Dune: Awakening presents players with the opportunity fans of the franchise have been waiting for since 1965: the chance to test their skills against the deadly elements of Arrakis. Players are tasked with creating shelter, staying hydrated, and avoiding massive sandworms as they try to survive. Simply standing in direct sunlight can be a risk in Dune: Awakening, and that’s to say nothing of the Emperor’s forces, who will shoot scavengers on sight.
It’s hard to ignore the expectations one might have for Dune: Awakening, given the prestige of the IP it’s adapting. Evaluating the game purely from the standpoint of how well it adapts Dune would be a mistake, but it would also be a mistake to ignore what players might expect from this game based on its source material. Dune: Awakening gets some aspects of its source material very right, while others fall a bit short of expectations.
Dune: Awakening Has All The Hallmarks Of A Good Survival Game
Dune: Awakening Has A Nice Sense Of Progression And Balances Difficulty Well
Dune: Awakening has all the nuts and bolts necessary to create a working survival game. There are resources you need to maintain to stay alive, mainly hydration and shelter from sandstorms. There is also an extensive list of things you can craft, as well as customizable bases that can be turned into impressive structures by creative and patient players.
I was pleased with the sense of progression you feel in Dune: Awakening, even in the early hours of the game. Switching from makeshift rags to your first Stillsuit feels like a huge upgrade, even if it’s only preserving a small fraction of your body moisture. New weapons are also a significant upgrade, and I was surprised to see how satisfying the upgrade to my first full sword felt.
My only minor complaint about Dune: Awakening, from a pure gameplay standpoint, is with its crafting UI. All your craftable items are displayed as colorless blueprints, which makes it somewhat difficult to distinguish between items quickly. This isn’t a huge deal when crafting in safety, but if you quickly need to make some Heal Kits during combat, it can be a bit frustrating.
Overall, Dune: Awakening has all the basic components of survival games necessary to ensure that players will sink an unreasonable number of hours into it. I knew I was going to like this game when I found myself so absorbed in playing it that I skipped meals. However, while the game has everything needed to hook genre fans, I wasn’t fully satisfied with its ability to capture certain elements of its source material.
Arrakis Is A Bit More Forgiving Than I Expected
Dune: Awakening Fails To Make Arrakis Feel As Dangerous As Dune Describes It
The prospect of surviving on Dune‘s Arrakis should be a daunting one. Frank Herbert’s novels make it abundantly clear just how dangerous it is to live out in the desert, so I went into Dune: Awakening hoping to feel the same dread I did reading about Paul’s encounter with a spice collector, and his near miss with the sandworm. While I understood that some concessions would have to be made for the sake of gameplay, there is still a disappointing lack of danger in Dune: Awakening.
Water sources are far too abundant, and once you’ve crafted a harvester it is disappointingly easy to keep yourself hydrated. I also spent several in-game days running around the blistering hot sands of Arrakis with bare feet after losing my boots (and all my other held belongings) to the belly of a sandworm. While I appreciate the harsh punishment for being devoured by Shai-Hulud, I was less than thrilled by the lack of danger from the game’s natural elements. The idea of sunlight being dangerous is a good touch, but it’s easy to avoid thanks to the many shadows.
Sandstorms are a nice touch, and can be pretty punishing if you aren’t prepared for them. However, getting under a rock outcropping is usually enough to shelter yourself and your vehicle, so as long as you aren’t out on open sands, you’ll likely survive. The greatest sense of danger comes from the iconic sandworms, and it can be genuinely terrifying if one breaches close to you in the open sands. Dune: Awakening does a stellar job with the worms, but it would be nice if it captured the rest of Arrakis’ natural threats with equal authenticity.
