I've spent hundreds of hours in Conan Exiles, and hundreds more in similar survival games like Ark, Don't Starve, Grounded, and Valheim, but playing Dune: Awakening made me realize that the formula I've grown so accustomed to over the years isn't necessary to make a genre gem.
Funcom's upcoming adaptation of sci-fi star Frank Herbert's decades-old universe isn't afraid to sprinkle some spice into that reliable recipe, and that's why I love it.
While I only spent around eight hours playing the new Dune game, it was enough time to grow properly acquainted with (and genuinely hooked on) the ways that Fucnom's unique MMO-survival blend stands apart from its predecessors.
I went into it ready to grapple with pesky hunger bars, translucent building screens, and vicious beasts. Instead, I found sandworms.
Besides the subterranean monsters shaking the ground I walked on, I was also met with a relentless thirst that called for some seriously creative solutions, and an unforgiving desert planet inhabited by ever-warring cultures.