Dune: Awakening Review
Pros
- Wonderful realization of the world of Dune that is a real pleasure to exist in
- PvE and solo-friendly survival experience that can be hard to find in the genre
- Well-presented story that stands out for a Survival Game
- Honed and cleverly designed survival systems that feel built on well-realised feedback to make it approachable and fun throughout
Cons
- Story, while well presented, struggles to land its goals and ultimately falls by the wayside
- A flawed endgame that betrays what the game had so diligently built previously
- Janky and inconsistent combat
Dune: Awakening was not a guaranteed slam dunk. Survival is a weary yet quietly dominant genre in gaming. Since the launch of DayZ and Minecraft, it has consistently garnered a dedicated audience. More recently, the likes of Palworld and Valheim have moved the needle, proving that while it can exist outside the purview of AAA games, there is still a hunger.
For every success, however, the genre is littered with tens of games that never sustained themselves. It’s far from a sure bet, and it can be hard to iterate and have a new entry stand out and make a name for itself. That’s the challenge Dune: Awakening finds itself up against in its early life.
Funcom has the Dune franchise to fall back on to stand out, though that could be a curse as much as it is a blessing. The notoriously hard-to-adapt franchise offers a rich tapestry to pull from, but it’s equally bizarre and complex. That’s why Dune: Awakening is as impressive as it is. Funcom has not just avoided making a derivative survival game, but a faithful adaptation of Frank Herbert’s work.
Dune: Awakening nails the vibe of Dune.
Beginnings are such delicate times
Unlike many survival games, Dune: Awakening is surprisingly story-forward. Narratives are generally incidental to the survival genre, but Funcom has tried bucking that trend to get people into this world.
The game’s main story is set in an alternate reality where Paul Atreides is never born. There’s more to it than that, such as Dr. Yeuh’s betrayal never happening and the Fremen never reemerging, but the highlight is that there is a Timothée Chalamet-sized hole in this universe. Obviously, this allows Funcom to build this world without the pesky plot points of the book getting in the way, but it also allows the players to maintain a status quo, allowing them to influence the happenings of the entities of the world. House Atreides and the Harkonnen are in the War of Assassins and maintain an isolated struggle on Arrakis, while the Fremen have disappeared. That’s where you jump in, sent by the Bene-Gesserit to find them. Things then go awry, you crash land on Arrakis, are helped out by a mysterious figure, before being spit out onto the dunes, where surviving the harsh environment is your key concern.
Obviously, this allows Funcom to build this world without the pesky plot points of the book getting in the way.
What follows is a journey across the large Hagga’s Basin in Arrakis, where you will make a home and a living for yourself. Where the game stands out from other offerings in the genre is in its presentation. It has fully voiced cutscenes, NPCs to talk and interact with, and even some impressive social hubs. It strangely invokes the feel of Star Wars: The Old Republic at times, which is not the touchstone you might expect for a survival-focused game.
This story is largely a mild driving force, though at its worst, it can get incomprehensible, especially when you are huffing up Spice, seeing visions, and parsing the lore of Dune. It all feels dense due to the source material, but I’m not sure I was ever emotionally driven by the narrative. Towards the end, it gets a bit lost in Dune’s strangeness, but what it does offer is a single-player forward experience with a traditional story structure in a genre that usually is heavily multiplayer favored. That feels unique. Even if it doesn’t match the heights of Herbert’s novels, what it does is invoke the feeling of Dune. It nails the vibe.
You will create your own character in Dune: Awakening.
Undertaking the Trials will provide backstory on the Fremen.
This is my desert
While the story of Dune Awakening isn’t an instant classic, that aforementioned sense of ‘vibes’ permeates a lot of its strongest points. Knut Avenstroup Haugen’s soundtrack is distinctly different from Hans Zimmer’s cinematic portrayal of this universe, but it feels delightfully Dune still. It’s always providing a strong foundation to the game’s actual standout - Arrakis itself.
Funcom has done a really impressive job of highlighting the beauty and threat of this desert world in equal measure. While Arrakis is a tricky environment to keep interesting over many zones, with its main defining feature being endless sand, there is a decent amount of variety here. Ravines, rocky mountains, sparse desert, radiation zones, and man-made constructions all help define areas, and I never once was unexcited to go out and find some new facility or nook to explore.
It helps that various dangers and events keep things lively. At night, you need to avoid being detained by overhead ships. Spice can fall from the sky, making it a race between you and other players to go gather as much of the rare resource as possible. Ships with goods and wares can crash land out of nowhere, ready for you to pick over. And of course, most iconically, if you find yourself out in the open sands too long, the vibrations will attract the always impressive Shai-Hulud - more commonly known as Sandworms. There are all sorts of these events always going on, keeping things feeling vibrant. Add on top, just how good this game can look too, and for all of its dangers, Arrakis itself is the thing that most left an impression on me. If you have ever wanted to immerse yourself in the world of Dune, this is the way to do it.
