Dune: Awakening Review – To Tame A Land

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Among all experiences in Dune: Awakening, none can compare to being devoured by Shai’Hulud. Over more than 60 hours spent exploring Funcom’s open-world survival MMORPG, I’ve been swallowed by the sandworms of Arakkis only twice. Each encounter has left an indelible mark on my memory.

Dune: Awakening – A Desert Odyssey

In Dune: Awakening, you’re often left feeling like a mere spectator in this vast, sandy world of Arakkis. Moments such as traversing the endless desert and narrowly evading Shai’Hulud’s jaws, or taking control of an Ornithopter for the first time, make you feel as if you’re living Frank Herbert’s iconic novel. Even Denis Villeneuve’s critically acclaimed Dune films didn’t quite capture this sense of immersion.

Dune: Awakening is nothing short of ambitious in its attempt to adapt such a complex and challenging piece of science-fiction literature, doing so with a level of confidence that’s impressive. However, it does become repetitive at times, the endgame lacks clear direction, and at moments, sticking too closely to the source material can be a hindrance. Despite these issues, Dune: Awakening skillfully blends various genres to create a Spice Melange that’s hard to resist – at least for the initial few dozen hours.

Right from the start of “Dune: Awakening,” it’s evident that Funcom has a deep respect for Herbert’s world. Though some elements, such as the Ornithopters, Imperial Testing Stations, and the Harkonnens’ appearance, closely resemble Villeneuve’s films, Funcom also introduces unique aspects to the Dune universe. This results in a harmonious blend of the original and new designs, creating something that feels recognizable yet distinctively different, without doubt, still Dune.

In Dune: Awakening, the setting shifts to an alternate version of events from Herbert’s original narrative. Here, Paul Atreides, a significant character, never comes into existence, resulting in a perpetual struggle between Houses Atreides and Harkonnen over Arakkis. This alteration gives Funcom ample artistic freedom to introduce novel ideas and keep audiences engaged by presenting unexpected twists throughout the primary plot.

In the initial stages of the game, you encounter a character creation sequence that resembles the intense Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gom Jabbar interrogation from Dune. This is one of the novel’s most recognized scenes, given a unique interpretation by Funcom. During this process, not only can you customize your appearance, but also your background and social standing within the universe of Dune. Additionally, you select an initial class (Mentat, Bene Gesserit, Swordmaster, or Trooper), although Funcom allows for flexibility, ensuring players are not bound by these roles from the start.

Locate the Fremen, the native population of Arakkis who have inexplicably vanished and are believed to be oppressed.

Surviving Arakkis

After a single disastrous shipwreck, you find yourself stranded on the barren, hostile planet Arakkis, armed only with a makeshift knife fashioned from scrap metal and clad in tattered rags. The scorching sun threatens your life, bandits seek to end it while stealing your water, enemy patrol ships scan the skies for you with their searchlights, and colossal worms lurk beneath the sands, ready to devour you if you dare to cross them.

Admittedly, I’m not usually drawn to survival games, but Dune: Awakening, in its early stages, feels quite familiar to a typical survival game, though it’s exceptionally well-crafted. You collect resources, create items, and establish a shelter. The game does offer some guidance, instructing you on what to craft and which materials to gather for your survival on Arakkis.

Instead of breaking rocks with your fists, you’ll create an improvised Cutterray for resource gathering. This is achieved by scanning an object and then tracing a laser path to disassemble it. The fact that such a fundamental aspect of Dune: Awakening, resource gathering, has kept my interest for numerous hours even now speaks volumes about its design.

Funcom cleverly builds the survival aspects of Dune: Awakening predominantly around the importance of water. Maintaining hydration is essential, and it’s advisable to seek shelter from prolonged sun exposure as it can lead to sunstroke, which if ignored, progresses to dehydration, eventually leading to death. Initially, you may struggle to survive by collecting dew from small plants and drinking (in dire situations) the blood of enemies. However, water’s significance soon shifts from a matter of life and death to a valuable resource. As items demand water for crafting, efficiently gathering water becomes a key gameplay element.

