With Dune: Awakening, Funcom is whisking players away to the planet of Arrakis for a whole new survival experience. This title takes Frank Herbert's Dune universe and tosses in all sorts of survival and MMO mechanics, which lets players see the universe through a whole new lens. As of now, it has made for quite an exciting adventure, with Dune fans falling in love with its faithful recreation of the world. While that is all great, the best part of Dune: Awakening may be how it shakes up the genre on a whole.
Ever since the survival genre's inception, a few staples have been carried over across countless entries. One of those staples comes in the form of the dangers of night. Across so many titles, players often have to take shelter during the night, as that is when danger lurks around every corner. In Dune: Awakening, the night no longer poses any danger. Instead, it is the daytime that players need to be careful of, which should keep genre veterans on their toes.
How Dune: Awakening Tackles the Challenge of Arrakis as a Singular Setting
Dune: Awakening executive producer discusses the challenge of setting a survival game on Arrakis due to its uniform nature as a desert planet.
Dune: Awakening Makes the Daylight the Ultimate Predator
Nighttime Has Been Survival Fans' Greatest Adversary For Years
For years, many survival games have made the night one of the most threatening parts of the game. One of the biggest examples of this comes in the form of Minecraft, which has only made things more dangerous as the years have gone by. Each time the sun sets, countless monsters of all shapes and sizes spawn. If players are not careful, their hard work can be destroyed, and they can be struck down at a moment's notice. At higher difficulties, it only gets worse. And the only way players can keep them at bay is with light and powerful weapons.
While Minecraft may be the most notable, it is hardly the only survival game to make darkness an enemy. Don't Starve will slowly kill players lost in darkness, 7 Days to Die makes its zombie hordes far more powerful at night, The Forest forces players to desperately hide within their bases or risk death, and The Long Dark makes players dread when that sun sets. As more survival games hit store shelves, the dangers of night seem to only become more prevalent. But with Dune: Awakening, that is no longer the case.
Dune: Awakening Has Made Nighttime Nothing Compared to the Day
In Dune: Awakening, the darkness and shade are actually a vital ally as players traverse Arrakis. Instead of hiding from the dark, they must hide from the glaring sunlight and desert heat. If they are out in the sun for too long, then they will suffer from sunstroke, which will make their water loss increase exponentially. Once it drops to zero, their health will begin to deteriorate. The only way to prevent this is to keep drinking liquids and take shelter in the shadows or wait until night falls before adventuring out into the world.
On top of that, monsters or enemies are not so much tied to spawning depending upon the time of day. Instead, players will just run into NPCs encamped within the shade and caves they need to take shelter in. Along with that, massive sandworms will hunt them down if they are making too much noise as they run from shade to shade. These changes not only help players get immersed in this version of the Dune universe, but it is also a nice change of pace from the countless survival games before it.
It's nice to see a survival game try something a bit different from what has come before. Of course, there is still something very exciting about desperately running to shelter as the night falls. While Dune: Awakening will not give players that same thrill, hiding from the harsh sunlight and avoiding massive sandworms provides a compelling alternative.
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Open-World, Survival, MMO