The Sandworm provides a threat throughout Dune: Awakening.
May the knife chip and shatter
Don’t get it twisted. Arrakis, for as impressive as it is, is still a dangerous place where a wrong move can set you back on your progress. This is still a place where you need to survive.
Dune: Awakening’s survival mechanics are nothing too outside of what you might expect in the genre. There are material cutters, storage, generators, fabricators, and bases that need building, which will feel familiar if you’ve played a survival game in the last 15 years. While water is a uniquely important consideration in Dune: Awakening compared to most, the process of getting a stable supply runs a very similar trajectory to mastering any material resource in these games.
What Dune: Awakening does well, though, is the pace at which it gives you transformative tools that elevate your survival. In other games, you can spend 10s of hours sorting out your essentials before you get to anything really fun. Dune: Awakening takes the opposite route. Within a few hours, you’ll have access to things like the Sandbike, which allows you to traverse and explore, opening the game up. Then, once you establish yourself in a new environment, you’re onto a Buggy, and eventually, the Dune staple, the Ornithopter. These vehicular advances are not 100s of hours away, but are all attainable even if playing casually.
These decisions, and many more, feel tuned by Funcom based on player feedback. The game had playtests, and it feels like it. The curve of technological advancement feels well-honed and considered, which is an excellent starting point for a survival game, a genre that has many notorious examples of buggy launches. A simple, but illustrative example of this is that once stored in your base, resources will be available in your fabricators immediately, and you don’t need to feed them in manually. Another is how you can use a small device to just pick up and store your vehicles at will, making exploration easier as you might climb up some rocks to get over terrain, without having to abandon your ride. These are small conveniences, but they are clever, and the game is full of these well-considered decisions.
Expect the usual base building in Dune: Awakening.
The Cutter tool can be used to extract resources from different sources.
Those who appreciate really challenging survival games may be turned off, as to some, it could feel overly sanded down. However, it makes Dune: Awakening approachable and well-suited to solo-play, one of the title’s key strengths.
They’ve Gom Too Far
Unfortunately, one of the areas the game struggles most is when it betrays that key strength. Once you finish the main narrative, the game will encourage you to take on the Deep Desert. It’s here where the endgame starts.
Perhaps most confusing is that Funcom has a great PvE experience here, but its current endgame takes a direct one-eighty in another direction.
The game shifts entirely at this point. It goes from a strong PvE-friendly survival game to a PvP-focused extraction game. This shift is ambitious, and ultimately, where the game stumbles. This mode has already had major teething problems, and Funcom has made changes to make it more habitable to PvE players. However, it’s still not quite there, and while there are promises of endgame PvE down the line, right now, this portion of the game is a very acquired taste. The game’s main combat is generally pretty janky and inconsistent, so adding the chaos of multiple PvP opponents, especially those in big groups, feels weak.
Perhaps most confusing is that Funcom has a great PvE experience here, but its current endgame takes a direct one-eighty in another direction. One day, I’m sure there will be a satisfying endgame for you to get lost in, but as of right now, it’s hard to recommend going deep here unless you have a decently sized group and a hunger for PvP.
Finding the Voice
If you want to get into Dune: Awakening, have a great experience worth 10s of hours, and get out after you finish the story, this is an easy recommendation. Funcom has made an excellent survival game that has a great PvE focus, propped up by excellent presentation and a deeply loving recreation of one of the greatest sci-fi works ever made.
You will find plenty of people to talk to on Arrakis.
This helps the world to feel more alive.
However, if you intend to go deeper, you should be aware, the game’s focus changes drastically and will favor a far more multiplayer-focused experience, with a lot more PvP. That could potentially be for you, but with easy exploits, janky combat, and a myriad of other issues, the experience feels far less refined than everything that came before. It’s a strange walkback of everything that came before, and a shift of focus that feels strained unless you find yourself a big group to regularly play with.
That aside, Dune: Awakening is a great survival experience, one that you can play alone or with a friend or two and easily progress. Its story is presented well, even if it fails to land, and while not always compelling, it at least gives Dune: Awakening a clear voice. Arrakis is a joy to explore, too, and the survival aspects offer a fair challenge without really getting in the way of satisfying progress. It’s a clever game, well realised. If you are a fan of the franchise or genre, it’s worth your time checking out. It may not be a knockout in every aspect, but it’s certainly better than a Gom Jabbar to the neck.
The Vibe of Dune
A well-presented story and atmosphere that nails the vibes of Dune, but janky combat and a massive tonal shift in the endgame hurt this experience a little.
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