For MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus, Dune: Awakening is one of the games he is looking forward to the most. Now, at gamescom 2024, he was able to play it for the first time, and the new MMO delivers everything our survival expert has wished for.
From the moment of the announcement of Dune: Awakening, the game excited me directly. The new game from the makers of Conan Exiles aims to combine MMORPG and survival, something that the developers themselves claim is the next logical step for the genres.
Huge areas where players interact with each other and NPCs, build their own bases, and join guilds to bring the world to life. That’s exactly what many are expecting from Dune: Awakening – and over a million fans are waiting for the game. For good reason, as the game is promising:
- Funcom has a long history and has proven in the past that they excel in both MMOs (Anarchy Online, Age of Conan) and the survival genre (Conan Exiles).
- Even seven years after release, Conan Exiles still regularly has over 10,000 players only on Steam (via steamcharts).
- With the Conan saga, the studio has already successfully implemented a rugged franchise. Now, with Dune, a thematically related setting is on the way.
For the new gameplay trailer during the Opening Night Live at gamescom 2024, just the name alone was enough to let the audience cheer. At the fair, interested visitors could then take a look at the game at a large booth.
I was also invited to play Dune: Awakening for an hour. As quickly as the time passed, it could have been seven hours, and I wouldn’t have noticed. I felt right at home – and that’s exactly what was intended.
A survival MMO that anyone can immediately find their way around
Dune: Awakening plays out almost exactly like Conan Exiles. From the very first second, the controls felt intuitive, everything was somehow logical – with the exception of some special skills.
The core features are certainly known to every survival player and almost taken for granted by Conan players:
- Crafting is fundamentally done through the inventory, and advanced recipes are created at workbenches.
- You build bases with components by creating blueprints and then filling them with materials.
- Dune is a desert planet, so there are naturally sandstorms and the need for protection from heat and wind.
- The only survival resource is water, which you need to pay attention to – and that you can obtain in emergencies from the blood of your enemies.
- You level and skill your character through a talent system, learning new recipes as well as abilities for combat.
- Just like Conan Exiles, Dune: Awakening has a ‘journey’ that roughly guides you through the game when you are stuck. Everything else is a large sandbox.
In an interview with Chief Creative Director Joel Bylos after playing, the head told me: The studio wanted to achieve exactly the connection to Conan Exiles. They took the aspects of the survival game that are celebrated and expanded upon. One example: climbing. That was the first thing I reflexively did: cling to a wall and climb up.
However, Dune: Awakening is not just a copy of Conan Exiles. It is indeed much more than just a survival game. The goal is to bring many players together on a server and let them survive on the desert planet. How many players can fit on a server is still undecided.
Dune itself is a franchise in the sci-fi sector known for its dark, adult atmosphere. It’s a lot rougher than Star Wars, even though that can be quite brutal at times. But with the content in Awakening, the developers have really captured Dune well.
Help, a sandworm has eaten my base!
While playing, I obviously couldn’t see much of that yet. Guilds are supposed to play a big role, especially when it comes to the fight for spice. And this shows why Dune excites fans like me so much:
- There are references to the franchise everywhere, especially in light of the new movies.
- Already in the test, I could fly around with an ornithopter and view the enormous world. For comparison: The starting map is said to be as large as the world of Conan Exiles, with the spice desert being eight times larger later on.
- In the story, important and well-known NPCs appear later, such as House Harkonnen and the Fremen. From the Fremen, you can even learn how to move properly on sand.
Spice will – of course – be the central resource besides water. With spice, you can bribe NPCs and cook food, just like in the movie. And that’s important, as it boosts your almost magical abilities, but you can also become addicted.
My absolute highlight was a huge sandworm. At some point while playing, I noticed that I was apparently making noises on the sand. Panicking, I stopped and shortly afterward, a sandworm broke out of a dune next to me.
That alone was impressive. Shortly thereafter, I thought the perfect location for my base would be near a looter camp – right in the sand. When everything was finally set up, my worm-friend came back and took a bite, eating half of the base.
Two drawbacks that are actually not drawbacks
In just one hour, not much more than a first impression can be gained. However, I have already found two things here that could at least at first glance cause trouble: the rather poor graphics and especially the PvP, which has previously ruined survival games.
Both are actually not a problem. Yes, the graphics are not as pretty as in many current games, such as Enshrouded. But that’s also not possible. When dozens of players play on a server and all build their own giant bases, overly demanding graphics would quickly overwhelm even the strongest computer. And experience has shown that survival fans prefer the desire for sandbox play.
As for PvP: It is purely optional. The vast spice desert only offers exactly that, spice. And you can also get it through trade. The area is intended for the war between guilds, who plow the sand with ornithopters and harvesters and fight over the rare resource.
Those who are solo and brave can try to get in somewhere at the edge of the desert and grab something. If you don’t feel like it, you just stay home and trade. The desert will also be reset regularly, like in Rust, to ensure fairness.
What actually bothers me, however, is the lack of a solo and co-op mode like Conan Exiles has. That is initially not planned, just like private servers, because it is simply problematic from the size. However, it is being looked into.
“We are making a game for fans who are into this kind of thing”
After playing, I was able to chat with Joel Bylos for half an hour, and I immediately noticed: The man is excited about the game and loves what he does. Rarely can I talk to developers so passionately about nerd topics. Here you can find the first part of the interview with Joel Bylos: “Taught me about the dynamics of players”
When I asked him what he enjoyed most about development, Joel gave me a very detailed answer:
What I enjoy most about developing games like Dune is thinking about what players might be most excited about. Also considering what game mechanics make Dune unique. I feel like there are often situations where you say: “Oh I liked that game, let’s do that too”. We have raids. MMOs have raids to defeat big bosses, we have raids to harvest spice fields, which gives a completely different feeling.
There is a political system in the game for the Landsraad, and with this design, I thought that something like this has never been done before. So how do we make this system work as we envision it? And I’m not sure if it works, […] but I’m willing to take this risk.
There is a feature in the game, […] that wipes the desert every week, which I’m very excited about. The area is a high risk because players can lose a lot. Similar to Rust. […] I wondered if we could get the mechanics to work. And I wanted to do this in a game that is long-lasting. There are safer areas and then there is the desert. […]
To see if the design is really successful, you only know when other games copy it. So I hope that some of our ideas are innovative.
Although Dune: Awakening will be an MMO and you can only play it online with others, it should still be possible to play solo. You just need to find a spot where you can plant your base. Guilds will be limited in their number of members so that no mega-guild can dominate a server and tyrannize everyone – the problem that led to the downfall of Last Oasis.
In conclusion, Joel also told me that he doesn’t want to make a game for the masses: “They only write bad Steam reviews anyway.” It’s important for him to deliver a good game for the people who are genuinely excited about it. And from what I’ve seen, Funcom is keeping its promise. I’m excited for Dune: Awakening and liked everything I saw. And although I’m absolutely infatuated, another game became my highlight: An RPG for Warhammer 40k is the best game at gamescom 2024
