Thanks to Denis Villeneuve, Dune has been having a revival of sorts since 2021. It's not like the series died in any way, given its explosive run from 1965 onwards, but we're starting to see more cross-media projects involving Dune that go beyond the typical Atreides family stories. Dune: Awakening is trying to break free from the shadow of Paul Atreides, focusing on a player-created avatar who has to deal with many of the same trials and tribulations.

The thing is, Dune: Awakening's multiplayer survival genre focus is going to be divisive. It makes sense, given the harsh environment of the iconic planet Arrakis, but there's so much to balance here to keep everyone happy. Given the recent delay, it seems like developer Funcom agrees.

The Dune: Awakening Intro Puts Its Best Foot Forward

Pick Your Background And Get Ready For Some Lore

With some familiar series imagery, you'll craft your avatar through an Elder Scrolls-esque intro sequence, complete with dialogue choices and a bit of Gom Jabbar pageantry. Notably, Dune: Awakening takes place in an alternate universe, where Paul does not exist, but the Atreides and Harkonnen families continue to feud. It creates an interesting "what if" scenario, which plays out through a series of light story missions and a multiplayer sandbox world.

There are several classes to choose from at the start of the game (thematically portrayed through a "mentor" background, much like Paul's own Duncan Idaho), which nfluence your character:

• Swordmaster (close-quarter aggression)
• Bene Gesserit Acolyte (physical mastery and manipulation)
• Mentat (recon and strategy)
• Trooper (offense and demolition)

A choice of homeworld (Giedi Prime, Chusuk, Caladan, Kaitain, Ix) and caste (Bondsmen, Na-Familia, Pyon) is also available, which fine-tunes your initial build and dialogue. So far, most of this background fluff seems nominal, except for your mentor choice, which immediately influences your playstyle. I gravitated to Swordmaster, and opted for close-quarters knife combat with a quick-dash attack. Ranged combat via pistols (and other weaponry) and magic (using the Voice from Dune lore) are early game staples as well, if you choose another mentor.

The meta-human aspect of Dune (constantly swirling around the concept of spice, an enhancing/mystical drug of sorts) lends itself well to basic archetypes, without going too over the top. Early abilities are largely locomotion-based, either attempting to close the gap between opponents or pull them toward you. It's a simple mechanical callback to action games of old, but it makes combat more exciting out of the gate.

In the early game, the story is very slow-going and primarily focused on survival. It'll be interesting to watch the narrative unfold as Funcom spins its unique Paul-less yarn in the Dune universe.

Combat is exciting when you're going toe-to-toe with someone who has a personal shield, which you need to push through with a wind-up heavy melee attack. Depending on your build, you have myriad options available: pepper them with ranged attacks to throw them off, run/rush with the aforementioned movement abilities, or throw down in an epic knife fight, parrying and dodging at the right times. NPCs don't always put up a fight, but I'm interested in fully exploring the game's PVP element (an optional zone) in the final build. There's a lot of potential here in this combat foundation.

Thirsty? You Will Be In Dune: Awakening, All The Time

I Hope You Like Getting Hydrated

Dune: Awakening isn't all combat, though. Most of your time on Arrakis will be spent surviving. Whether that includes draining blood from enemies to convert to water, or licking the dew off of various flora in caves and shade, you always need to stay hydrated. The harsh sun of the planet Arrakis is constantly beaming down on you, too, and sandworms patrol the deserts with ruthless efficiency.

Right here, I can see some folks getting excited or tapping out of the concept of Dune: Awakening. Even playing it in the moment, I felt myself on both sides of the spectrum of tedium and fun at various points. You can't really make a game about a historically harsh fictional planet without testing the player a bit. How testy you prefer your games to be will dictate how much joy you get out of Dune: Awakening.

You'll also need to engage in the base-building aspect, which takes notes from a ton of other games. Walls, foundations, and roofs are very easy to craft and put up, allowing for a decent amount of customization and personality to forward bases and hubs, where you can take a breather. On-demand fast-travel is nice too, especially if you're the type of player who likes to explore aimlessly.

In the first five hours or so, a lot of the game is on rails, teaching you all of its facets and forcing you to put all of your knowledge together to stay alive. You'll need to salvage scraps of metal and other reagents, research blueprints, and build them yourself. It's a multistep process that can be tedious, especially for some of the more demanding crafting requirements.

The act of crafting is fairly painless. If you have the resources, you queue a researched item up in a menu (from anywhere you like), wait a few seconds, and boom, your harvesting tool/blood bag/weapon is done. Once I got into the groove of things, running around and making progress felt good, until I hit a new hurdle and ran out of resources again. It's the nature of the genre.

Awakening Has Promise, But Survival Can Be Tedious

It's Going To Be Interesting To See The Reception To This One

Dune Awakening contains a lot of the natural ebb and flow of the survival space, and Funcom still needs to tweak the core loop a bit if they want to nab more non-genre fans. As someone who has explored Dune since childhood and has been there since the dawn of the survival genre, Awakening can be tough to recommend at times. Some sessions, it felt like I was going through the motions of a standard desert survival romp, playing a completely different game. Then, a sandworm would pop up and remind me that I was on Arrakis.

Funcom should lean more into the setting of Dune, full stop. When the game is flavorful, Awakening is at its absolute best, and it goes without saying that Dune: Awakening is a massively ambitious game. How Funcom intends to it long term, and how effectively it will manage its playerbase and emergent story, is yet to be seen. As of right now, with some tweaks pre-launch, Awakening could be a standout diamond in the rough for Dune fans.