Friends, I have consumed a life-changing amount of mind-altering substances and reduced my brain to wet goo, and in return, the tides of time have revealed to me the release date for Dune: Awakening, Funcom’s survival MMO set in Herbert’s sandy universe, which I enjoyed significantly at a demo last month. Today, the studio released a trailer announcing the actual launch date.
Dune: Awakening will launch on PC on May 20 this year for $50, with details about the console versions still pending. For some reason—likely due to my conditioned response to anything labeled ‘survival’—I keep mislabeling the game launch as an early access release, but that’s incorrect. May 20 marks the full game launch at version 1.0.
The trailer highlights much of the earlier gameplay I experienced in my demo. Players take on the role of a minion sent by the Bene Gesserit to ‘find the Fremen’ and ‘awaken the sleeper’ in an alternate history of Arrakis, where Paul Atreides has never been born and the houses of Harkonnen and Atreides engage in a War of Assassins. Following a ship crash, you are guided by a character in a stillsuit to construct your dwelling, fend off scavengers, and raid dungeons for resources.
If this game hasn’t caught your attention because you typically shy away from ‘survival’ and ‘MMO’ titles, I encourage you to reconsider. My experiences with Dune: Awakening were genuinely enjoyable and thrilling, largely because I found I could skip many tedious tasks common in such titles (like tree-punching and exhaustive resource gathering) to dive straight into exploration and its unique, Dune-inspired combat.
The later stages of the game seem intriguing as well, as after mastering basic survival skills, gameplay transitions to political strategy, allowing players and their chosen factions to navigate the Landsraad (Dune’s governing body) to establish beneficial laws and undermine their rivals. Should the studio execute this concept effectively, I foresee a wave of political intrigue reminiscent of EVE Online, as players concoct grand schemes to outmaneuver each other.