To create superior items, you’ll require a larger headquarters, equipped with additional production machines for items and more water, which in turn necessitate more energy. Given that I don’t usually enjoy survival games, it’s not unexpected that I’m also not fond of base-construction. It’s my least preferred feature in games like Fallout 4 or Valheim–a task I often feel obligated to perform in order to access the enjoyable content. However, Dune: Awakening simplifies base-construction significantly for those who want a minimal setup, though solitary players will eventually need to dedicate time and effort into constructing and powering larger facilities to craft advanced gear. Construction elements such as walls, roofs, and floors connect smoothly together, and there’s no necessity to lay power cables to different devices. Fuel for your base is easily obtainable, and generally speaking, things function efficiently. Refineries and fabricators draw from storage containers within a base, reducing the need for continuous inventory management, and transferring power from one structure to another is straightforward.

In the final stages of the game, I predominantly leaned on a team of friends and guildmates to construct bigger bases. However, several smaller bases I built independently were swiftly and effortlessly assembled, which is not typically the case in survival games I’ve previously played. Impressively, this game introduces a feature where you can save your base designs as shareable blueprints, allowing for quick reconstruction in another location with just a button press (provided you have the necessary resources). This time-saving measure is a significant advantage compared to other survival games I’ve experienced.

Bless The Coming And Going Of Him

After setting up your initial water-collecting stillsuit and establishing a basic shelter, Dune: Awakening starts to unfold in earnest. At some stage, you’ll encounter a vast sandy expanse that you’ll need to traverse. This is the territory where Dune’s famous sandworms dwell, so treading carelessly across the open desert could draw their attention. While death in Dune: Awakening typically only results in losing some resources and currency (both of which can be retrieved by returning to your place of demise), dying at the jaws of Shai’Hulud carries heavier consequences. A worm attack means losing everything you have on your person at that moment – all your armor, weapons, resources, money. There’s no way to recover these items once they’ve been swallowed by the sandworm. This adds a sense of danger and urgency to crossing the desert, an ever-present threat even after you’ve built your first vehicle.

As a dedicated fan, I must say that Dune: Awakening excels at creating a sense of progression and dominance over the unforgiving expanse of Arakkis. Initially, you find yourself with just rags on your back, but it doesn’t take long before you discover or craft a suspensor belt. This marvel of anti-grav technology makes navigating higher elevations a breeze, whether you’re scaling cliffs or taking a tumble!

A few hours into the game, you’ll be able to craft your very first sandbike, opening up the vast sands of Arakkis like never before. You can now traverse larger stretches of sand at breakneck speed, uncovering new territories and expanding your horizons.

Fast forward a few dozen hours, and you’ll have amassed enough resources to craft your first Ornithopter. And just like that, the game transforms once more! Areas that were previously out of reach or difficult to access are now mere moments away, making resource gathering smoother and travel across Dune: Awakening’s main Hagga Basin map a breeze. Funcom truly knows how to sprinkle magic into their games!

However, it’s important to remember that the very vehicles intended for safety might deceptively make you feel secure. Regrettably, both of my encounters with sandworms occurred when I was on my bicycle. On one occasion, recklessness led to my demise. Chasing after some friends on their bikes across the sands, I noticed a sandworm nearby but took unnecessary risks, believing I could reach the safety of the rocks before it caught up. Unfortunately, my sandbike wasn’t swift enough to outpace an enraged Shai’Hulud, and both my belongings and my bike were lost.

Expressing it in a more conversational and accessible manner: Man, getting swallowed by a sandworm in Dune: Awakening was more than just disappointing – it was soul-crushing! Losing my vehicle made it even worse. The game developers seem to understand this, as they gave me a second chance to retrieve my sandbike after my first death, but I ended up dying again, this time in quicksand. It’s frustrating because the worm finished me off just when I was struggling to get out. Luckily, I managed to save my sandbike before I died, using the game’s vehicle-backup feature, which is one of the rare instances where gameplay convenience trumps established Dune lore.

