance of death plays out with two well-equipped foes. Will there be something that allows you to fight back when a push is attempted, is it simply dependent on how much health I have left, or is it a combination of the two?
Additionally, there are some concessions to how shields work in Dune Awakening to ensure they work for a video game. Certain rounds of ammo called Disruptors can penetrate the shield and deal damage because, well, it’s disrupting the shield. Additionally, when you are firing your weapon, your shield goes down, exposing you during that moment. Learning how to take advantage of these attack windows while shields are down, especially at a distance will likely separate the really good PvP players from the rest of us.
One major wrinkle about combat that makes things even more dynamic and fuels the power fantasy of whatever class you choose to play is Spice. Spice is everything on Arrakis. It’s the reason we are all there. Spice can be harvested and infused into consumables, whether it be a Spice-infused meat kabob or Spice Whiskey, just to name a few, and when consumed it powers up players in a mode called Prescience.
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Prescience effectively makes you more powerful, with faster cooldowns on your combat skills, your attacks do more damage in combat; it also reveals information about your enemies, including health bars, loadouts, how much ammo they have, and more. It’s a really cool effect, and you can effectively build up the Spice saturation in your blood and trigger Prescience when needed.
I felt so powerful when I was Prescient, using my knee drive skill to down a nearby Scavenger foe, only to turn on the next one and lay them to waste with my sword. By this point I had found a blueprint in a dungeon that taught me how to craft a blade that also harvested blood wtih each attack, and it was thirsty, slowly filling the extra blood packs I brought with me on my later journeys into the Basin with each powerful swipe.
There is a lot to like with Dune Awakening’s combat, and this is even before I got the chance to experience vehicular combat - something that wasn’t really part of this demo. The combined arms aspect of Dune Awakening is so interesting to me, especially the prospect of end-game battles between rival factions and guilds - how will this all work, how dynamic will it be, and could we see large-scale fights that see combined air and land forces working together to capture a valuable source of Spice, a valuable trade route, and more in the end game? And how does riding the Sandworm into battle fit into all of this?
Where Do We Go From Here?
In our time with Dune Awakening, we effectively played the first six to seven hours of the game, very much in the early phases of the experience. But there is so much potential with what Dune Awakening is aiming to be towards its endgame that not having much concrete information as to how it will all actually work, and how it works in practice, is a bit frustrating.
In my mind’s eye, as I think about the political intrigue that can play out as the various factions vie for power and aim to manipulate the Landsraad, a council that meets weekly to determine what will happen on Arrakis. But how does this work in practice, and what do you as an individual or as part of a player guild, do actually to influence this race?
The Landsraad is a server-wide faction conflict, and by all accounts, these servers will be massive, with each world connected to the Deep Desert, and players can move between these maps and congregate in social areas, such as the capital of Arrakeen or the Harkonnen base Beneath Old Carthag. How does this all work in practice, and are we going to see territory-style wars much like what we see in Amazon’s New World: Aeternum, or will something more akin to the political upheavals and battles of EVE Online unfold?
I’m most concerned about the social aspect here as well. In my time with Dune Awakening, there really wasn’t any driving force or anything compelling me to play with the people around me. I could see them and they could see me, but there were no systems in play that naturally saw us group up together. How prevalent in those early hours will the social element actually be?
As part of the presentation, Funcom sees the progression of Dune Awakening unfolding in four phases: the Survive Phase, the Protect Phase,the Expand Phase, and the Control Phase. We got to experience that Survive Phase of Dune Awakening, which covers about the first ten hours of the survival game. The Protect Phase is when you’re starting to, well, protect the different things you’ve built in the game and sort of figuring out your role within the world of Arrakis.
It’s in this phase where Funcom projects players will start to play together, at least a dozen or so hours into the experience. I worry that for this might be too long a time to start introducing social concepts, such as forming a small guild, grouping up, and more.
Dune Awakening is, by all intents and purposes, a social game. It is an MMO, despite Funcom’s hesitancy to keep calling it that because it conjures up images of World of Warcraft in people’s mind, which Awakening very much not that kind of game. But it is a social one, set in a large multiplayer world. These social links need to be established early on. I am especially worried about the player who hops in expecting to see other players because they know Dune is a social open world survival game, and yet are never really introduced to how they can group up with others before they bounce off to a game that does cater to that social gameplay early.
It isn’t until you get to the Expand Phase, at least 30 hours in by Funcom’s estimation, where the reliance on the social constructs in Dune Awakening seems to start being really prevalent. Will that be too late to keep players around?
In an interview with Executive Producer Scott Junior, he says that there is “specialness in what the old MMOs did” with regards to grouping and not necessarily having an “instance” feel to it.
Instead, Junior describes how old-school MMOs tackled grouping: it was organic.
“You do need to discover people,” Junior explained. “You’re ending up in the same location, doing the same thing and then the party organically grows from there.”
There is a specialness to this, sure. And I don’t think that approach is wrong, either. I prefer the organic flow of grouping in games, but I do wonder how sustainable that will be, especially with modern MMO players who like the conveniences of things like a party finder to get their group content done. I think a little nudge to jump start a social interaction could go a long way.
The world of Dune Awakening is massive, and the various maps are all connected to the giant central Deep Desert. This is gigantic, though Junior also notes that it shouldn’t feel insurmountable to find other people even in the emptiness of the desert. Additionally, there are social hubs where you can pick up contracts for the various factions to complete and, in theory, be social with other players.
Even with all these concerns, I left excited to play more. As I said nearly four thousand words before this, Dune Awakening feels like a natural evolution of survival games Funcom has made, but I'll extend that further: a natural evolution of the genre. What does a survival game with a true MMO-style endgame look like? Funcom is determined to find out.
It’s even more exciting knowing that Funcom is not going to Early Access route that so many developers - especially survival game devs - have taken to get the game out as early as possible. Dune Awakening, when it releases this year, will be the full 1.0 launch.
I have sunk thousands of hours into survival games over the years, and have longed for one with the type of endgame content that keeps me coming back to MMORPGs since RuneScape. While I still have a ton of questions for how the end game will actually work, I’m cautiously optimistic in the vision that the team at Funcom has for it as it was laid out to us.
Dune itself is an inherently political book, full of intrigue, twists and conflict. Dune Awakening feels like it’s gearing up to do be the same, encouraging the very core concepts that have made Frank Herbert’s universe so compelling all these years later.
All I know is I’m ready to start braving the sands of Arrakis. And maybe this time, I’ll get eaten by Shai Hulud. One can hope.
Full Disclosure: Travel and accommodations were provided by Funcom.