Dune: Awakening Preview: Final thoughts following several hours on Arrakis

It was a dark and stormy night. Just not on Arrakis. Here there is sand, sun, and a constant struggle for survival.

Funcom's Dune MMORPG is based on the universe itself, but a slightly alternative version where Paul Atreides was never born and thus the actual events in what constitute a very long prologue in the Dune story never took place.

You play as a secret agent - somewhat willingly - for the Bene Gesserit, who are best described as equal parts nuns, CIA, and Illuminati. Of course, this is Dune, so you don't get very far before everyone around you is dead. In fact, you don't even set foot on the planet before this happens... It follows a number of classic formulae for this type of game, but with some nice little twists. The narrative is appealing enough and you really feel like a small piece of the larger conflict while pursuing your own motives.

If you've played Star Wars: The Old Republic, you'll feel at home in the large landscape and user interface, and if you've played survival mode in Fallout 4, for example, you know how hard it is to keep yourself going with basic and limited resources. There is also a radioactive component to manage, but Arrakis has two things that sets Dune: Awakening apart from many other games of this type: sun and sand. In addition, as in many games, you struggle with limited storage space, both on your person and in your base, with the two bases you can use in the beta unable to be connected, which is inconvenient as unless you like getting your flesh ground down to the bone by a sandstorm, you need one of these.

It may sound extremely trite, and although I often operated on a third of my health, it was my water level that was clearly the biggest problem. Besides Sardaukar patrol ships, which made crossing the vast desert far from easy, especially at night, and sandworms too, during the daytime it was the rapid drainage of water levels and especially the risk of sunstroke that became the biggest threat. Basic survival is a constant concern for the first five-to-six hours. You have to get to the point where you have access to a Stillsuit and not least a blood purification system. And why is that? Well, the easiest way to get water is to kill people, drain their blood, purify it, and then drink it. You can also drink the blood of the person you just brutally murdered impurified and fresh, but it's not super healthy. Still, for now, "desert vampire" will be my new nickname, even if it's definitely not something to spend research points on prioritising.

There's a decent combat system - only after a few hours do you get access to something resembling a knife and an automatic weapon. Until then, you're equipped with what is essentially a large razor blade and a small air rifle. It works, but it's not super effective. Luckily for me, I had specialised as the Swordmaster class, because a skill-tree class system is also present, and that helped me a lot in the first few hours. But when the game is released in a little over a month, I think I'll be more interested in killing enemies from a distance, as melee combat quickly becomes costly and a bit too dangerous.

Funcom deserves a little extra praise for selling the game for €50 during a time when more and more big titles are hitting €70. Incidentally, there are already four DLCs waiting in the wings. In addition, there is also a free benchmark system on Steam, so you can try out the most optimal settings in advance and test the character creation in the game. Console players will have to quench their thirst a little later.

There is very limited fast travel, but this won't be a problem when you progress as far as unlocking flying vehicles, something this beta lacked. Moving from one place to another requires some serious planning and consideration, as death lurks behind every rock. While it's alluring to just find a few random smugglers and murder them to be safe from the sun, it's often a good idea to watch for patrols that take you by surprise, as you don't have to be greatly outnumbered before death is certain. However, you can help yourself a little by having pick-up points so you can decide where you respawn. Since you lose all your stuff when you die and have to run back for it, it's good that you don't have to backtrack across several kilometres of desert without any help.

The press preview we got to try was "limited," with something like three pages of notes on what wasn't available, and with a lot of potential bugs in the build too. However, I experienced nothing game-breaking, other than two small glitches from afar, and I in no way felt that anything was missing gameplay-wise. So, right from the start I was slightly duped, I have to say. The only real annoyance is the animations when jumping as they feel slightly outdated, and to be honest, I couldn't figure out how to safely climb down things, only up.

I'm now somewhat experienced in Dune games, in fact, there's only one of all the Dune games that I haven't tried, and it's said to be the worst. So, I think I have a pretty solid basis for my opinion, but I also recognise that Dune II was a landmark game for me personally, so it's not without bias. The point is that Dune: Awakening hits the mood pretty well, and Arrakis is every bit as vile and unwelcome as I had feared. The sun is a worse enemy than I had anticipated, and the risk of sandworm attacks is always present. It takes real effort to survive and within the first several hours I chose to go out into the open only at night and then move from rock formation to rock formation during the day. Did I mention that giant sandstorms reset the entire map? Yep, then you have to start all over again by mapping small depots, water collection areas, where to find shade, or even enemy posts.

Dune: Awakening has a lot of things I didn't get to try, some things I only got a taste of, and not least things I got a plentiful experience of, albeit mainly sunlight, sand, and slow deaths. Still, I'll definitely be ready when the servers open in June.