Dune: Awakening: The Final Preview
There's only one thing worse than being chased across the desert by a sandworm in Dune: Awakening, and that's getting eaten by a sandworm in Dune: Awakening. Not only does the giant phallic cretin suck you down into the bowels of Arrakis, it eats everything you're carrying. Your clothes, your weapons, and especially your Spice Liquor. Suddenly you're respawning at your base in nothing but your underwear and are forced to do the run of shame across the sands to start rebuilding your inventory.
It's easy to be sceptical about an MMO survival game set in the Duniverse, but after a few bouts of dehydration and sunstroke, the day I spent in Arrakis convinced me that Dune: Awakening is one to watch. More than that, if the developer can deliver on its plans for the endgame, it could see an EVE Online-style future for its hardcore playerbase. This massive project is the work of Funcom - the studio of the Conan: Exiles dong slider fame - and sets you on a path from broke-ass Arrakis hobo to an influential figure harvesting Spice on an industrial scale and pushing their personal agenda at the Landsraad. It's got everything you expect from an MMO - intricate skill trees, PvP mechanics, base building and character customization, but with ornithopters and mind-altering substances thrown in.
Dune: Awakening is set in a world where Lady Jessica had a Sliding Doors moment and chose to follow the instructions of the Bene Gesserit and have a daughter, Ariste, instead of the little twink we know and love, Paul Atredies. Cut to 29 years later and the Harkonnens and Atredies are at war over Arrakis, the Fremen have been (apparently) wiped out, and alternative religions have evolved to fill the gap left by Lisan al-Gaib. The alternate timeline isn't meant as a nipple twist to fans, Funcom needed the narrative space to make the player character consequential.
“Obviously we did the somewhat controversial but I think very correct choice of creating the alternate history, which allowed us to
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