Combined Arms

In Dune: Awakening, the pivotal moment of unlocking the sandbike sets the game into a rhythm, as the world largely opens up for you to traverse. The initial part of the main storyline syncs well with this, requiring you to roam the world and uncover Fremen shrines spread across different zones. These discoveries offer insights into the Fremen culture and teach you how to craft essential desert-survival tools such as thumpers.

Exploring and mastering intricate culinary creations demands sourcing unique ingredients exclusive to distinct areas on the map, leading you on a gradual journey across the world. Obtaining these cooking recipes necessitates earning intelligence points, which can be accumulated by leveling up and discovering hidden intel within enemy NPC strongholds. Being someone who prefers to almost fully conquer a region of the map before moving onto the next, I frequently found myself with an abundance of intelligence points, as I traversed one enemy camp to another, battling foes as a melee-oriented Swordmaster. Other than resource gathering and base construction, this is the main loop in Dune: Awakening: Scout a region, eliminate enemy strongholds, gather intel, unlock crafting recipes, create superior equipment, and advance to a new area. Wash, rinse, repeat.

The game, Dune: Awakening, features a continuous loop lasting multiple hours, although its combat isn’t its most striking aspect. Instead, what sets it apart is the unique setting of the Dune universe, where soldiers still wield knives, swords, and shields that offer near-invulnerability to firearms thousands of years in the future. This results in engaging rock-paper-scissors-style encounters, as slow-blade attacks (Awakening’s version of a heavy attack) can pierce enemy shields, providing a satisfying gameplay experience. The game also borrows visual and audio cues from Villenivue’s Dune films for these slow-blade attacks. In addition to melee combat, there are various ranged weapons available, such as pistols, assault rifles, snipers, shotguns, and miniguns. My preferred ranged weapon, the Drillshot, fires slow-penetrating darts that excel at disabling shields, allowing for swift melee attacks afterward.

The gameplay isn’t overly complex, featuring a stamina bar, parry button, and short dashes, but it effectively delivers its purpose. What keeps the battles engaging is the inclusion of shielded enemies who can only be defeated in specific ways; even though you may face the same types of enemies frequently, across similar-looking environments, this variety in combat strategies prevents monotony.

It seems that Funcom, while staying faithful to Herbert’s storyline, encountered a challenge in providing more diverse enemy types and environments for Dune: Awakening. Since the Dune universe lacks robots, aliens, or fantastical beasts (except for sandworms), combat is primarily against human-like adversaries who differ only slightly in their appearance and roles – melee enemies with knives, rifle-wielding assailants, snipers, heavily armored minigun or flamethrower users. Later opponents might employ player abilities like anti-gravity fields or Bene Gesserit martial arts, but these additions don’t significantly alter the dynamics of an encounter.

One significant drawback of Dune: Awakening lies in its repetitiveness, a flaw that extends to the Imperial Testing Station dungeons, which all seem remarkably similar. Although Arakkis is meticulously crafted to reflect Herbert’s universe, the majority of activities and environments you encounter in Dune: Awakening become familiar within the first two dozen hours. However, key achievements such as acquiring a new type of vehicle or a significant new skill do offer fresh experiences occasionally.

In combat, the game’s class system becomes most noticeable as you can equip three unique active skills at a time, with the third one being unlocked during the main storyline. Additionally, there are “techniques” that provide various advantages. There is no cap on the number of passive abilities you can acquire, which make up the bulk of skill nodes in each class tree. Initially, I concentrated on Swordmaster, allowing me to use special melee-parrying skills, increased melee damage, and additional stamina. However, as I progressed through different quests from mentor characters of various classes, I began to explore other class trees as well.

In Dune: Awakening, the trainer missions are where the majority of the game’s story unfolds, featuring voice-acted characters and continuous narratives rich in Herbert’s lore. I find myself yearning for more of these engaging quests, as the other tasks (referred to as contracts) are mostly text-heavy and obtained from mission boards scattered throughout the game’s NPC outposts. Unfortunately, many of these missions (and a good portion of the trainer quests too) seem like typical MMO filler—go here, kill 10 slavers; go to this location, collect an item. The main story missions in Dune: Awakening do differ from this pattern, with the Fremen vision quests focusing on platforming and environmental gameplay, while the second half of the main story adopts a more cinematic approach with unique objectives. However, it’s still disheartening that so much of the gameplay feels like busywork.

