Journeying across the planet Arrakis in Dune: Awakening is about as harsh as harsh can get. The sun causes heatstroke in minutes, there are blinding sandstorms, and of course, the ever-hungry sandworms are looking to make a meal of you.
Even still, playing Dune: Awakening is exhilarating, as you run from shadow to shadow, hiding as the sandworm passes by, and watch out for scavengers. It’s not perfect, and takes a while to get its wheels spinning on the loose sand, but from the first ten hours — it’s a journey I’m excited to jump back into.
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A Rough Landing
This adventure starts linearly. You’ll have to arm yourself and learn combat, fighting off scavengers. The melee combat isn’t very precise and feels quite floaty. You have a fast attack and a slow attack. The slow attack makes a lot of sense in the Dune universe because slow cuts are the only way past shields. But they don’t feel all that impactful. Ranged combat, on the other hand, feels great; the pistols and rifles are punchy, and the sounds echo across the desert nicely.
Before long, you’ll have to build your first base to survive the sandstorms and desert heat. Heat and moisture are two of the bigger threats to crossing the desert (the biggest being the huge sandworms). When you step out into direct sunlight, you’ll immediately start to overheat. You’ll have to collect water from flowers, and eventually use a Stillsuit to recycle your body’s fluids into drinking water. You can also harvest blood from slain enemies and convert it to water back at the base.
Building a base is modular and feeds into the collection of materials and scavenging for supplies nicely. It feels great to establish a little base and have somewhere to return to. You’ll be dropping by the base and setting your refineries and fabricators working while you’re out chasing down objectives.
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Gearing Up
The first enemies I fought were scavengers, primarily fighting with daggers and pistols like me. But over the first few hours, I started to see snipers, gattling guns and even flamethrowers and shielded enemies. They don’t have the smartest AI in the world, and will mostly stand in the open and shoot at you. However, when the more dangerous guns and grenades come into the mix, it definitely spices up combat.
When you start your journey, you choose one of four classes to base your character around. The crux of the story here is that we’re playing an alternate universe where Paul Atreides was never born, and the planet Arrakis has become a warzone for the families of the Dune empire. Your character can be a Trooper, Swordmaster, Bene Gesserit or Mentat. Throughout the game, you’ll learn abilities from each of the classes from NPC mentors, which means plenty of customisability across your journey. I chose the Bene Gesserit, masters of manipulation in the Dune world. I started with a psychic sprint ability, and quickly learned to compel enemies to approach, or teleport behind them for a backstab.
After ten hours in the story, you’ll have to move to a new region and abandon your old base. I felt conflicted about abandoning what I’d been working on. But I loaded up my bike with all the materials I’d collected.
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Heading north into a different region of the map might not sound like much on a desert planet. However, the new area was more Geonosis than Tatooine (if I can mix my sci-fi for a second). It featured thin, towering spires of rock just begging to be climbed. The variety of the planet so far has been a standout, and not something I was expecting.
The Early Bird Gets The Worm
The great sandworms Shai-Hulud are exactly as terrifying as you want them to be. Even from the start of the game, stepping out on the bare sand of Arrakis is a risky prospect. You’ll immediately be greeted with a rumbling sensor across the bottom of your screen, indicating that the worm is nearby. Stepping onto the open sands is like stepping on a spider’s web, once you do, the worm will be coming for you.
This makes for wonderfully tense moments when you’re returning from a quest with a pack full of loot and resources, scanning the desert with your binoculars and judging whether you can make the mad dash to the next safe spot. The kicker is that if you die in a gunfight, your equipment will drop, and you can respawn and collect it. But if you get eaten by Shai-Hulud, it’s gone forever, so be careful! I got eaten and it it sucks if you have weapons or gear you’re attached to.
As you progress, upgrades will help you cross the desert quicker, from a psychic dash to a grappling hook, depending on your class. You’ll also unlock your first vehicle — the sand bike — once you leave the first map. This dramatically increases your speed and maneuverability. That’s when the game really started to click for me, when I had some abilities, a good rifle and a vehicle to get around. Suddenly, I felt less like a terrified sitting duck whenever I had to travel long distances; at that point, I could start to feel more in control of my travel.
In my time with the game so far, I’ve seen player bases with dune buggies, and the iconic dragonfly-like Ornithopters buzzing around the map. This transition from slow, arduous travel on foot to ruling the skies is very compelling. And though I only have my bike, I felt immediately proud and protective of it. Each vehicle is made of customisable blocks, such as wheels, storage, and batteries. So if you get the tools and materials in your base, you can start to upgrade and customise the bike one piece at a time. I hope this continues into the other vehicles as well.
After ten hours or so with Dune: Awakening, I’m keen to see where the game takes me. Thus far, there is a lot of grinding for materials, and the melee combat is a bit hit and miss. But the world is unlike any other MMO out there, and the mechanics of surviving on a blasted and barren desert world really make sense.
If you need me, I’ll be just over that sand dune, dodging the worms and looking for some Spice.
