Dune MMO will let you use The Voice, sell bases and drink blood-water - but not kill or ride sandworms (yet)

rockpapershotgun.com:

Dune: Awakening, the massively-multiplayer take on Frank Herbert’s sandy sci-fi universe from dong-loving devs Funcom, has shown off some more of its online, open-world Arrakis in a lengthy developer direct. We’ve also learnt more about what we will - and won’t - be able to do during our time exploring the planet.

Awakening reared its head through the sands in 2022 as one of several Dune games in the works from Funcom, the studio known for MMO Conan Exiles. Like Exiles, Dune: Awakening will be a survival-MMO, with the expected blend of exploration, crafting, PvP combat and survival mechanics that implies - except now with added sand and spice.

In a way that only feels right for a series notorious for ambitious - if often misguided, see Lynch and Jodorowsky - adaptations, Dune: Awakening certainly appears to be going for it.

In the game’s first Dune Direct preview stream, creative director Joel Bylos outlines an admittedly impressive-sounding experience that veers from having to travel in the shade or at night to survive Arrakis’ heat, adapting with the game’s evolving weather system, to searching out sources of water to simply survive - plants are fine, but can eventually make you sick, meaning that the best way to get water is by killing your fellow players and drinking the water out of their blood.

To help turn rival players into the fleshy equivalent of a Lucozade Sport, you’ll have all manner of deadly weapons to use - once you craft them from the resources you’ve collected, that is. The combat will apparently allow for a variety of up-close melee with knives, ranged shooting (such as sniping from a vantage point) and abilities gained by training with your mentor, selected during character creation, and other teachers found in the world.

Bylos says this extends to being able to use the supernatural Voice of the mysterious Bene Gesserit, compelling enemies to come close to you so you can slip a gom jabbar into their ribs. What that looks like in reality we don’t