When Dune: Awakening first hit the PC, I was impressed. It captured the majesty of the books, the magic of the movies, and put the player right in the middle of it all. The open-world aspect was all-encompassing and truly brought the Dune experience to life through its gameplay. In other words, I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Now, over a year after its initial release, it has made its way to the PlayStation 5 (and other consoles). The problem with games like this is how the translation from mouse/keyboard to controller ends up. With so many options and so many ways to approach the world, making sure the controls aren’t cumbersome is the first big concern for this title, since you never want to pull the player out of the experience. We will certainly discuss how this aspect of gameplay ended up.
What about the rest of the game? Everything it brought with the PC version, which includes story, gameplay, and graphics, exists quite well in the PS5 version. It doesn’t stray from the original release; instead, it probably works better, given it’s been a year in the making. In short, I am very impressed.
Let’s talk.
For fans of the book series, they’ll probably be far more connected and critical of the story that Funcom drummed up for the game. One of my good friends, an enormous Dune fan, told me Funcom took some liberties with the world but, for the most part, created a potent atmosphere and world that respects the sacred story. You can see that with every movement you make while journeying through Arrakis. The game’s story is lush with scavengers trying to make a buck on the planet and survive its harsh conditions. It has an overbearing gloom/doom-ness, with ships flying everywhere, trying to clean up the riff-raff hanging around so they can keep the spice to themselves. Abandoned, devastated reminders of past explorers and soldiers who weren’t so lucky with their survival tactics litter the planet. Everything in this game supports the Dune world and helps back up what has already been presented in various media formats.
In short, the story is good, it’s complicated, and it’s better built because of the atmosphere and care/love Funcom put into it. If players want a strong story and a world-building experience that connects well with the original material, this game delivers.
As thick as the story needs to be, the gameplay must match that same volume. The story doesn’t throw too much at you too quickly; rather, it’s a slow dribble. The gameplay matches that same pace. For the first 2-3 hours, players learn the ropes through very slow gameplay tutorials. For an online experience, that is a long time. Players will certainly die all over the place as they get used to surviving the desert and its inhabitants, but what the game puts the player through at the beginning makes the rest of the experience much smoother.
The first big tutorial gets players into the game by having them break into a ship and kill all its crew. Players will learn to fight with knives, avoid attacks, and pick up basic materials, such as clothing and other items, to survive. Unlike the first go-around with the PC version, the controls have been tightened and perfected for battle. While the PC version had me stop to choose weapons or dart guns, the PS5 version used an R1 wheel and quick choices via thumbstick movement that felt incredibly intuitive. I found this console design to be a non-factor in the gameplay pace. I was incredibly impressed that Funcom found a smooth way to get players what they need without much thought. I was genuinely worried about this aspect of the gameplay because typically going from an open-world PC design to console isn’t an easy or smooth transition for developers. That is not the case with this release of Dune: Awakening.
Beyond controls, and on the fighting side of the tracks, when players choose the right weapon from the menu, the controls feel good when firing at enemies. Looking down-sight at enemies and then firing feels comfortable and very fun. I commend Funcom for making that nearly perfect in this third-person experience. I never felt like I was going to lose a battle with a gun or other handheld weaponry that wasn’t a knife. My aim always seemed on point, which I appreciated. It made me want to test the world and get into fights where the odds were against me, simply because I was confident in how the fighting felt.
Beyond guns, the game also focuses heavily on knife fights. While the PC version of this game was a bit janky in how it handled those fights, the controller’s haptic feedback and the perfected ease of use with the knife made the experience so much better. It was easy to stab an enemy slowly, and even easier to parry them. That smoothed-out weapon and fighting mechanics added a real offensive option. It expanded fighting styles and made sure that when the chips were down on the gun side, my character could still survive against enemies.
Ultimately, as players push through the game and learn to use weapons as they become bigger and better, the fighting really starts to kick on all good cylinders. Again, Funcom did a great job with translating the controls over to console, and it pays off when scrums happen.
Outside of fighting, the game does a superb job of bringing a huge world with dangerous stakes to the gameplay. The game doesn’t pull punches when it throws players into Arrakis’ world. It is heartless and relentless. Players will run into scavengers in caves, which, at least early in the game, will do their best to take them out.
Dune: Awakening will also throw other, more high-tech enemies at players from ships in the sky, which will chase them down if they step into their spotlights. It only takes one encounter with the spotlights before you realize what a terrible idea that is. If a player steps into the light, enemies float down from these ships and chase them relentlessly through the desert. When I say the enemies chase you, I mean they don’t let go until the player is dead or they are dead.
