The deep desert remains a constant topic in the community of Dune: Awakening. To illustrate the criticism of the endgame zone, more and more players are turning to vivid examples from film and television.
What are players criticizing about the deep desert? The endgame zone of Dune: Awakening has been receiving criticism since the launch.
- Many players did not initially like the strong PvP focus within the deep desert.
- When the developers responded to the criticism and made part of the desert a PvE zone, this also caused trouble.
- Griefers, who specifically hunt individual players with their Ornithopters, and cheaters who steal others’ property right from under them, have also caused a fair amount of frustration.
- The loot in the deep desert is also causing problems. On one hand, regarding the distribution of loot and resources. On the other hand, the developers could not keep their promise of offering a completely new deep desert every week.
- The problem is exacerbated because some people have started building their bases over key resource points.
- On top of all this, ambitious guilds quickly reach a point where excursions into the deep desert are no longer worthwhile – because there is a lack of content and even the regular Landsraad elections motivate only to a limited extent.
“There’s not even crap here, Sir”
How do players express this criticism? With comparisons and memes to well-known films and series. It often revolves around how much the player experience in the deep desert differs from the previous, very enjoyable gameplay phase.
TacoFoxx21 illustrates this difference on Reddit by paraphrasing a well-known dialogue from Pirates of the Caribbean, which discusses the pirate qualities of Jack Sparrow. In response to James Norrington’s statement, “You are the worst pirate I’ve ever heard of,” Jack cheekily replies, “But you have heard of me.”
When applied to Dune: Awakening, it translates to: “This is the worst game I’ve ever played.” => “But you’ve played it for over 200 hours.”
Kiad4ko makes another comparison in his response on Reddit: “Game of Thrones Season 1 to 7: 90 percent. Game of Thrones Season 8: 50 percent. If you serve the best 5-course menu of all time and end it with a pile of crap on a silver platter, you can’t expect a Michelin star.”
As film fans, we also appreciate the meme comparison from rddtltr on Reddit. Here we see a well-known scene from Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs, in which Lord Helmet’s troops literally comb through the desert.
Despite the motivated use of combs, the search result was: “There’s not even crap here, Sir.” rddtltr wishes to make clear how frustrating it feels to farm solo in the deep desert.
How does the community react to the comparisons? Among all the posts with many comments and upvotes.
- FRossJohnson comments on the “Pirates of the Caribbean” comparison on Reddit: “If you want to laugh, look at the reviews for games like Grim Dawn or Path of Exile. You will find negative reviews from people with 3,000 hours of playtime.”
- Aggressive_Back3675 comments on the comparison with GoT on Reddit: “You are very kind to Seasons 5 to 7, but you make an excellent point nonetheless.”
- statistacktic praises the Spaceballs comparison on Reddit: “Great gif and great movie.”
- xyphon0010 also criticizes the solo experience on Reddit: “The amount of these resources in the PvE zone is a joke, and players tend to build bases over these deposits and lock them down. This forces one to go into the PvP zone and risk being ambushed.”
Some players wish the developers had released the deep desert only after it could be properly tested. Others wish for the provision of pure PvE servers or private servers like in Conan Exiles, where one can adjust the rules to their liking. What do you think?
By the way, a new update for the survival MMO is set to be released on August 12, 2025, making it harder for griefers to hunt other players with a swarm of Ornithopters. You can find out what else is planned here: The next patch of Dune: Awakening brings no content, but many players are still looking forward to it
