Thirsty and hopeless, we found ourselves in the sandy lands of Arrakis, with our ship half destroyed and the near certainty of becoming a target for raiders, or food for something much worse. Thus began our encounter with Dune Awakening, which, although it did not allow us to analyze the deeper layers of the gameplay, at least offered us some reassurance on the effectiveness of the settings and atmospheres crafted by the guys at Funcom.
Survival, crafting, skills
Just as seen in the latest Dune films, the planet Arrakis is an inhospitable place and full of dangers of all kinds (here the Dune Part Two review). First and foremost are not the Sandworms lurking beneath the desert sands but the scorching heat, unbearable when the sun is high in the sky.
In our wanderings on the surface of Arrakis we tried to move from one shaded area to another, taking advantage of the rock formations encountered along the way. If we limited ourselves to this, we would obviously have run into dehydration (there is a special indicator that signals the arrival of this danger), which is why we had to obtain small quantities of water from the few plants we came across. This is how we completed one of the tasks provided for in the initial section of the adventure, clearly intended as a tutorial to illustrate the fundamentals of the gameplay. Little by little we were given other tasks, linked for example to the need to obtain some basic resources to craft essential objects, such as the device used by the Fremen to collect water from corpses. When we added it to the inventory we could stay hydrated more easily, but this was only the very first problem to solve.
Raiders hidden in caves or located in small camps did not hesitate to attack us on sight, forcing us several times to take up a melee weapon to use to defend ourselves. From the almost non-existent reactions of the enemies to the blows received, to the attack animations of the character, this dimension of the experience seemed very elementary to us, but on the other hand we are still talking about an open world survival MMO.
By looting the chests of defeated opponents we obtained what we needed to complete the projects at our disposal, and in the meantime we began to use tools such as the grappling hook to cover distances more easily, and peculiar abilities such as the voice of the Bene Gesserit to push a raider to attack his companion.
Unfortunately, we were unable to significantly expand our character’s talents, which will in any case be connected to five distinct skill trees: Swordmaster, Trooper, Mentat, Planetologist, and Bene Gesserit, to be precise. The various branches should allow us to indulge our preferred playstyle, but this remains to be seen.
Faithfulness to the imagination and advanced equipment
Speaking of progression, the developers at Funcom have “tricked” our game a bit, putting at our disposal many nice little toys that we have tried with pleasure. Thanks to a quick Sandbike for example we were able to start exploring the desert, thanks to a good speed that allowed us not to succumb to the assaults of the Sandworms… most of the time.
On one occasion, after having produced a lot of noise, we were reached by the worm, which first came out of the sands showing itself in all its grandeur, and then swallowed us without giving us any chance of escape. Dune Awakening seems to reproduce in the right way the iconic features of Arrakis, from the vast deserts, passing through the horizon that seems to distort in an almost wavy motion due to the high temperatures, up to the creatures that inhabit the planet. It is not so much the mere graphic detail that makes the difference (the qualitative oscillations were not lacking in this sense), but rather the image as a whole, at least as far as the area we visited is concerned. The faithfulness to the source material, in other words, really seemed to us to be one of the cornerstones of Funcom’s proposal.
Again courtesy of the insiders we were able to fly aboard an Ornithopter, both to test it in function with good results, and to be able to reach the ruins of an old spaceship much more easily, needless to say occupied by enemies. To free this place we used a wider arsenal than the one at the beginning of the demo, including grenades, sniper rifle and assault rifle. With the exception of the lethal results of a bullet planted between the eyes, the reactions of the raiders to the shots seemed a bit crude to us, while the AI that moved them seemed rather deficient.
Sure, it was nice to be able to soar for short periods of time using a special device, but the combat was basically the aspect that least convinced us in the framework of Funcom’s proposal. It goes without saying that we have barely scratched the surface of the offer both on the gameplay front and on the purely narrative one, and we hope to be able to dive into a more advanced test in the near future to discover something more about the construction of the bases or the mystery linked to the disappearance of the Fremen.
