After thoroughly analyzing the previews and interviews from the Summer Game Fest, we’ve gathered all the latest details about Dune: Awakening. This new information primarily builds on previously covered topics, offering deeper insights and exciting revelations. To make it easier to digest these updates, we’ve compiled the key points into a concise list layout below.
Combat, Exploration, and Survival Mechanics
- Melee Combat and Shields: Some articles about the SGF presentation emphasize melee combat, with players needing to break enemy shields before causing real damage, meaning you need to stay on the offensive. Sadly, no more details on melee were mentioned in the articles. Ranged combat and stealth were also demoed.
- Vehicles and Sandworms: While it was already known that ground vehicles could attract sandworms, we learned from the Summer Game Fest that in Dune: Awakening, all vehicles, including ornithopters, attract them.
- Sand Varieties and Hazards: The game features diverse types of sand, such as red sand (iron-infused Vermilus Gap was shown), yellow sand, black rock sand, compact sand, loose sand, and bubbling sand (quicksand). Drum sand areas are hazardous due to the vibrations that attract sandworms.
- No Healer Class: There are currently no plans for a healer class in the game.
- Main Narrative: A central story is told throughout the game, with contracts (quests) and eco labs (dungeons) contributing to the lore but not being the defining elements.
- New Beginner Experience: This feature is offered at the beginning of the game, tailored for players unfamiliar with survival games, easing them into the mechanics and challenges of Dune: Awakening.
- No Classic MMORPG Progression: The game is not a World of Warcraft-style theme park. Players looking for quest hub to quest hub progression with clearly defined gear limitations and long quest chains may be disappointed, as this isn’t Funcom‘s primary focus. Unlike traditional MMOs like World of Warcraft, Dune: Awakening does not feature floating names or recommended levels for enemies.
- Helping Enslaved People: In Dune: Awakening, players can assist but not own or enslave people. Whether assistance involves lending a hand, completing quests, or freeing them needs to be clarified.
- Ecology Labs Integated in PVE and PvP Zones: In the demo, they showed flying into a canyon and entering an eco lab. Deserters live in parts of the fault walls. Eco labs can be part of the larger world, similar to open-world MMOs like Asheron’s Call, without being in a separate, instanced area. This area was called Hagga Rift, and because it’s a PvP zone, you might encounter both NPCs and other players.
- Spacejunk Crashes: While flying the ornithopter, a piece of space junk suddenly crashed into the vehicle, highlighting the game’s live, unpredictable events.
Factions and Allegiances
- Faction Interaction: Players can align with major factions such as House Atreides, Harkonnen, the Bene Gesserit, and others. They can also play multiple sides simultaneously, for example, working for both Atreides and Harkonnen. If players stick to one faction, they can unlock faction-specific rewards faster. Faction alliances impact quests, vendors, vehicles (such as a Harkonnen ornithopter that is three times larger than regular ones), buildable structures, and access to weapons.
- Mentors and Skills: Factions provide mentors to teach new skills and combat maneuvers.
- Dynamic Events: Faction allegiances can trigger world events. For instance, siding with Harkonnen may involve witnessing or participating in events like the execution of Atreides prisoners of war.
- Carthag’s History: In the alternate timeline, Carthag, the capital of Arrakis under House Harkonnen, was destroyed by atomics. The Harkonnen are now rebuilding it as “New Carthag,” re-enslaving locals to work on it.
- Factions and Control: In the power vacuum left by the Fremen’s disappearance, various factions vie for control, each with unique skills, weapons, equipment, and tactics.
- Deep Desert Challenges: Venturing into the deep desert introduces tougher enemies and severe survival challenges. Territory control, especially of spice fields, is a key aspect, primarily in dedicated PvP areas.
Crafting and Building
- Base Construction: Players can construct bases and homes using the same system as the developers. You can replicate complex structures in the game and create nearly developer-quality designs.
- No Terraforming: Terrain manipulation or adding trees is not possible, but bases can be embedded in rock formations.
- No Food Farming: The game has no plans for food farming or crop harvesting.
- House Shields: Bases are protected by House Shields, which prevent damage and protect you from other players as long as power generators are maintained.
- Flower Sand: Players can collect it and refine it into silicon at the base. Resource-gathering tools, like the sand compactor, can attract threats like sandworms.
- Loot System: Loot in Dune: Awakening follows a system reminiscent of many MMOs, ranging from vendor trash to legendary gear. Players can acquire items through dynamic events, dungeons, and exploration.
- Schematics: Loot includes schematics for new equipment, buildings, or vehicles. Some schematics are unique for single items, and others are for unlimited production use, offering varied crafting experiences.
- Weapon and Equipment Mods: Schematics found in loot can include modifications for weapons and equipment—for example, explosive shells or plasteel-puncturing rounds. Schematics with mods could, e.g., drop in your re-run of ecology labs.
- Armor Customization: Players can dye their armor, and Funcom plans to implement a transmog system.
Additional Details
- Cross-Platform Play: Funcom is considering cross-platform play, though no announcements have been made.
Inverse.com – Dune: Awakening Is the Massively Ambitious Game the Series Needs
Gamerant.com – Dune: Awakening Preview – Checking Out The War of Assassins
GameSpot.com – We Got A Look At Dune: Awakening’s Massive Desert Maps And MMO Elements
Gamereactor.eu – Dune: Awakening Preview – Arrakis has never felt so real
Games.MXDWN.com – Dune: Awakening Preview: Surviving A Planet At War
ShackNews.com – E4 Remake: Dune: Awakening community questions answered