In Dune: Awakening, your class trainers are dispersed throughout the Hagga Basin and the game’s two main cities. The game generously compensates you for your effort, as you earn experience points (XP) and level up by gathering resources, discovering new map areas, or vanquishing foes, which in turn grants skill points. However, early on, you might find yourself with more skill points than you can utilize because the trainer you need isn’t readily available. This may somewhat diminish the sense of character development during the early to mid-game. It would have been more effective if the initial class trainers for each class were more easily reachable at the start of the game, rather than having a trainer like the Bene Gesserit one located far on the map’s edge.

In Dune: Awakening, you can effortlessly adjust your skill set without facing significant consequences (except for a 48-hour wait before another respec can be done). This means you can allocate points freely at first and later try out diverse abilities as new class branches become available. Notably, the Bene Gesserit tree stands out with its showy features, granting access to the franchise’s memorable “Voice” skills that can stun opponents or boost your speed beyond normal limits.

Spice For Spice’s Sake

It’s unfortunate that the class abilities players have grown familiar with and played around extensively in Dune: Awakening, particularly during the early stages, take a back seat in the game’s Ornithopter-focused endgame. After crafting an Ornithopter, players gain access to a new map, the Deep Desert, which undergoes weekly changes in layout. This map is where the best crafting recipes, the most valuable resources (such as abundant Spice), and other essential materials for creating top-tier gear and base facilities can be found. Acquiring these resources requires a significant amount of effort, making it more than just a grind.

Previously, the vast majority of the Deep Desert was a player-versus-player (PvP) battlefield where players could clash for resources. This often led to powerful guilds or groups using their Ornithopters to intimidate solo players from the sky, while ground battles were rare due to the game’s melee combat or third-person shooting mechanics. Fortunately, Funcom acknowledged that making Dune: Awakening’s endgame dominated by airborne death squads wasn’t enjoyable, especially since PvP encounters are uncommon until then and many players (including myself) don’t wish to repeatedly rebuild their Ornithopters after they’ve been destroyed in combat. In a recent update, approximately half of the Deep Desert has become player-versus-environment (PVE), providing solo players or those avoiding PvP an opportunity to collect endgame resources, although the most abundant resources remain within the PvP section of the zone.

Despite Funcom addressing some issues in Dune: Awakening’s endgame, the main concern remains unresolved: The game doesn’t offer much incentive for spending countless hours to accumulate thousands of Spice and endgame materials. There are no challenging PvE raids or difficult endgame content that would benefit from having top-tier gear. In the Deep Desert, you essentially continue doing what you’ve been doing in Hagga Basin for hours: clearing camps, gathering resources, and exploring Imperial Testing Stations for rare recipes. While improving your gear and amassing a fortune from Spice mining is enjoyable, there’s no reward to keep playing Dune: Awakening beyond the repetitive, grindy, and seemingly purposeless endgame, unless one aims to gain an edge in PvP.

As a passionate fan, I must confess that, after wrapping up the main story in Dune: Awakening and finding myself in the depths of the Desert, many players might consider calling it quits. However, this doesn’t mean the countless hours spent navigating the game before reaching the endgame are devoid of enjoyment or value. Funcom has masterfully transformed Frank Herbert’s iconic sci-fi world of Arakkis into a mesmerizing digital landscape. Dune: Awakening is a unique blend of elements, encompassing story-driven RPG, MMO, survival base-building, sci-fi flight simulator, and third-person shooter, all rolled into one immersive experience that, surprisingly, feels remarkably cohesive.

Despite the game’s shortcomings in terms of enemy variety and repetitive activities, as well as a lackluster endgame with no clear objectives, Dune: Awakening still manages to breathe life into the Dune universe in a way that has yet to be achieved. When the Spice is pulsating, it’s hard not to get lost in the rhythm of Dune: Awakening’s desert for hours on end. Just remember, Shai-Hulud isn’t always as friendly as he seems!

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2025-07-08 19:11