It will hopefully come as no surprise that I don't have a Dune: Awakening review ready yet. The "head start" launch of Funcom's survival MMO was only a few days ago—full launch is today—and even though I've already sunk about 25 hours into it, Dune: Awakening is a massive game and I've still got a long, long way to go. Give me a month? Ish? I promise I'll have a verdict.
In the meantime, here's some early good news from someone who doesn't particularly like MMOs: so far, I like Dune: Awakening. Part of the reason is it doesn't really feel like a typical MMO. It feels more like a co-op survival game, at least at the start.
That may change: there are huge social hubs I haven't spent much time in yet, there's a massive PvP area called the Deep Desert I've yet to reach, and a whole bunch of political scrabbling to control the desert I haven't even scratched the surface of.
I don't think I'm the only one feeling the lack of MMO-ness: global chat is used so infrequently I was genuinely surprised when someone briefly used it over the weekend. I see plenty of other players in the world besides just the group I'm playing with, but I haven't had much in the way of interactions or experiences with them. Yet.
Hydrohomies
In Dune: Awakening you've crashlanded on Arrakis, but it's not quite the Arrakis you know from the books or movies. This is an alternative timeline where Paul Atreides was never born and major events from the fiction never took place. Instead, the Harkonnens and Atreides are locked in an ongoing civil war for control of the planet, and the Fremen have vanished entirely.
The first ten hours of Dune: Awakening are all about survival, with water being the main obsession and sunlight being a major threat. You begin by lapping dew off scrubby plants, then graduate to draining the blood of NPC scavengers and filtering it with a purifier you build in your starter base.
Water is what gets you moving: "Oops, I'm thirsty, time to stop collecting minerals and start killing scavengers for the express purpose of drinking them later." Direct sunlight is also something to be avoided or you'll become dehydrated even faster. Welcome to Dune: you're a sci-fi vampire.
Crafting Dune tech, even for a not particularly rabid Dune fan, is awesome. Holtzman shields. Hunter-seeker drones. A stillsuit to recycle a portion of the water I consume. All that cool stuff from the books and movies feels genuinely fun to research and craft and use. Ornithopters and spice harvesters are still out of reach for me, but there's a lot of cool gear you get to play with even in the opening hours of the MMO. It's a nice blend of achievable progress and tantalizing, distant goals.
Sandwalking
The map of Dune: Awakening is a big one and it's exciting to explore. That's partly because of the danger—roving sandworms don't like you running or driving across the dunes between regions, and will burst through the sand and swallow you and all of your stuff if you're not careful. At night, when you're free from the sun, Sardaukar ships slowly cruise overhead, sending down a clutch of assassins if you're caught in their spotlight.
I've been stunned a few times now by Dune: Awakening's incredible verticality—in both directions.
But the main reason exploration is so great is the map itself. Despite all the open world games I've played, I've been stunned a few times now by Dune: Awakening's incredible verticality—in both directions. There are massive, towering cliffs and spires I didn't think I could possibly climb, and a ravine so deep I thought it must just be a bottomless void that you're meant to avoid falling into. I've since climbed those spires and I found the bottom of that ravine, and both felt like real accomplishments.
I still have a ton of the map left to uncover, but what I've found so far is incredibly impressive: massive faction bases, enemy camps that appear to be a simple building but hide over a dozen sub-levels, huge arid stretches of desert covered in wreckage from the war. I can't wait to see what else Dune: Awakening is hiding.
Shields up
Combat on the other hand, is a bit samey. So far enemies only seem to have a few basic types: guy with knife quickly runs at you, guy with a minigun slowly walks at you, guy with rifle hangs back. It can get tricky, especially solo, when knife-guy is shielded and stabbing you while minigun guy is a millions rounds into you, but there are enough skills and toys available to make these samey encounters a bit of fun—and with no class restrictions in Dune: Awakening anyone can get access to whatever skill tree they want.
I can now snipe minigun guy before he can even put up his shield, I can stun knife guy with a poison dart so I can stab him before he stabs me, and I can drop a turret to take out rifle guy. The deeper I get into Dune: Awakening, the more abilities enemies have: they've got at least some access to the same skill tree players do. But if I'm still fighting just knife guy, rifle guy, and minigun guy in another 25 hours, I feel like I'll be a little disappointed.
There are also a few shortcomings that start to feel like headaches after a couple dozen hours. For a game where you spend so much time crafting, the menus aren't great. They can't be searched to quickly find the item you're looking for and they're not categorized particularly well. There are also only eight hotbar slots and sooooo many different tools you need to use regularly: I would love a second hotbar row to avoid having to constantly swap my equipped tools.
And a minimap, at least when driving, would be very welcome: the desert is full of hazards like quicksand, and you can't look at your map while driving without your vehicle instantly slowing down—which is exactly how you sink into quicksand.
But so far I'm having a good time with Dune: Awakening. The best thing I can say about it is that after 25 hours, I'm excited to play a lot more. Hopefully that feeling will continue as I start to engage more with the MMO aspects over the coming weeks.
