Unlike most sandbox survival games, Dune: Awakening gives you a great deal of character customisation beyond just the appearance of your poor little survivor. After deciding on their look, you'll have an intense…discussion (read: interrogation) with the reverend mother, where you'll need to pick your homeworld, caste, and mentor.
Each of these three character customisation options has an impact on your survivor's abilities in gameplay, whether it's during combat or conversation. Arrakis is a harsh desert filled with hungry sandworms, so it's wise to give yourself the best start possible. Below you'll find an overview of all the homeworlds, castes, and class mentors, plus which ones you should pick. I'll start with the best classes, as that's the most important decision during character creation.
Best Dune: Awakening mentor/class
Mentors are effectively different classes, granting you a unique skill tree full of abilities and passive buffs. You'll unlock the first ability in your chosen class straightaway, and you'll have to unlock the rest as you level up, earn skill points, and train.
Importantly, choosing a mentor only decides your starting class—you can unlock additional skill trees through trainers. Use our Dune: Awakening trainer locations guide to upgrade your starting class, unlock the remaining mentors that you didn't pick, and unlock brand-new skill trees like the Planetologist.
The best mentor to pick is the Mentat, which gives you the Sentinel turret that can easily take out entire camps. The second-best skill tree of the bunch here is the Trooper, but there's no point picking this class at the start of the game since it happens to be the first trainer you'll meet anyhow, while the Mentat trainer is much later on. Picking Mentat first means you can have your cake and eat it too, using both the turret and the handy grappling hook very early in the game.
These are the four mentor classes you can pick during character creation:
Mentor |
Skill Tree |
Starting Ability |
|---|---|---|
Swordmaster |
Focuses on close-quarters martial combat. |
Knee Charge - Propel yourself forward into battle by charging at an enemy. |
Bene Gesserit Acolyte |
Emphasises physical mastery and mental manipulation. |
Voice: Compel - Use the Voice to force someone towards you. |
Mentat |
Focuses on recon and area denial. |
The Sentinel - Deploys a turret that fires at anything that moves in its line of sight. |
Trooper |
All about offensive mobility and demolitions. |
Shigawire Claw - Fires a grappling hook that quickly pulls you towards the target location. |
Best Dune: Awakening homeworld
Your homeworld is actually the first choice you have to make, and it's largely lore-based, with little actual impact on gameplay, so pick whichever one sounds the coolest to you.
In gameplay, you will occasionally see a dialogue prompt that uses your unique trait, but these won't significantly impact or alter your experience. Each trait is about as useful as the others, it's more a matter of whether you want your character to be wise, deceptive, techy, and so on. You'll also unlock a unique emote to rep your homeworld out in the wilds, for what it's worth.
These are the five homeworld options available to you:
Homeworld |
Dialogue Trait |
Unique Emote |
|---|---|---|
Geidi Prime |
Deception |
Harkonnen Curse |
Chusuk |
Cultured |
Chusuk Music |
Caladan |
Honourable |
Atreides Salute |
Kaitain |
Political |
Kaitain Bow |
Ix |
Technologist |
Ixian Secret |
Best Dune: Awakening caste
Much like your homeworld (even more so, actually), your caste is a roleplaying feature first and foremost, giving your character a backstory about their rank in society. You'll also unlock a second dialogue trait, which is unique and separate from the homeworld ones, so don't worry about overlapping. These traits also crop up every now and then during conversations with very little in the way of tangible consequences.
Here are all three castes you can choose from:
Caste |
Dialogue Trait |
|---|---|
Bondsmen |
Bondsmen |
Na-Familia |
Nobility |
Pyon |
Pyon |
