Dune: Awakening - Survival in the Sands
Survival games are a genre that very rarely hit the mark for me. It isn’t that I am against the idea, and often I find myself enjoying them for a little while, but the busy work eventually gets the better of me, and I just can’t find the enthusiasm to keep going. That said, when they do hit, I have been known to become obsessed. State of Decay 2 has more hours on my Xbox than just about any other game, so I can be convinced. With that in mind, I went into Dune: Awakening with reasonably high expectations. A development team with a strong history in the genre, an exciting IP and the chance to do something new in a space that sometimes feels like it has gone stale. So how did it all shape up?
First, I want to say this isn’t a review. I just haven’t had enough time with the game to give it a full score. This sort of experience can take dozens of hours to really feel like you have progressed, and while I spent a good 15- 20 hours playing, I don’t feel like I can give a definitive view on how the game turned out. I can, however, let you know how I feel about it and whether, after this amount of time, things are looking good.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s get to the game. Things start off wonderfully, I have to say. It is clear this is a game that has been built with a deep knowledge of the parent IP. The create-a-character mode lets me choose my background, my base skills and my look, all under the guise of being interviewed by an adjudicator. It was a fun way to immediately feel like I was a part of the Dune universe. There is an interesting mismatch here graphically, though. The NPC characters during the introduction are all wonderfully detailed and look fantastic, but sadly, I just couldn’t get my own created character to look that good. I mean, I get it, but at the same time, it is pretty noticeable early on. Thankfully, though, as the game progresses, there are very few instances where this graphical anomaly pops up again, so it isn’t something that is likely to worry too many people.
I should also note that my time with the game has been entirely in the single-player mode. One of the reasons I am not scoring it is that I just couldn’t get into the multiplayer stuff before the release, and it is a very important part of the game, so leaving it out of my judgement would have been wrong.
The good news: despite the early access period being entirely set on multiplayer servers, the new single-player mode is much more than just a quick tack-on. Story plays a pretty big part here, and as I ran around, collecting materials and combating the natives, I was drip-fed story and goals from various NPCs, expanding the lore and giving me a reason to keep mining. This is where I think Dune Awakening really excels. A lot of survival games struggle to keep the story coming, or keep it interesting as players go about completing tasks, but not so here. It really does add an extra appeal to the gameplay that helps keep things engaging.
As for gameplay, if you have ever played a survival game before, you know what to expect. Mine, find or kill for materials, build new things, explore new areas and repeat. This is the core of every game in the genre, and it is no different here. The fact that the planet is such an interesting and dangerous place helps keep the grind engaging. As I progressed, I gradually unlocked new plans, tools and buildings to create and expand my footprint on the planet. It is a well-worn formula, but one that has been put together in such a way that it is never overwhelming, which is another big tick in the box.
When it comes to combat, I think this is where Dune: Awakening really kicks some goals. Too often, survival games have combat that is boring at best, especially early on. Thanks to some interesting abilities and cool weapons that I picked up within the first hour or so, I found I was having a blast taking on enemy camps and stashes. It is a nice mix of gunplay and knife-fighting that keeps things engaging, and it never felt like I was just swinging an underpowered weapon to no effect.
Sadly, for me, though, this is still too much of a survival game. There is no escaping the busywork. Too often I felt like I was just going through the motions. That is only exacerbated by madly trying to play as much as I could in a pre-release period. That said, I also enjoyed it enough that I can see myself dipping in and out of the game over a long period of time, playing for an hour or two here and there. It seems like the sort of game I could sit quietly on a Sunday arvo and chill with a beer while working towards my next building or trying to discover a new enemy outpost. If, however, you love these sorts of games, I think you will find Dune: Awakening to be one of the best available.
So, while this isn’t a review, I am happy to say there is a lot to like here. While it isn’t the sort of game I will play every day, when I do dip back in, I suspect I will be glad that I didn’t uninstall it. It works well on the console, without any noticeable controller-related jank, and it really does sit right at the top of the pile as far as the survival genre goes. A grand effort for a grand IP, especially if this is your sort of experience.
