This will be the best sci-fi MMO for those who think Star Wars is too nice

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For MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus, Dune: Awakening is one of the games he is most looking forward to. Now, at gamescom 2024, he was able to play it for the first time and the new MMO delivers everything our survival expert wanted.

When Dune: Awakening was announced, I was immediately excited about the game. The new game from the Conan Exiles makers wants to combine MMORPG and survival, something that the developers themselves say is the next logical step in the genre.

Huge areas in which players interact with each other and with NPCs, build their own bases and come together in guilds to bring life to the world. That’s exactly what many people expect from Dune: Awakening – and after all, over a million fans are waiting for the game. With good reason, the game is promising:

  • Funcom has a long history and has proven in the past that they are well versed in both MMOs (Anarchy Online, Age of Conan) and the survival genre (Conan Exiles).
  • Even seven years after its release, Conan Exiles still regularly has over 10,000 players on Steam alone (via steamcharts).
  • With the Conan saga, the studio has already done a good job of implementing a rough franchise. Now, with Dune, a setting that is at least similar is on the cards.

    • The name alone was enough to get the audience cheering for the new gameplay trailer during the Opening Night Live at gamescom 2024. At the trade fair, interested parties were then able to take a look at the game for themselves at a large stand.

    I was also invited to play Dune: Awakening for an hour. But the time went by so quickly that it could have been seven hours and I wouldn’t have noticed. I immediately felt at home – and that’s exactly what was intended.

    Trailer for Dune shows gameplay – from Survivor to Spice Hunter

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    A survival MMO that everyone can find their way around immediately

    Dune: Awakening plays pretty much exactly like Conan Exiles. From the very first second, the controls felt intuitive, everything was somehow logical – with the exception of a few special skills.

    The core features are certainly known to every survival player and almost self-evident to Conan players:

  • Crafting is basically done via the inventory and advanced recipes are created at workbenches.
  • You build bases with components by creating blueprints and then filling them with materials.
  • Dune is a desert planet, so of course there are sandstorms and the need for protection from heat and wind.
  • The only resource for survival is water, which you have to pay attention to – and which you can get in the form of the blood of your enemies in an emergency.
  • You level and skill your character using a talent system and learn new recipes as well as skills for combat.
  • Just like Conan Exiles, Dune: Awakening has a “journey” that roughly guides you through the game if you get stuck. Everything else is a big sandbox.

    • In an interview with Chief Creative Director Joel Bylos after the playthrough, the boss told me: The studio wanted to achieve exactly the connection to Conan Exiles. They took the aspects of the survival game that are celebrated and expanded on them. One example: climbing. That was the first thing I did out of reflex: attach myself to a wall and climb up.

    However, Dune: Awakening is not simply a copy of Conan Exiles. It is actually much more than just a survival game. The goal is to bring many players together on one server and let them survive on the desert planet. How many players can fit on one server has not yet been determined.

    Dune itself is a franchise in the sci-fi sector that is known for its dark, adult atmosphere. It is much rougher than Star Wars, although even that can be pretty brutal in places. But with the content in Awakening, the developers have really hit Dune on the mark.

    Help, a sandworm ate my base!

    Of course, I haven’t been able to see much of this while playing. But guilds are supposed to play a big role, especially when it comes to the fight for the spice. And this also shows why Dune is so popular with fans like me:

  • There are references to the franchise everywhere, especially with regard to the new films.
  • During the test, I was able to fly around in an ornithopter and look at the enormous world. For comparison: The starting map is supposed to be as big as the world of Conan Exiles, and the Spice Desert is supposed to be eight times bigger.
  • Important and well-known NPCs appear later in the story, such as House Harkonnen and the Fremen. You can even learn from the Fremen how to move properly on sand.

    • Spice will – of course – be the central resource alongside water. With spice you can bribe NPCs and cook food, like in the movies. And that’s important because it increases your almost magical abilities and makes you stronger, but it can also make you addicted.

    My absolute highlight was a huge sandworm. At some point while playing I noticed that I was apparently making noises on sand. I stopped in a panic and a short while later a sandworm burst out of a dune next to me.

    That alone was impressive. A short time later, I thought the perfect location for my base was near a raider camp – in the middle of the sand. When everything was finally set up, my worm friend came back and ate half the base in one bite.

    Two shortcomings that aren’t actually shortcomings

    In just an hour, you can’t get much more than a first impression. However, I have already found two things that could cause annoyance, at least at first glance: the rather poor graphics and, above all, the PvP, which has destroyed survival games before.

    But neither of these is actually a problem. Yes, the graphics are not as pretty as in many current games, such as Enshrouded. But that’s not acceptable. If dozens of players play on one server and all build their own giant base, even the strongest computer would quickly become overloaded with graphics that are too demanding. And experience shows that survival fans prefer a sandbox.

    As for PvP: That’s purely optional. The huge Spice Desert only provides exactly that, spice. And you can get that through trading. The area is intended for war between guilds that plough through the sand with ornithopters and harvesters and fight over the rare resource.

    If you’re solo and brave, you can try to get in somewhere on the edge of the desert and get something. If you don’t feel like doing that, just stay at home and trade. The desert is reset regularly, like in Rust, to ensure a level playing field.

    What really bothers me, however, is the lack of a solo and co-op mode like Conan Exiles has. That is not planned for the time being, just like private servers, because the size of the servers would simply be problematic. But they said they would look into it.

    “We are making a game for fans who like that kind of thing”

    When I was able to talk to Joel Bylos for half an hour after playing, I noticed straight away: The man is keen on the game and loves what he does. It’s rare that I get to chat so intimately with developers about nerd topics. Here you can find the first part of the interview with Joel Bylos: “Taught me about the dynamics of players”

    When asked what he liked most about the development, Joel gave me a very detailed answer:

    The thing I enjoy most about developing games like Dune is thinking about what players would be most excited about. Also thinking about what game mechanics make Dune unique. I feel like there are often situations where you say, “Oh, I liked that game, let’s do that too.” We have raids. MMOs have raids to kill big bosses, we have raids to harvest spice fields, which is a very different feeling.

    There is a political system in the game for the Landsraad and when I designed it I thought no one had ever done anything like this before. So how do we make this system work the way we want it to? And I don’t know if it works, […] but I’m happy to take that risk.

    There is a feature in the game, […] that the desert is wiped every week, which I’m very happy about. The area is high risk because players can lose a lot. Similar to Rust. […] I was wondering if we could make the mechanics work. And I wanted to do that in a game that was long-lasting. There are the safer areas and then there’s the desert. […]

    The only way to know if the design is really successful is when other games copy it, so I hope some of our ideas are innovative.

    Although Dune: Awakening will be an MMO and you can only play it online with others, it will be possible to play solo. You just need somewhere to set up your base. Guilds will be limited in the number of members so that one mega-guild doesn’t dominate a server and tyrannize everyone – the problem that was Last Oasis’ downfall.

    Webedia Gaming (GameStar, GamePro, MeinMMO) is accompanying the big gaming event as the official media partner of Gamescom 2024. It will be an exciting week for everyone who makes their way to gamescom. But also on screen, because there will be more streams – for example the FYNG show from GameStar, GamePro and MeinMMO.

    Finally, Joel told me that he doesn’t want to make a game for the masses: “They only write bad Steam reviews anyway.” It’s important to him to deliver a good game for people who really want it. And from what I’ve seen, Funcom keeps its promise. I’m excited about Dune: Awakening and I liked everything I saw. And even though I’m absolutely in love, another game became my highlight: A Warhammer 40k RPG is the best game at gamescom 2024

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