As of: March 6, 2024, 8:47 a.m
By: Joost Rademacher
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Want more Dune after the cinema?
This game brings spice into the living room © Funcom
Dune Awakening brings the war on Arrakis to console and PC.
Funcom has given us a first insight into the survival MMO - and it makes you want more.
Hamburg – Ten years ago you would hardly have believed that Dune would make a big comeback.
Frank Herbert's books were long considered unfilmable, but now the world is celebrating the second part of Denis Villeneuve's adaptation.
Arrakis has never seemed more inviting.
It just so happens that developer Funcom literally sends fans into the desert with Dune Awakening.
We were able to get our first look at the survival MMO in Los Angeles.
If the studio plays its cards right, we'll see ourselves on the front lines of the spice wars.
Name of the game |
Dune Awakening |
Release |
TBA |
developer |
Funcom |
Publisher |
Funcom |
genre |
Survival MMO |
platform |
PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC |
Dune Awakening provides survival in multiple versions
The Battle for Spice is coming to console and PC:
Arrakis is without question a hostile, inhospitable world.
Every resource, no matter how small, is hotly contested on the desert planet, not to mention the valuable spice.
We remember, whoever controls the spice controls the universe.
This constant scarcity makes the world in Dune Awakening, which has already been announced for 2022, twice as exciting for a survival MMO.
From personal survival...:
Joel Bylos, Creative Director of Dune Awakening, explained to us how survival in the game works in two different ways: You start as a single character, stranded in the deserts of Arrakis and constantly needing resources essential to survival, such as manage water.
In this early part of the game it's all about personal survival, about survival as a penniless man in the middle of seemingly endless expanses of sand.
Dune Awakening lets players go into the desert completely alone © Funcom
...on political survival:
Once you have survived this phase and built up a certain existence in Dune Awakening, another form of survival begins, namely in politics.
The universe of Dune is particularly impressive because of its power struggles on Arrakis and beyond - it is exactly this type of conflict that Dune Awakening wants the players to take part in.
From expanding your own base to diplomacy with various factions to active war, many power games on Arrakis are said to be in the hands of the fans.
From architects to politicians – this is how players can live out their potential in Dune Awakening
This is how Dune Awakening should play:
In order for this to all work, Funcom first has to provide Dune Awakening with the right gameplay content.
Nobody was allowed to lend a hand at the preview, and a release date is not yet known.
Nevertheless, Funcom has given a few insights into what fans can expect in the acute gameplay.
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When it comes to the combat system, players are given a lot of freedom to choose how they want to deal with threats.
Of course there will be firearms.
But it should also be possible to rely on agile close combat à la Duncan Idaho and there should also be psychic abilities of the Bene-Gesserit to learn.
There won't be an actual skill tree, instead you have to look for characters in the world who are trained in the skills you want to acquire.
Very old school, like back in Gothic for example.
Also interesting:
Players will have a direct say in the economy of Dune Awakening and the landscape of Arrakis.
Not everyone has to take part in political intrigues or big battles, Funcom has also come up with something for less combative fans.
Vehicles, buildings, weapons and more want to be crafted in Dune Awakening © Funcom
Also something for creative minds:
For example, if you are more creative when building bases, you can save specially designed buildings as blueprints and sell them directly in the game to other players for further use.
The same should also apply to maps of regions on Arrakis.
Recreational architects and scouts should have just as much of a stake in the game as those who go to the front lines or into politics.
Arrakis will be the star of Dune Awakening - or his downfall
If it's sand, then it's also pretty:
But how does Dune Awakening manage to turn a barren desert planet into an exciting setting for an MMO?
The landscape of Arrakis is dominated by sand and brown rock as far as the eye can see.
Joel Bylos was self-confident and joking in the presentation: “
At Funcom we’re pretty good at brown
,” said the director, referring to earlier MMOs like Conan Exiles.
One thing can be said: Unreal Engine 5 reliably conjures up some of the most stylish landscapes in gaming and ensures that Dune Awakening also looks enchanting in video form.
Stone and desert sand will probably burn your retinas particularly often during the course of the game.
But they do so with the photorealistic detail and strong lighting effects you expect from UE5.
This also comes with the restriction that the game is only released for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.
The Unreal Engine does a lot for the graphics of Dune Awakening © Funcom
More than just beige and brown:
Funcom also wants to provide visual variety during the game.
Abandoned botanical testing facilities, spaceship wrecks and other sights are intended to bring not only a bit of fresh ambience to Dune Awakening, but also a bit of dungeon crawling.
However, we still have our doubts as to whether the monotony of Arrakis will be sufficiently broken up.
There's only so much sand you can handle at once without compromising your orientation, fun or aesthetics.
Here we have to hope that Funcom doesn't underestimate the extent of the wasteland in Dune Awakening.
Sandworms and PvP bring the desert kick to Dune Awakening
The shield wall protects against most opponents:
There is at least a clear distinction between PvE and PvP and this is where Funcom probably has its biggest innovations for Dune Awakening up its sleeve.
Base building and PvE, for example, mainly take place within the reasonably secure wall, where the world should also have a certain degree of stability.
Outside the shield wall you will find the “Shifting Sands” in Dune Awakening, a fully PvP-oriented region that is even more dangerous but also offers better materials and loot.
But the name says it all: every week sandstorms are supposed to “wipe” the entire area, i.e. reset it to zero, and regenerate the entire landscape.
In concept, it sounds like an interesting setting for extensive resource fights.
Sandstorms like this will repeatedly plow the landscape in Dune Awakening © Funcom
The Shai-Hulud doesn't bow to anyone:
But anyone who hopes to be able to go on a real sandworm hunt with Sandbike and Thumper in Dune Awakening is misjudging the game.
As in the film and book, Shai-Hulud is a virtually unpredictable, indomitable force of nature.
You shouldn't be able to defeat them, instead they act more as a "tension element", as the creative director described it.
Whenever you move around in the desert sand, sandworms are bound to appear at some point.
In such a case, the only way out will be to create distractions and escape to rocky terrain as quickly as possible.
“
There is only one rule
,” explained Joel Bylos in the presentation – “
The sandworm will always come.
He didn't tell us whether it would be possible to ride the worms like the Fremen.
At least we hope so.
Dune Awakening is a pretty sketch – but we want to see color
Our outlook on Dune Awakening:
Even though Funcom actually planned to release Dune Awakening before the first part of Villeneuve's films, the timing for the survival MMO could hardly be better.
Mainstream interest in Herbert's universe has never been greater, and Funcom's project has the potential to become a powerful survival sandbox - in every sense of the word.
The problem is that so far we've only been able to see what feels like a sketch of an MMO.
Wherever it says Dune, there are also sandworms in it - the first impression is right © Funcom
You can guess what the overall picture will give us in the end.
But it still lacks life, color and, above all, a chance for real gameplay to really appreciate it.
All the more strange that Dune Awakening is actually already in a closed beta and people can actively play it.
Nevertheless, the material shown left us with curiosity and a certain anticipation.
As soon as an open beta or even the release is imminent, we too want to taste the spice-infused sand.