I have to be trustworthy with everybody within the MOPiverse: This one has been a very long time coming. I instructed myself that with all the thrill and buzz surrounding Dune Awakening’s launch that I used to be going to get in there early, presumably usually. I had a real pleasure and even a bit of hype, to be frank, in fascinated about taking part in the brand new title.
I do know there have been numerous design selections and even some framing from Funcom about whether or not it was nonetheless an MMO or not that had been a bit regarding. Total, although, I used to be able to rock and roll. I even famous in my write up for PvP MMOs to look at for in 2025 that Dune Awakening ought to come out with a pleasant AAA funds and be a sport too watch this 12 months.
And actually, it’s a superb sport! I really actually benefit from the expertise of operating round Arrakis and progressing by means of the hunt traces.
What I don’t love is absolutely the about-face the sport takes from normal PvE survival builder to PvP on the endgame – and I say this as somebody who loves PvP. I do know so many people right here at MOP have puzzled aloud time and time once more about how and why builders simply maintain making the identical errors again and again, but they do. And right here, the true situation is that the expertise between beginning and even all through all of the leveling has completely no PvP in it, after which, increase, immediately gamers are anticipated to PvP to maintain going.
I’ll dive into that extra later. First, let’s check out the entire spicy enchilada.
Thematically, Dune Awakening lands masterfully. I’m actually impressed with the best way that Funcom has managed to seize the vibe of the story and translated it into an MMO. The graphics (on my newly constructed Linux PC) are unbelievable. Operating by means of the world, with the sound of the wind blowing throughout the desert ,is simply absolutely immersive and offers the sensation that I’m completely in it. Even going by means of an early-game shipwreck/lab (mainly a dungeon) was a cool expertise.
It’s humorous to explain the world as feeling so alive and immersive when at a excessive stage (and actually even a micro one) it’s actually simply sand, tall rocks, and the occasional dangerous man settlement. I’m not somebody who’s deep into Dune lore, however from the movies I’ve seen, that’s precisely what it’s imagined to be, and the builders nailed it. I actually can’t congratulate Funcom sufficient for a way nice the world has been recreated.
The choices for creating a personality had been stable, though I do want there have been a randomizer. I don’t usually use these, however after I have to come out a personality rapidly, it’s useful. The assorted constructing instruments had been well-designed and supplied me sufficient management and choices on methods to construct my shelter as nicely. Gear and aesthetics are form of bleh, however quite a lot of the Dune motion pictures’ characters seemed that approach, so I suppose it’s true to kind. We haven’t entered the stage of untamed clowns or crazy-looking armor but, however little question it’ll be there sometime.
Now, certainly one of my largest fears going into Dune Awakening was the water meter. I simply actually hoped it didn’t play like starvation meters as a result of these have a tendency to simply be a ache within the butt. So I knew that Funcom might go certainly one of two methods on this; both it’s an annoyance that’s rapidly and simply dealt with within the early sport (rendering it pointless), or it’s a weight round noobies’ necks that gamers on the endgame get to disregard.
Seems the water meter really falls someplace in between. It’s a little bit of a chore (albeit thematic) for brand spanking new gamers to deal with and handle however comparatively rapidly falls into the class of simply manageable. I assumed I’d hate it as simply one other ache stopping me from taking part in, however in the long run I like that it performs into the core idea of the Dune world so nicely with out really being an excessive amount of of a hassle.
Transferring on to the extra thrilling issues: the fight in Dune. I’ll give it some credit score for including a little bit of skillful play, however from my PvE expertise, it was form of bland. Dune supplies gamers with a pleasant dodge capability, which is an absolute should for any actual motion fight sport. In melee vary, you’ve got your normal click on to slice and proper click on to dam, and from vary… nicely, from vary you click on to shoot and purpose, at the least for my swordmaster. Your build-out is fairly primary with solely three energetic abilities accessible at a time. Nonetheless, you accomplish that little fight in Dune correct that it actually doesn’t really feel like a lot of a limitation. You’ll simply swap out for no matter your present exercise requires.
There are solely 5 lessons within the sport to date, however there’s a good quantity of multiclassing as nicely, so although you select one to start out the sport with, it actually isn’t lengthy till you’ve got the chance to department out. I arrange my character as a swordmaster, so I began with these abilities. It gave me some early bonuses for retaining water and such. And on this sport, you completely wish to have these form of passive abilities. Additionally, a number of the traversal abilities are actually nice. The trooper, for instance, had a magic pad that may allow you to go actually excessive up within the air. Since a lot of the sport includes vertical mountain scaling, this was a pleasant boon.
When really preventing, although, there are some actual annoyances. When you get sliced and don’t time your block appropriately, put together for some ache. You’re going to take one other few assaults on the chin earlier than you’ve recovered sufficient to attempt to block and counter. In melee, that was the vast majority of it. You block, you counter with a couple of swipes, and repeat. In case your opponent has a defend on, you then lengthy press the assault to interrupt the defend first. The swordmaster does have some later traits that scale back your stagger values to allow you to get again into the combat if you happen to miss your block.
In ranged, the fight felt primary. That’s little question largely resulting from my class being the swordmaster. Maybe the trooper or one of many different vary specialists has extra thrilling issues to do, however for me it was mainly level and shoot. On prime of that, if you happen to do get to the endgame, having an honest defend geared up protects you from all however extraordinarily centered hearth, nullifying quite a lot of the threats from ranged assaults.
Lastly, in any case my sport time, I wanted to get to the precise PvP in Dune. I had a sandbike, and I had some cool abilities and equipment, however even when I discovered one other participant, we couldn’t have interaction with one another. That’s as a result of everything of my gaming in Dune up to now has been PvE-only. The zone itself is PvE, and there’s no worry of different gamers taking my stuff or attacking me, which is nice for many gamers, actually. However it isn’t actually what I’m after.
So I turned to the web to seek out out simply how far I used to be away from the PvP zones… and it’s quite a bit! I figured as soon as I had my sandbike, I’d be nicely on my strategy to attending to the Deep Desert the place the whole lot goes down. However no, I used to be nonetheless so, so far-off.
That’s after I remembered: I’ve associates. I do know folks. And people individuals are fairly superb, really. With their assist, I can get into the Deep Desert and actually discover it to my coronary heart’s content material… however that may be a story for the subsequent column.
From the stage of the sport I’ve seen to date, nonetheless, I’d say Dune is a very nice sport for the proper of participant. The design and feeling of residing and surviving on Arrakis is superior. However I nonetheless don’t love seeing one more developer create such a PvE-oriented sport solely to drag a switcheroo proper on the finish. That is annoying each to PvE players and to PvP players alike. It’s no marvel the Dune group has been so cranky over PvE vs. PvP, and Funcom is seemingly listening to the suggestions and making the endgame extra pleasant to the PvE group.
When you’re a PvE-centered, base-building survivalbox fan, then I believe the early chapters of Dune Awakening are the most effective model of that form of sport I’ve performed but. When you’re like me and are fascinated with extra PvP battles, then the jury remains to be out on that one. Over the subsequent couple weeks I’m going to essentially dig into the desert and see whether or not there are PvP gems or simply extra ache ready for me.