And if those two dangers weren’t enough at the start of the journey, the game throws in the threat of sandworms, which can surprise one during gameplay and easily kill a character as well. The game at least warns when characters make too much noise on the sand, as an audio waveform reading on screen shifts from orange to red as a sandworm approaches. Heading for higher ground or rock formations helps signal those moments, but damn, it’s scary and intense.
Other enemies show their violent faces as the player traverses the world and opens more and more maps, which only builds the world’s girth. Dune: Awakening’s world is huge, so you’ll run into plenty of violent people.
Now, if a wide variety of living enemies weren’t enough to build the world in this game, then Arrakis’ harsh conditions certainly fill that void. At the start of the game, the harsh weather and heat play a role in Dune: Awakening’s world-building. If a player is out in the sun too long, they’ll dehydrate and eventually die. If they get caught in a terrible sandstorm, which varies in size, they have the potential to be killed because of the debris blowing around inside it. If they don’t stay hydrated through water and blood collection from enemies in the game, they’ll also dehydrate and die. If a player imagines a dangerous world when reading the Dune novels or watching the films, then congrats! Funcom captured that dangerous world in this game.
Overall, Arrakis feels big and real, with enemies, environments, and gritty physical features. This planet is basically a sci-fi Wild West that is lawless, as it is physically demanding and dangerous. I love the world-building in the game, as it keeps players in a constant state of survival on multiple levels and makes them frequently check that they’re in a safe area, away from enemies, and in good health. This is as close as anyone could get to experiencing Arrakis.
Up to this point, if all the above sounds like an easy MMO experience, then just wait, because you’re about to see the more complex, slow-moving parts of the game. By ‘slow-moving,’ I mean you’ll have to earn every inch to progress properly through crafting.
The crafting in Dune: Awakening plays a vital role in the overall gameplay. It affects the story, quests, and contracts; how you get around in the game and, most importantly, your survival. Players build shelters, create machines to process water, assemble fabricators to make parts, and even print new clothing to survive Arrakis’ conditions. Crafting also includes refineries and storage, and players must collect materials relentlessly to meet the requirements for the objects they will eventually need to build to progress.
The building process in this game is methodical, as it is picky. Players will spend a good chunk of time in the harsh environment collecting elements, such as ore, granite, metals, and whatnot, and then come back to build specific items from those combined elements, only to collect more and have a go at it again. As a player gets further into the game, materials get scarcer and the crafting ‘asks’ become more complicated. For example, when you reach the point where you must build a sandbike, it will ask for every piece of that bike before you can use it. Players must collect special materials, mostly found in scavenger camps, and then produce a hull, engine, three treads, storage, and a fuel intake. Then, once you complete that process, which will take you an hour or two, you must regularly produce fuel for it.
Crafting relates to nearly every aspect of this game. It’s a slow process that leads you to new experiences in the game, which only pulls you deeper into the overall experience. I think I visited more locations when putting that damn bike together, which only added to the world-building experience the game was trying to extend and got me hooked. Well, it worked, and crafting, in all its glory, is a strong gameplay element that makes sense within the world of Arrakis and Dune and helps continually push players through the world to experience it.
There is a lot of crafting, though, so be prepared to do a lot of gathering with good payoff.
If players need more reason to play this game for hours upon hours, the game’s motivating backend structure will push them into an almost unhealthy obsession with Dune: Awakening. A lot is going on with the backend of the game.
As players continue through the game, they gain XP through contracts and general actions, such as taking down enemies or collecting lost items. However, as the player moves forward and earns more XP, they earn skill points that let them access several skill trees. These could be skills in the Weirding Way or using your Voice to control people. Skills might also include improving a character’s ability to explore and/or complete tasks more efficiently. Regardless of what you want to concentrate on when using skill points, you have five initial categories to choose from and three trees per category.
Because of the wide range of paths, and believe me, there are multiple skills per tree, you can put together some pretty wild strategies that deepen the experience and keep you motivated to keep coming back for more, even when the game becomes a little mundane (and it can happen). There is so much going on with the multiple skill trees, abilities, and techniques you can acquire. You can play this game in several different ways and still get a different experience each time.
I’m thoroughly impressed with the size of the game’s backend, and I can only imagine how much larger it will become as it continues its journey.
On that note, I’ve covered the main pieces and parts. Let’s wrap up this review.
Conclusion
Dune: Awakening, from developer and publisher Funcom, brings the same massive world to the PlayStation 5 that it introduced on the PC. This version is more polished than the original release a year ago, which means less finickiness in the gameplay and a lot more fun.
