While countless sci-fi and survival game fans are anxiously awaiting Funcom's Dune: Awakening, the game is facing down a barrel of potential issues. With the oversaturation of the survival genre to the fairly niche nature of Funcom's previous game, Conan Exiles, Dune: Awakening has a good deal to prove, and it needs to capitalize on its unique strengths for the best chance of success.
To be fair to Dune: Awakening, Funcom seems to be evolving from the Conan Exiles formula. Based on available footage, Dune: Awakening looks far more technically polished than Exiles, with visuals, animation, and combat mechanics that are ostensibly smoother and more satisfying. Generally speaking, the game looks to be more aligned with modern AAA expectations than Conan Exiles, but it still has to overcome the crowdedness of the open-world survival market, and leaning into its source material is the best way to do this.
Dune: Awakening Lets You Drink Enemy Blood to Stay Hydrated
Funcom reveals that Dune: Awakening features hydration, which can be achieved in a variety of ways, as a major aspect of its survival mechanics.
Dune: Awakening Has Rich Lore That It Needs to Draw Upon
Survival Games Like Dune: Awakening Are a Dime a Dozen
The past few years have seen an influx of survival games, spawning from early successes like Minecraft. A few of the most notable successes in the space include:
- V Rising
- Valheim
- ARK: Survival Evolved
- Sons of the Forest
- Rust
- Subnautica
- Grounded
- Palworld
The best survival games thrive off the backs of their unique takes on the genre. Something like V Rising has remained relevant long past its early access period because of its novel vampire premise, for instance. Another strong example would be Subnautica, whose alien, underwater setting makes for an exciting and original survival sandbox, where crafting and resource grinding has room to grow in exciting ways. Dune: Awakening needs to fall into this category, using its inherent strengths as an adaptation to its benefit.
Dune: Awakening Is Uniquely Positioned for Success Because of Its Source Material
Although Dune: Awakening takes place in a different timeline than the original Dune books, it still shares the same ingredients. Taking place on Arrakis and making staples like spice and warring factions available for players to engage with can set it apart from its competition, especially since licensed survival games are exceedingly rare.
Dune: Awakening can't just be Conan Exiles with a Dune-colored coat of paint—it needs to fully leverage the lore of the original Dune franchise in unexpected and meaningful ways. Confirmed features like the shifting sands of Arrakis, which can radically change the world design in real-time, are a good start, but Funcom should take care to make these sorts of ideas meaningful and distinct, rather than simply a lore-supported excuse for things like the procedural generation that survival fans have grown accustomed to.
Spice is another example of where Dune: Awakening can shine. The fictional psychotropic substance plays a pivotal role in the world of Dune, simultaneously serving as a highly contested resource and a powerful, mind-altering drug. With Dune: Awakening being an MMO, it can create a surprisingly faithful and immersive experience centered around the fight for spice, if the substance is treated with the proper reverence and weight.
Gaming audiences are no stranger to cash-grab licensed games that use their source material as little more than a marketing tool, while being generic and uninspired at their core. Dune's deep and complex worldbuilding can serve as fertile ground for Dune: Awakening to avoid this issue and grow powerful gameplay systems. Funcom just needs to be a thoughtful gardener.
WHERE TO PLAY
Rise from survival to dominance on the most dangerous planet in the universe. Dune: Awakening combines the grit and creativity of sandbox survival games with the social interactivity of a large, persistent multiplayer game to create a unique and ambitious Open World Survival MMO.
Awaken The Sleeper
Your journey begins on Arrakis, with its vast deserts and colossal sandworms. Meet characters from the movies and books as you follow your story across Dune. Discover new allies and enemies and exploit your relationships to uncover the mystery that lies just beneath the surface of the sands.
Choose Your Identity
Craft your identity and build your prowess, from deep character creation to skills and abilities taught by specialists like Mentats and Bene Gesserit. Declare your loyalties by what you wear and become known by what you do, whether you are a specialized master or multi-talented adept.
Explore Arrakis Like Never Before
Dune: Awakening brings the epic landscapes of Arrakis to vivid life. Explore boundless rolling dunes, ancient underground Ecology Labs, and deep canyons pockmarked with caves, where bandits seek easy prey. Wander the bustling villages before braving the lawless and ever-changing deep desert.
- Platform(s)
- PC
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Survival, MMO
