Dune: Awakening is an open-world multiplayer survival crafting game where you are left to fend for yourself on the hostile desert world of Arrakis. Stick to the shade, collect water where you can, and whatever you do, avoid the sandworms. Progress might seem slow as you first start out, but as you collect more resources you can start processing blood to get more water, collect important vehicle parts to build a sandbike, and upgrade your arsenal of weap
Anyone planning to play Dune: Awakening at launch might do well to take advantage of the early Character Creator release, as there’s more to do than just swap out some hairstyles. The Gom Jabbar test makes an appearance in the character creation process, as do the options to choose background characteristics like home planet and caste. A mentor can also be chosen from the available Schoo
What’s great about Dune: Awakening is the flexibility and depth you have when building your character. You’re not locked into one linear path of skills, techniques and abilities, and you’ll have the option to build hybrid characters utilizing multiple different playsty
One other important element introduced during Dune: Awakening ‘s tutorial is the Cutteray, which is the player’s primary mining tool. Using the Cutteray’s Analysis Mode, players scan a resource to detect hidden structural weaknesses within it. Once a weakness has been detected, it appears as a jagged line across the node, and the Cutteray is then used to trace the line until the resource breaks and the materials are automatically added to the player’s inventory. The Cutteray can also cut open certain locked doors, making it a very useful tool, but the best thing about it is that it isn’t just a “point and shoot” harvesting t
Even in the starting zone, the sandworms can be deadly. The best way to avoid them is to stay off of the large dunes as much as possible – there’s a vibration meter at the bottom of your screen which informs you if the worms are close or
Dune: Awakening allows you to choose from four starting classes : the Bene Gesserit, the Trooper, the Mentat, and the Swordmaster , but as you progress through the game, you’ll meet the mentors of each class and be able to mix-and-match skills, passives, and techniques from every class. Eventually, you’ll be able to utilize a fifth class called The Planetologist, which specializes in exploration and resource gather
There are other non-combat mechanics introduced here as well, like Pentashield Barriers of a particular color, which can only be passed through if players manage to find a nearby Wristband Key of a matching color. This certainly has some puzzle potential to it, and there were a few times during our preview that we encountered situations like that, but it seemed to lean more on the gimmicky side of things this early in the game. There are some areas in Dune: Awakening that feel like mazes due to Pentashield Barriers, requiring players to take certain routes before they can take others, so there’s potential there for the system to get even more interesting later on in the g
The Imperial Testing Stations and wrecked ships are full of useful stuff, from blueprints of unique items to high-tier metals and processors used for machinery upgrades. While you might want to progress quickly to the next area to continue leveling, you can easily farm a few high-value PoIs as they resp
If you love the sound of poisonous traps, snipers, and turrets , Mentat is your calling. You’ll utilize skills that increase your rifle and headshot damage considerably, as well as poisonous traps and turrets to place that will help you control areas and have your back when you need it most. The Mentat is for gamers who love strategic think
As you go to the next phase, water turns from a survival pressure into a resource, and you’re using it in crafting and making vehicles and making higher-tier materials, similarly to Spice. Spice, at the beginning, starts as just this thing that makes you do really cool abilities and become prescient and see the future. But, as you go into the mid-game, again, it becomes a crafting resource. Then, at the endgame, it becomes like a currency that you’re using to spend and get political favors and influence the Landsraad . So, that’s one way the game chan
When you pick up a resource, you gain experience, so even as you’re sprinting towards a quest marker, you can pick up resources along the way without even stopping , giving you a way to gain XP while you travel. Not only do you get XP just from picking a resource up, but once you have a nice stockpile in your storage, you’ll be able to craft ammunition, consumables, gear, and build your base without having to stop and go searching for more materi
