Dune: Awakening lets you wage 100-player spice wars

Pilot ornithopters, tanks, and buggies in combined arms PvP

Dune: Awakening / Funcom

“Combined arms.” These are the words that grab my attention during a private presentation of Dune: Awakening, and they tease the incredible potential in this upcoming PC and console MMO. 

The term ‘combined arms’ references a multi-pronged approach to warfare integrating more than one facet of a military power. In the case of Dune: Awakening, it means battling across land and air in dozens of detailed Dune vehicles.

You can purchase and pilot an agile ornithopter from the House Atreides tech tree, get your hands on a chunky gunship that’s the pride of the Harkonnen fleet, flit across the sands in a nimble buggy, or ferry infantry into battle with an armored troop transport.

That said, it’s worth noting none of this was actually shown during the presentation. It was merely described, like the Fremen passing down a folk tale. But if the combined arms gameplay is as epic as developer Funcom describes, Dune: Awakening will do its prestigious sci-fi license justice. 

Part survival game, part MMO, the story sees your created character rise to dominance on Arrakis. You can align yourself with either House Atreides or House Harkonnen, unlock powerful new abilities by meeting Mentats and Bene Gesserit, build your own fortress, and harvest the rare resource known as spice to take control of the planet itself. 

Again, none of this is demonstrated. The game might promise social interactivity in a large, persistent world, but my presentation focuses on the weaker single-player elements. This begins as the player embarks on a solo mission into a dark canyon. The great houses have been fighting over a lucrative shipwreck here for years. It’s time to end the stalemate.

Dune: Awakening / Funcom

We transition from golden sands to a deep crevice, with the vehicle’s headlights turning on automatically and casting inky shadows on the cliff walls. Once inside the crashed ship, AI enemies attack. Combat looks stilted at this point in the game’s admittedly early development, despite numerous nods to the source material. 

As a trooper class, for instance, you can use your shigawire to grapple enemies, deflect with your Holtzman shield, and even utilize a jumping knee attack modeled on Dune’s martial arts, Balintawak Eskrima.

There’s also suspensor tech of the type used by Baron Harkenon, giving you the ability to fly in short bursts. Fights at this early point in the game lack all of the swiftness and finesse of the films, however, resembling a group of bad dancers squaring off in a silent disco.

Dune: Awakening / Funcom

Once they’re defeated, the player cracks open a chest filled with a few resources, and the mission ends. It’s standard MMO fare in a Dune skin, and doesn’t show the game in the best light.

After, I’m treated to a flying tour of the starting area in an impressively film-accurate ornithopter whose wings don’t quite animate properly yet. Once you build one, you can venture out into the continent, controlling your craft in a top-down, 2D map, provided you’ve got enough fuel for the trip.

Here, the game’s full size is revealed. Where the first location is limited to 40 concurrent players, outside maps are nine times the size with hundreds of active participants. Cataclysmic Coriolis storms sweep through every seven days, randomizing the geography and uncovering valuable new resources for players to fight over. The ever-changing desert should keep things fresh.

Dune: Awakening / Funcom

Dune: Awakening looks for inspiration beyond Director Denis Villneuve’s films, using them as a jumping-off point. Where they’re largely centered on one region on Arrakis, the game lets you explore a much more diverse continent. 

The red sands of Mars are a key design reference, as is the uniquely forlorn topography of Kansas and Oregon. There are also numerous locations from Frank Herbert’s novels to discover, including ancient underground ecology labs, and bustling villages filled with NPCs, with lively bars you can go and dance in with your buddies (again, according to the guy who gave the presentation).

The game’s best ideas are described rather than exhibited. For instance, you can apparently create a guild and ally with one of the Great Houses to become what’s known as a House Minor, building a base of operations funded by your growing economic dominance.

Dune: Awakening / Funcom

You might want to assemble a group of players and push into the deep desert in search of riches, or stick to the map’s safer edges and scavenge what you can. After finding and harvesting spice with your personal sand crawlers, you can then sell it on the exchange to increase your financial standing or consume it to unlock new powers (none of this is shown).

In addition to these MMO elements, Dune: Awakening has brutal survival mechanics. You’ll need to find water, extract it from bodies, and maintain your stillsuit, as well as craft your shelter to survive sun and sandstorms. If that wasn’t enough, there’s the biggest threat on Arrakis to watch out for: sandworms (this isn’t shown either).

At some point in the future, apparently, Funcom is going to add the ability to ride sandworms, but they’re working on how to do it without making it look dumb. This is a life-affirming moment for Paul Atreides, and an almost religious experience for the Fremen, so the last thing the game needs is to make Shai-Hulud look like a Fortnite mount.

Dune: Awakening / Funcom

Out of everything, however, it’s the combined arms that tantalize the most. Picture the scene: you facing down an army of advancing Sardaukar as you prime your shield and prepare to engage in desperate hand-to-hand combat when suddenly a troop transport shows up and drops off a dozen supporting infantry, all as ornithopters streak across the sky.

It would be incredible, had Funcom showed it. Instead, the presentation was a single-player mission and a solo flyby over a desert. Dune: Awakening has the potential to be huge, but until we see some gameplay, take its promises with a big pinch of sand.

There is no Dune: Awakening release date yet.