The survival MMO Dune: Awakening has left many players in the past with questions about the actual genre of the game. Now the developers have explained how much MMO is really in their survival game.
What kind of game is this? Dune: Awakening is a survival MMO from developer Funcom, who are also known for Conan Exiles, Age of Conan, and The Secret World. The survival game set in the Dune universe places you on the desert planet Arrakis, where you initially have to survive in the typical style of the survival genre.
Later, the gameplay is supposed to shift more towards MMO. So far, however, it has not been clear what MMO elements will actually be present in the game and whether Dune: Awakening will really implement the “Massively” of “Massively Multiplayer Online.” Now the developers have clarified exactly that.
Here you can watch the new story trailer for Dune Awakening:
So much MMO(RPG) is in Dune: Awakening
What have the developers announced? The developers of Dune: Awakening have talked about the aspects in a new post on Steam where your game departs from the classic survival mechanics. They also clarify a lot about the MMO elements of the title.
The first MMO feature mentioned by the developers is server-wide chats, through which you can network, trade, but also write to other players nearby. All of this is also possible in the so-called social hubs, which serve as meeting points for all players in a world. For example, you must go there to pay the regular taxes for large plots of land.
A typical MMO feature in Dune: Awakening is the stock exchange, which is supposed to function like an auction house from MMORPGs and allows trading between multiple servers of a world. There are also NPCs as quest givers, just like in typical MMORPGs. They send you on missions and reward you with loot afterwards.
Dungeons are also present in Dune: Awakening; in the game, they are called imperial test stations. They are part of the story of the survival MMO but can also be visited for loot.
With the Harkonnen and Atreides, there are also two rival factions in the survival MMO that you can join either alone or together with your guild. Each house offers rewards such as unique building plans and components. Such a faction system is also used by successful MMORPGs like WoW or Star Wars: The Old Republic.
The combat system with archetypes and skill trees is also supposed to work more like in an MMORPG than in a typical survival game. You can level up your character and distribute skill points.
Is Dune: Awakening really “massively”? While you spend a lot of time in the Hagga basin of your server, where up to a maximum of 40 other players are present, Dune: Awakening offers regions with the aforementioned social hubs and the Deep Desert, where hundreds of players can meet.
The Deep Desert primarily serves as a large PvP area where the most valuable resources and rewards await brave players and guilds. The area serves as endgame content and regularly changes its appearance due to local storms.
According to the developers, a system behind Dune: Awakening tries to prevent too many players from gathering at the same location. Whether you will really see more than 100 players simultaneous in the game remains to be seen.
Can you play Dune: Awakening alone? There is no single player or offline mode for Dune: Awakening, but you do not have to team up with other players to experience large parts of the game. Many of the missions, dungeons, and other content can also be experienced alone. Additionally, all classes have skills to escape from PvP situations.
The developers plan to release private servers for Dune: Awakening later, but even there, there will be a common Deep Desert that does not belong to you entirely. If you want to play the survival MMO with friends at launch, you need to be careful: Playing Dune: Awakening with friends – What you need to keep in mind
