Dune: Awakening is an upcoming survival MMO from Funcom, developers of Conan: Exiles. Players will face the challenge of surviving the harsh desert world of Arrakis, with its deadly and unforgiving landscape.
Funcom recently released their first gameplay and development showcase of Dune: Awakening, allowing us to glean a closer look at how players can survive Arrakis, and what we’ll be able to do in the world once your basic survival needs are secured.
Surviving The Desert of Arrakis
Dune: Awakening’s world of Arrakis is set to challenge players from the outset. Players will need to improvise and adapt in order to stay alive. Below are some of the things we learned about how you might be able to survive in Arrakis.
Finding Water
Your first challenge will be to secure a source of water in this scorching landscape. Without water, players will quickly perish.
You may be forced to indulge in some rather unpleasant ways of harvesting water, since natural reservoirs are not exactly commonplace in the desert of Arrakis. Harvesting and eating plants can provide a small source of water thanks to the dew that forms on the plants, however this can make your character get sick, as they will be eating a lot of plant matter but not getting much water out of it.
There is a more effective (and also somewhat horrifying) way of getting water though – players will be able to exsanguinate their enemies to harvest water from their bodies. This is a fancy way of saying that you can drink their blood in order to hydrate yourself.
Avoiding the Sun
Going on long treks in the unrelenting sunlight on Arrakis is definitely a bad idea. We don’t know exactly how this will affect your character – whether it will be a simple debuff or if it will actually prove directly fatal, but we do know that staying out of the sun is the way to go. Sticking to shaded areas or cave systems allows you a safe way to travel during daytime, but traveling longer distances is best done at night time.
The sun is far from the only hazard that travelers will face in Dune: Awakening, however.
Sandworms
Sandworms are huge predators that burrow beneath the sands of Arrakis, emerging to devour any foolish enough to linger in the sandy landscape for too long.
It has been confirmed that Sandworms are going to be a tension mechanic – there is no way to kill a Sandworm. The best players can hope to do is use heavy machinery to thump the ground in order to distract them.
Every step on the sandy landscape is a calculated risk – the chances are that a sandworm will hear your footsteps, and they will be coming to get you. If a sandworm gives chase, your only hope is to flee to the rocky areas where they cannot follow. Sticking to rocky areas is a way to avoid the sandworm threat entirely, but presumably the developers at Funcom are not so kind as to allow a nice, safe labyrinth of rocky paths to crisscross the entire world. I think it’s safe to assume that sometimes you will be forced to enter the domain of the sandworms to get to where you want to go.
Build Your Base
Once you have secured your basic survival needs in Dune: Awakening, you can begin harvesting resources and use them to build a base. This will begin as a basic outpost and reprieve from the harsh conditions of Arrakis, but as you progress you will be able to build more advanced structures and add more complicated functionality to your base.
Place your base carefully to avoid the threats posed by hazards such as sunlight, sandworms and sandstorms.
Prepare for Sandstorms
Sandstorms are another constant threat in the deserts of Arrakis. Not only will they pose a mortal danger to unwary survivors caught out in the open without shelter, but they will also completely reshape parts of the landscape.
This is expected to come into play in the PvP areas of the world, where sandstorms will regularly flatten outposts that were built by players in these areas and rearrange the landscape, randomly creating a new environment for players to do battle in.
