If there’s one thing beyond doubt after more than 35 hours with Dune: Awakening, it’s that Funcom has done its homework in crafting the most authentic take on the Dune-iverse imaginable. As a longtime fan of Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi setting, that’s an incredible thing to experience more often than not, and my time on Arrakis has been filled with moments of genuine shock. It’s very clever how the harsh environments and empty space are repeatedly used as progression checks, turning what seem like they should be weaknesses into strengths. Other times, that stubborn adherence to established lore results in annoying or just plain boring irritations, like how you’re all but forced to adopt a nomadic lifestyle in a genre where putting down roots and building up your base is one of the fundamentals. There have also been plenty of technical issues and bugs in the days immediately following launch, plus combat hasn’t landed with me much so far (though I’m admittedly still early in crafting my combat build), but on balance my friends and I are having an absolutely awesome time nerding out.
If you’ve ever played a survival game (and have seen a Dune movie) before, you’ll know most of what you need to feel at home among the giant sand worms: you gather materials from the world, build your own ugly-as-heck home, and upgrade your equipment to gain access to more dangerous areas with rarer materials. Like plenty of survival games, including Funcom’s own Conan Exiles or last year’s Once Human, all of this is happening on a server full of similarly sunburnt players in a perpetually online world, where cooperation and limited instances of PvP are both a distinct possibility, and which account for most of its best moments.
Where this game sets itself apart, though, is by just how much it adheres to its legendary setting, and that has a major impact on just about everything you do. For example, intelligent use is made of Arrakis’ harsh environment, which is weaponized against you quite literally every second you stay within its atmosphere. Standing directly in sunlight unprotected will bake you alive in a matter of seconds, sandstorms blow on a regular basis and will kill you if you aren’t able to get to shelter first, and most notably, there’s the issue of those pesky enormous man-eating worms which gobble you up if you dare tread upon their domain for too long. By leaning into the unforgiving world as much as it does, Awakening puts you in a constant battle against the planet itself. So instead of casually trotting around collecting resources at your leisure and settling your own little piece of the world, you’re frantically ducking behind rocks to avoid the sun’s harsh rays and drink what little water you have left, and playing a never-ending game of “the floor is lava” as you rush from one place to another with a shai-hulud hot on your heels.
All of these hazards give you obstacles to overcome. For example, early on you’re unable to leave the tutorial area thanks to a massive gap of empty space where sun exposure or, more likely, a massive worm would certainly kill you if you attempt to go on foot, so you have to craft your first vehicle in order to safely cross it. Later on, you start to encounter places that are too hot or irradiated to explore without proper equipment. There are plenty of examples just like this, where the unique nature of the setting is turned into an interesting mechanic. Similarly, you’re constantly starved for water, which is used both as a crafting material and a resource to keep yourself alive, and usually Awakening is a better, more interesting survival game for it.
But there are other times where this fanatical adherence to Dune conventions can be quite obnoxious, like how you’re encouraged (and in some cases required) to move your base of operations from place to place as you unlock access to higher-level regions. Pulling up stakes means you either have to abandon all you’ve built up to that point or tediously relocate as much of your equipment as you can, piece by piece. Then there’s stuff like the fact that guns are often useless, since many enemies make use of the all-important Holtzman shields that completely protect from ranged attacks. This creates a weird situation where you’re juggling back and forth between guns and melee weapons depending on which enemy is currently running towards you, oftentimes having to choose between addressing the swordsman barreling down on you or the guy a few feet behind him with a chaingun, which can create a really oppressive rhythm to combat. I honestly kinda respect how much Dune: Awakening sticks to its guns by making its guns ineffective to keep with Dune lore, even as it sometimes comes at the expense of me having a good time. Even when this stuff annoys the hell out of me, I can’t help but respect it.
That’s just part of the reason that, like almost every single one of its peers, Dune: Awakening has pretty awful combat. I knew going into a survival MMO that would be the case, but it’s still a particularly bitter pill that never gets any easier to swallow. I’m still quite early in unlocking all the options for battle and seeing some of the more interesting weapons and builds available, but so far gunplay is sloppy, melee combat is repetitive and janky as heck, and I’ve mostly just been trying to get through it as quickly as possible. It’s such a low point in a game I’m otherwise enjoying.
Thankfully, the combat miss is more than made up for by the absolutely stellar survival mechanics, which are some of the most thoughtful and polished I’ve seen in a while. There’s a constant stream of new technologies to research, equipment to craft, and material to hunt for with almost no filler or grind along the way. Every time I’ve collected the right materials to craft the latest shiny thing I want, I’ve immediately had another enticing item to chase, and with unique schematics dropping left and right, I’m always making interesting decisions on whether to spend my rarest materials on a cool item with a special effect versus taking the more conservative route and just crafting common items to save those resources for a rainy day. (It’s bound to rain on Arrakis one of these days.)
It’s especially impressive that they accomplished this loop so well in a desert world where there are no other locations aside from hot sand, and almost no plants or wildlife available to harvest. A major hallmark of survival games is punching trees, and there are no trees on Arrakis – instead you’re making tools to pull water from morning dew collecting in the world at night and by pulling it from the air, which is just really smart and a welcome change of pace that embraces the weird and barren setting, even if it is still essentially the same thing.
When I played the beta for Dune: Awakening, I ran into tons of bugs and hoped the delay of its launch would improve things a bit. That certainly seems to be the case, as I’ve had a significantly more stable experience so far, but even as improved as it is, it’s still fairly troubled in the technical department. I’ve had disconnects, seen entire mountains disappear and reappear before my eyes, and even had a few hours where all sand worms just up and deleted themselves from existence, making everyone on the server swarm to the resources normally protected by their constant threat. It’s not been the smoothest launch by any stretch – but also far from the worst.
After more than 35 hours I still feel like I’m fairly early into my Dune: Awakening adventure, and still have new zones to visit, haven’t gotten very far into the main story, and have only had a few encounters with PvP. There’s a ton for me to do, so look for an update sometime this week as I work my way through to the endgame.
