Dune: Awakening is a survival MMO with many mechanics, systems, and pitfalls. MeinMMO summarizes useful tips and tricks that will noticeably ease your entry into the game.
Since June 5, 2025, buyers of the Deluxe or Ultimate Editions can already play Dune: Awakening. From June 10, 2025, all owners of the base version can also wreak havoc on the desert planet Arrakis.
You can expect a survival battle against heat and thirst, aggressive bandits, gigantic sandworms, and much more. Depending on how and where you die, you can lose all your possessions. To help you get started and avoid some mistakes we made, we present you with a variety of useful tips for entering the world of Dune: Awakening.
The launch trailer for Dune Awakening:
Tip 1: Listen to the Game
Similar to Conan Exiles, Dune: Awakening also takes you by the hand with a kind of travel function to introduce you to the game. So, tip number 1 is quite simple: Follow the instructions and objectives of the journey to learn the key mechanics of the game.
Later, the game opens up significantly, but you can still let yourself be guided through the game by the many side quests from NPCs or bulletin boards. Through these, you will gain experience points, units of in-game currency, and many other rewards.
During character creation, you can also decide to keep the research menu closed (which the game recommends) or to open it. Listen to the developers’ advice and keep the menu closed. This will make your entry into the game significantly easier.
Tip 2: Make Use of the Class System
While you must choose a class at the beginning of the game, during your adventure you will have the opportunity to unlock the talent trees of the initially overlooked archetypes. How? By finding the corresponding class teachers and completing a quest line for them.
As colleague Cedric explained in his class ranking, you should not choose the Trooper initially. You will meet the Trooper trainer very early on, at Griffin’s Reach Trading Post in the first region, Southern Hagga Basin.
Also in the first region, you can unlock another class tree: the Planologist. You will find the corresponding trainer above the Imperial Test Station 2, at Chinaras’ camp. Caution: The quest from the trainer leads you into the Imperial Test Station 2; if you don’t want to go in multiple times, take the class quest first.
Anyone who initially chose Mentat, Swordmaster, or Bene Gesserit can thus switch to the second region with three unlocked talent trees.
Why is this important? At the beginning, you can only put one point into each of the talents, and you only have access to two active abilities at first. If you focus on the trees of one class, you will quickly hit a limit, although there would still be many skill points to distribute.
Instead, having access to 9 talent trees (3 per class) allows you to draw from a wealth of options and also secure many strong passive talents.
Tip 3: The First Base is Scrap
Early in the game, you are tasked with building your first shelter to protect yourself from sandstorms and the sun when necessary. However, do not invest too much time and energy into this first construction project; just do the minimum that is required of you.
Once you leave the first region for a quest, you will be moving – and by registering the new building site, you will destroy your old property. This means, of course, that you should not leave anything in the first base that you would like to continue using. Therefore, take everything important with you as soon as the game sends you to the second region.
Extra Tip: Build your second base best near a peaceful hub (for nearby traders or quest givers). If there are also various types of stones, plants for water access, or bandit camps nearby, you will minimize your travel distances.
Tip 4: Use Survey Probes
When you enter a new region, look for an elevated place (at least 45 meters high) and deploy a survey probe from there. You will unlock the corresponding tool, the Survey Probe Launcher, relatively early in your journey.
This way, you unlock all the important locations in the respective region at once. These include smaller camps, but also larger fortresses with important information, shipwrecks, and test labs with great loot. And of course, important places for the main story, safe paths through the sand, or nearby NPC hubs.
With this information, you can plan the optimal location for your new base and upcoming trips into the desert.
Tip 5: Start Your Next Journey Well Prepared
Before you head out, make sure to pack enough ammunition, water, and healing items. Blood bags and some tools should also be in your inventory. Additionally, check if all your equipment parts have enough durability to avoid falling apart in the upcoming adventure.
Equally important is that you do not carry all your wealth around all the time. If a sandworm or sandstorm catches you, everything in your inventory will be lost. Those who have money and spare equipment left at the base will be glad.
And then you should also plan your route carefully. The shortest route often leads over wide sand areas and is therefore almost certain to be deadly. It’s better to move from rock formation to rock formation to avoid long travels over sand. Pay attention to the red circles on the map, marking quicksand or places where you can easily attract sandworms.
Tip 6: Maximum Mobility
With the Trooper’s Shigadraht Claw and the Emperor’s Wing item, you gain significant mobility early in the game, allowing you to easily reach high altitudes, glide safely to the ground, or overcome deep chasms.
You will find the recipe for the unique Suspension Belt at the end of the Imperial Test Station 2 in the Southern Hagga Basin. Remember: with the recipe, you can only craft the belt once. If you want more, you need to visit the test station multiple times.
With this combination, it is then possible to launch yourself into the air with the claw and hover long distances with the suspension belt. Be sure to try it out!
Tip 7: Don’t Underestimate the Vehicle Replacement Tool
While the sandbike is great for getting from A to B in Arrakis, you often have to leave it behind when things get tough. At the end of your journey, the return to the vehicle can sometimes be quite long. Save yourself the trouble and pack a vehicle replacement tool!
With it, you can easily pack up your sandbike and take it with you on your adventure. When you’re finished, simply unpack the vehicle at the location. This way, you won’t have to worry about sandstorms anymore.
Also important: The individual parts of the sandbike lose durability over time. To repair them, you need a welder and sufficient welding wire. Additionally, you should always pack some fuel for the bike.
Believe us: you don’t want your bike to break down somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Tip 8: The Search for the AQL Trials
To advance your main quest concerning the search for the Fremen, you must undergo several AQL trials. However, the quest tracking helps you only to a limited extent, as it simply states: Find the next trial. If you follow our Tip 3, you can significantly ease your search.
The locations of the trials have a unique icon on the map, a light purple-colored cave entrance. Here is the entrance for Trial Number 2:
Tip 9: Save Yourself the Searching in Containers
A small but fine tip that can save you a lot of time: Use the “Quick Deposit” feature of the containers to automatically pack items from your inventory into the respective box that are already present there, without having to manually open and search through each container first.
This only works if you have already sorted the countless types of resources, equipment parts, tools, and so on into the containers.
Tip 10: Ensure Enough Energy in Your Base
To keep your base protected from sandstorms and to ensure all workstations there are functioning, you must always have sufficient energy. This means that you will need to provide more energy stations as more devices land in your own four walls that require energy.
Moreover, you should supply the energy stations with enough resources so that they can function until your next login. Otherwise, you might come back to a destroyed base.
The good news: Those who empower the initially available energy storage do not have to worry about protecting their base for almost 2 weeks. Those planning longer breaks should save their base with a base reconstruction tool and stash as many possession turrets in the bank as possible.
This way you can quickly and without losses start again after the break. How important it is to build your base in the right position in the survival MMO from Funcom is also demonstrated by this story from the community: A player from Dune: Awakening blocks the thoroughfare with his house, finds a perfect solution without having to move
