Dune: Awakening Hands-On Preview: Fear Is The Player Killer

Dune: Awakening brings together survival and MMO elements with the beloved IP as a framework, taking players to Arrakis where they’ll fight against sandworms, hot sun, other players, and a myriad of other threats to become a successful desert dweller. The title comes from Funcom, which previously produced another massive online experience with Conan Exiles. Though the game doesn’t have a finalized release date yet besides a 2025 window, it’s already entered a playable beta for players lucky enough to snag a spot.

Funcom offered a new hands-on with the title at this year’s Gamescom, giving me about an hour of time with the game just outside the giant sandworm that graced the show floor. The demo began directly following the game’s tutorial, where I began stranded in the hot desert sun following my ornithopter crash landing. Though the preview didn’t offer much in the way of information on Dune: Awakening’s more MMO and PvP-centric elements, it did give a nice window into the title’s core survival and building aspects, with only a small amount of technical hiccups.

Surviving The Desert Of Arrakis

Everything In The Desert Wants You Dead

In Dune: Awakening, health isn’t the only thing players will need to manage – in fact, it’s arguably the easier stat to keep in check compared to the other main survival component: thirst. When the game begins, players will only be able to extract water from desert plants, and there is only so much of them that can be consumed until a temporary fullness cap is reached. In my hands-on time with the game, my character initially died almost immediately from dehydration, overcome in the hot sun and succumbing to the desert.

As time goes on, players will be able to unlock new technology in the Water Discipline category, which will allow for better tools like a mechanism to extract water from enemies’ blood and a flask to carry around a drinking supply. However, even with these improvements, finding a consistent supply of water is not easy. This is especially true during the day when the sun is at its most powerful, and even when properly hydrated, the sun can still cause heat exhaustion that damages health and stamina.

If the sun doesn’t take you down on Arrakis, there are still plenty of other things that can. The two other main threats I faced during my time with the title were enemies that inhabit bases scattered across the desert – which can be raided for supplies and blood water harvesting – and sandworms. There’s no way to move gracefully across the sand as the Fremen do, and if players make too much noise on the ground, especially when driving a vehicle, they’ll quickly attract worm attention.

A meter will show how loud players are, and though I never passed the point of no return with my noise, there were a few instances of the sound waves going into the red when driving, running, or jumping that quickly caused me to reassess my activity. Some areas of the main desert are too vast to even consider walking or driving across due to the worm threat, and require an ornithopter to pass safely. Even when not directly posing direct danger, worms will occasionally rise up and can be ominously seen from a distance as a frequent reminder.

Building & Progressing In Dune: Awakening

Staying Safe Through Constantly-Evolving Tech

Base building is another big part of Dune: Awakening’s overall gameplay, with a separate building mode reminiscent of other base building games like No Man’s Sky. Players can scroll through sections like basic components such as walls and roofs, crafting machinery, and assorted furniture and see an outline of what it would look like before placement. These also come in styled sets for Houses that fans will be familiar with, offering different aesthetics, from the sleeker House Harkonnnen to a more traditional-style Atreides.

A nice co-op feature mentioned during the demo was that players can either half or full build objects, either placing a hologram of what they will look like somewhere or fully crafting them, to aid in collaborative building. As players build up their bases, they will also have to work to maintain them. Things like lighting and machinery require power systems to be made in order to run, and in general the bases built will require taxes to be paid on the land on which they sit.

Besides base building, players will largely make progress through making skill and technology tree purchases using the associated points earned through day-to-day activities. For skills, players will choose an origin at the beginning that determines which of five trees they’ll be able to begin unlocking things on – Bene Gesserit, Mentat, Trooper, Planetologist, and Sword Master – though others can become options through finding characters to be an apprentice to. There’s also a swathe of technology categories: Essentials, Water Discipline, Combat, Construction, Exploration, Vehicles, and Uniques, which includes everything from water harvesters to fighting moves like strong, special kicks.

The Large, Shared World Of Dune: Awakening

Fear Is Less Of A Mind Killer With Friends To Back You Up

Though the demo focused on the survival aspects of the title, there was a glimpse given into what the future of its MMO aspects will look like. The starting map of Hagga Basin can contain up to 40 players concurrently, though more can be a part of the server as a whole – just not online at the same time. One of the biggest features will be the Guilds system – players can create their own Guild after spending earned in-game money, which can then be used to easier plan things like Spice Raids.

There’s also a weekly grid of Landsgraad tasks, which is essentially a Bingo-style chart of different quests for different NPC leaders. Completing a full row as a Guild will earn points and higher standing, and in turn allow them to enact special laws for the next week. The example given was decrees that will cause certain rare vendors to appear and sell their wares over the next week, though there will presumably be several other options available as well in the final release.

The world itself really captures the desolate, dangerous feeling of being out in the desert, with little touches that add to the immersion. As I was dying of dehydration, for example, my character’s vision slowly changed – dunes in the distance that were once clear got hazy, almost appearing more like a mirage. Though players begin in the Hagga Basin, they’ll eventually be able to travel elsewhere with an ornithopter, like the Harko Village, which serves as a sort of social hub.

Final Thoughts On Dune: Awakening

Survival Above All Else On The World Of Arrakis

It’s understandable, albeit unfortunate, why the newest preview didn’t give much of the more MMO elements of the title away simply due to the location of the demo. However, what was clear from my time with the game was that Funcom has deeply leaned into the harsher aspects of Arrakis, with an emphasis on players having to build their character up from nothing. Even basic traversal is difficult at first, and it really captures the feeling of being lost and struggling in the desert post-crash. Though it’s hard, this harshness contributes to future feelings of accomplishment as well.

Even small steps forward, like the ability to build a basic water extraction gun, carry more weight when it took so much effort to get there. The aforementioned ornithopter that can take players to new regions requires a huge amount of work to build, with one of the demo workers mentioning it could take around 40 hours to achieve. The area players begin in can sometimes feel repetitive – it’s difficult for a desert that is large swathes of brown in every direction to feel very diverse – so I do have a few reservations about this hurdle.

However, it’s yet another aspect that emphasizes just how hard like is on Arrakis. This definitely encourages players to be as resourceful as they can, and makes it clear that even though the game contains PvP elements and other enemies, survival is perhaps the biggest core pillar of the game above combat or crafting. It’s difficult to say how my time with the game compares to the full in-game experience involving other players, but it’s clear that Dune: Awakening has done an excellent job of capturing the core feeling of Arrakis and the many dangers that come with it.