Dune: Awakening's Combat Is Hit Or Miss
Dune: Awakening's Melee Combat Is Satisfying And Thematic, But It's Gunplay Is Generic
Dune: Awakening was dealt a difficult hand when it came to adapting Dune‘s combat for a video game. Shields in Dune prevent most projectiles from penetrating them, forcing people to resort to fighting with melee weapons like swords. However, sticking to this faithfully could have proven difficult for balancing encounters. It’s much more difficult to face multiple opponents wielding melee weapons than it is to shoot your way through a dungeon. Funcom, therefore, made the right call to limit the number of enemies with shields, and also allow some gun damage to get through them.
The real issue with Dune: Awakening‘s combat isn’t the fact that it isn’t 100% faithful to the novels, but more that it can sometimes feel a bit too easy. It’s easy to find positions where you can pump rounds into the enemy’s head while they are incapable of returning fire, thanks to strategically placed cover. This can make situations that should otherwise feel dangerous a bit too unthreatening. While later areas of the game do step up the challenge, you’ll also have better guns and shields at that point to help offset the increased difficulty.
Where Dune: Awakening‘s combat shines is in its melee combat. Having to land a slow attack against an enemy to penetrate their shield feels both authentically Dune, and also unique. It creates a very different rhythm to melee combat, and forces you to be more precise than just mashing the attack button. The game’s auto-lock onto your opponents is also a nice feature, and the dash mechanic turns melee combat into an intricate and deadly dance with your opponent.
The quality of the melee combat almost makes me wish Funcom had leaned further into it, and away from shooting. That isn’t to say the shooting in the game is bad. However, Dune: Awakening‘s gunplay feels painfully generic next to the well-themed melee battles.
Dune: Awakening's Arrakis Is Beautiful To Look At And Fun To Explore
Dune: Awakening's Visuals Are A Highlight
Although Arrakis doesn’t feel as dangerous as I’d have liked, it is undeniably gorgeous. Watching a worm breach, scattering sand in every direction as it bursts out of the earth, is just as visually stunning as it is terrifying. Sandstorms are also a particularly well-done visual element of the game, as they obscure vision enough to feel real, but not so much that it becomes frustrating to play. The sand whipping about also clearly conveys why it’s so dangerous to be out in them.
I was also immediately pleased to discover that Dune: Awakening offers a variety of helpful ways to explore Arrakis. Aside from being able to climb most surfaces, so long as you have the stamina for it, there are also unique forms of traversal available through skill upgrades. The Trooper class has a grappling hook that can help you more speedily climb up walls, and can be paired very nicely with its antigravity field. Grappling through the field can launch you high into the air, saving you a lot of time and stamina while climbing.
Suspensor Belts are also a great addition to Dune: Awakening‘s arsenal. So long as you have enough power, you can jump off high surfaces, knowing that your belt will slow your descent to a safe speed and prevent fall damage. This saves you the effort of having to work your way back down a high cliff slowly. Being able to throw yourself off any given peak is also a big time-saver, which is always welcome in a game like Dune: Awakening, which excels at eating up your day.
Dune: Awakening Has Visual Flair And A Good Survival Baseline
But There Are Issues Holding It Back
Dune: Awakening is an above-average survival game, and its stellar visuals tempted me to give it a higher score. However, it does fall a little short of what one would expect from a survival game set on Arrakis. As a fan of Dune, I was excited to face what I had hoped would be the extreme challenge of surviving the planet’s inhospitable deserts. Instead, I found myself quickly feeling far too comfortable traversing the sands, and even pushing my luck in sandworm territory.
There is still a lot to like about Dune: Awakening, and it is an experience that is improved by teaming up with friends. If you aren’t a big fan of Dune, you might ironically get more out of this game than someone who is, since you won’t have to worry about it not living up to your expectations. While I can’t help but be a little disappointed in the final product, Dune: Awakening is still worth playing if you are a fan of the survival genre and want to experience its unique location.
Screen Rant was provided with a digital PC code for the purpose of this review.
Pros & Cons
- Arrakis is beautiful and exciting to explore.
- Melee combat feels unique to the world of Dune.
- There is a satisfying sense of progression.
- Arrakis feels a bit too safe.
- Combat often fails to present a meaningful challenge.
