Standing over the planes of Arrakis, I don’t assume I’ve ever felt so thirsty taking part in a sport.
Dune: Awakening, the survival expertise from Funcom, has lastly made its technique to consoles, and I’ve been trying out the sport on PS5. This was a launch I truly had a little bit of time with on PC, however determined to carry off for the eventual console launch. It’s been a prolonged wait, however this one has positively been price it.
Dune: Awakening drops you in an alternate timeline within the Duniverse, one the place the prophetic chief, Paul Atreides, is rarely born. That leaves the desert planet as a little bit of a No Man’s Land, with Home Harkonnen and Home Atreides, together with each different scavenger, vying for energy.
You play a customisable character, each cosmetically and in your backstory. My character was a trooper from the moist plains of Caladan, however you may make yours from Salusus Secundus, or that you just’re educated within the methods of the Mentat or Bene Gesserit.
These selections are cool role-playing points, however they’ll truly have an effect on a few of your dialogue selections and the beginning talent tree you may have entry to.
Your mission on Arrakis is easy: discover the Fremen. The native folks of Arrakis have gone lacking, with many believing that they’ve been fully worn out by the Emperor and his Sardaukar. Earlier than you possibly can even begin your investigation, your ship is shot down, and also you’re saved by a mysterious determine.
From there on out, you’re thrust upon the sandy vistas of Arrakis with nothing however the garments in your again. Instantly, there will probably be one factor in your thoughts: water.
Water goes to be a big a part of your early hours with the sport. Standing within the solar causes you to overheat, which in flip dehydrates you extra rapidly.
You’ll be able to sip dew from crops dotted across the map, however they solely partially quench your thirst. Which means there’s solely to this point your character can journey, as you rapidly collect provides to your beginning base.
It’s in these early hours that I actually loved the facility creep. You are exploring close by camps with a crappy maula pistol; you’re all the time thirsty; and it feels such as you’re gathering small quantities, heading again to base, and repeating it once more.
Nonetheless, greater than something, I believe Dune: Awakening excels with its sense of development. Exploring new areas, taking out enemies, and finishing quests aid you earn analysis factors, and people can be utilized to unlock schematics for brand new craftable objects.
Blood purifiers to make water, cisterns to retailer it, storage containers to your copious quantities of crafting supplies, ore refineries, chemical refineries, fabricators, and extra. Steadily you’ll be increasing your base, not only for the sake of it, however since you genuinely want the area.
You’ll be able to gate analysis unlocks to profession development if you’d like a extra linear expertise, however Dune manages to throw so much at you with out it ever feeling overwhelming or complicated. At any time when I headed out on an expedition, I knew precisely what I used to be leaving for. I all the time had a clear-cut objective in thoughts.
As you permit your humble abode, expeditions additionally change, like once I lastly unlocked the sandbike and will go a lot additional. Or once I unlocked the suspender belt and will use that along with my shiga wire grapple to scale mountains with ease.
The way in which I performed the sport and the tools I had entry to was consistently altering in a means that I all the time felt like I used to be constructing as much as larger and higher issues.
Base constructing can be plenty of enjoyable. This doesn’t really feel an excessive amount of like a PC sport sure to a console management scheme, so constructing and increasing your bases, in addition to inserting new objects, feels very straightforward.
It doesn’t have that awkward finicky placement challenge you get with plenty of survival video games like this. It simply works.
As soon as I’ve made my massive base in most survival video games, that’s sometimes the place I tail off. I’ve performed the cool stuff, and now I can’t be bothered entering into the weeds of all of it. However Dune has a few issues going for it.
For one, there is a pretty deep talent tree system. You begin with one relying in your character choice, however by exploring the world and coming throughout new quests, you possibly can steadily unlock extra.
These vary from combat-focused skills to traversal, so just like the craftable objects, these upgrades really feel genuinely significant to my play type.
Then there’s the lore facet. As an enormous fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune books and Denis Villeneuve’s films, it’s so cool attending to discover this sandy world.
Seeing the Hand of God moon or having to hold out the mantra of “the sluggish blade pierces the defend” in real-time fight is absolutely enjoyable.
Fight too is surprisingly tactile, particularly while you begin to unlock extra tools and weapons. Positive, enemies are fairly rinse-and-repeat, however encounters are snappy sufficient that I by no means actually received bored of it.
One thing I did get slightly bored of, although, had been a number of the extra linear mainline quests. There are a collection of Fremen trials, which do unlock substantial gear and talents, however they’re endlessly tedious.
Even worse is that I typically discovered these trials naturally, however I might solely activate them if that particular one was subsequent in line.
That is honest sufficient if these trials had been based mostly in that particular mountain, however every teleports you to a different place. It is a counterproductive design and truly stifled my sense of exploration, as I began to wonder if I ought to discover some cliff if I did not have a quest marker pointing me in that path.
Nonetheless, a lot of what I’ve spoken about has been the case for the reason that sport launched in 2025 on PC. What does this console model do to deliver new gamers in? The most important, and certain most interesting addition is that of single participant.
When Dune: Awakening launched, it was just about an MMO. With PvE areas and PvP areas, every server you dropped into you’d share with your pals, but additionally randoms.
That meant the place you constructed your bases was restricted, and naturally, as you get into these PvP areas, specifically the Deep Desert, all of your laborious work will be scuppered by some hostile gamers.
That is all nonetheless there for these which might be eager for it, however Funcom has seen that most folks play this sport as a solo expertise. Now, as a substitute of making an attempt to drive a multiplayer sport right into a single-player-styled expertise, there’s a wholly devoted mode.
You’ll be able to’t carry your characters from multiplayer to solo, nevertheless it means you possibly can take your time with it. I believe this frees Dune: Awakening in plenty of methods, as you are not burdened by the stress to maintain up with a live-service-like sport.
Single participant does take away a little bit of the spark of the sport, for me personally, however I additionally admire that I can now play the entire thing at my very own tempo.
I believe, long-term, it’ll guarantee I preserve coming again to the sport, and since Dune’s development methods are so RPG-leaning, it nonetheless doesn’t really feel like the purpose of the sport has been eliminated.
You’ve additionally received over a yr’s price of streamlining and sprucing due to Funcom implementing participant suggestions. Having performed the sport at launch on PC, I couldn’t actually inform you what was new or not – it doesn’t really feel like a brand new sport or something – however I did admire the power to repeat and pack up my base.
One factor is for certain although: Dune: Awakening doesn’t really feel like an early entry sport. It’s the total package deal.
All of that is topped off by fairly first rate efficiency on each PS5 and PS5 Professional. Body charges are pretty secure, and there’s even a wee little bit of DualSense haptic help in there for good measure. Dune Awakening can be a nice-looking sport, nevertheless it’s not going to win any awards in that division both.
