Dune: Awakening Gameplay Shows the Gorgeous Open World of Arrakis

dune-awakening

Frank Herbert’s Dune is rocking the world right now, with the critically and commercially successful Dune: Part 2 wowing viewers in theaters. With how high the interest in Arrakis and its spice is right now, it was only a matter of time before we got a AAA game set in it. Dune: Awakening is just that - an open-world survival MMO that lets you ride the sandworms on the deserts of Arrakis.

The upcoming game is being developed by Funcom, the same folks who made the survival-crafting hit Conan Exiles. The game is being built in partnership with the film’s production company, Legendary Entertainment, with assets shared between the projects for the highest fidelity. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Dune: Awakening will let you explore and make your own base on the deserts of Arrakis.

The first episode of Dune: Awakening Direct had Funcom CCO Joel Bylos explain more about the game’s mechanics. Players will start from the bottom, lost in the desert with no armor or water. As they rise through the ranks of the Fremen, they’ll have the opportunity to join rival factions that seek to control the flow of spice.

For the survival aspect, players will be relying on more than just their stillsuits. As the Fremen do in the books, players will need to travel the desert by night while avoiding the infamous sandworms. After collecting enough resources, players can then build weapons, clothes, and eventually, a base of operations. These bases can also be built with people online, with the game allowing players to sell their base blueprints to others directly.

If that sounds tedious, you'll be relieved to hear about the various abilities in the game that allow you to tap into the supernatural side of Dune. Bylos says that players will be able to learn new skills from masters of different schools in the universe, so you'll be able to learn to use the Voice from the Bene Gesserit. Combat in Dune: Awakening includes different types of weapons, like blades and rifles, but you'll also be driving through the desert in different types of vehicles. Yes, this includes the Ornithopters. Unfortunately, you won't be able to kill sandworms, but you can lure them using a thumper.

As far as development progress goes, Bylos talked about one particular feature that he's proud of that recently came online, called the Shifting Sands. It's a location built for PvP encounters, where every week a Coriolis storm changes the landscape completely.

But what about the story? Sure, it's a survival MMO but every good one needs some kind of narrative backbone to give meaning to the activities you're taking part in. Dune: Awakening puts spice at the center of its economy, with a failed Kwisatz Haderach as one of its villains.

This isn’t the first Dune game that we’ve seen rise from the popularity of Denis Villeneuve’s films. Funcom also published Dune: Spice Wars last year, which was a 4X strategy game and a successful one at that. Seeing as Villeneuve’s third film will take its sweet time to arrive in theaters, Dune: Awakening will have to face the unique challenge of keeping players engaged till Paul Atreides' final adventure hits the big screen.

Funcom’s promises seem too good to be true. While there’s no doubt that the game will look as good as it does in its trailers, what matters is whether the gameplay mechanics complement each other well enough to work in the MMO environment. The game uses the full suite of UE5's capabilities, including Nanite and Lumen for realistic lighting and enhanced environmental detail. Given how Unreal Engine has struggled to perform well on consoles, with obvious issues with data streaming, Funcom has quite the challenge ahead of itself by setting it in an online environment.

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Dune: Awakening is being developed for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S consoles.