Dune: Awakening, the upcoming survival MMO that is being developed and published by Funcom, is almost here. Even if it will take a little longer, after it was announced that the launch will be delayed by a few weeks from May 20th to June 5th, 2025. Still, Dune: Awakening has been a game that we have covered extensively since its announcement a few years ago.
If you missed it, we had our first hands-on preview back in January 2025 that discussed some of the survival aspects and the world of Arrakis, along with an interview with the Art Director explaining how they are working on putting as much “Dune into the game as possible.
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With the launch quickly approaching, we got a more extensive hands-on preview of the game, covering approximately the first 20-25 hours of gameplay, from the early game to the early mid-game. This included three zones, encompassing most of the first act of the game’s story, and a more comprehensive look at the game’s general aspects, such as crafting, building, character classes, and early PVE combat.
With five classes, it’s the Planetologist that stands out in Dune: Awakening.
There are five main classes in Dune: Awakening, each with its own set of three different skill trees. When creating your character, you can select from one of the four starting classes: Trooper, Mentat, Bene Gesserit, and Swordmaster, with the fifth being unlocked as you progress. This determines your starting abilities and the skill trees that open at the beginning. While this is where players start, they are not completely locked into their starting class, as players can unlock other class skill trees through trainer quests as they progress through the story and different zones.
The ability to access all classes and their unique abilities and techniques allows players to adapt their playstyle over time. However, it is a little disappointing that with all these options available to choose from, players are only allowed to have two active abilities at once and one “ultimate” ability at any given time. With player choice so open, the awkwardness of restriction is a setback for it.
There is a fifth “class” that players can unlock in the tutorial zone, called “Planetologist.” This class focuses on the survival aspects of the game. There are no combat-related skills or techniques within the class. Planetologist abilities enable players to extract more minerals when mining, provide better environmental protections, harvest more water from plants, and even build vehicles more efficiently. It’s a class that leans into the game’s genre.
Combat is one of the many core aspects of Dune, given the power struggle to control Arrakis and the spreading War of Assassins. The fact that there is a complete non-combat class is a nice relief. Planetologist feels like an overall support archetype that can be vital both for their own survival when dealing with the environment and for the communal aspect of guilds. Since this is an MMO after all, having players within your guild who can focus on resource gathering, vehicle construction, and maintenance will be a must as you approach the later stages of the game.
The Sandbike is essential to moving across Arrakis in Dune: Awakening, and its construction is an interesting survival mechanic on its own.
In this preview build, we had the opportunity to try out some of the vehicles, primarily the sandbike. This is your basic bike, which will likely be vital for the average player. In harsh conditions and on large maps, traveling on foot can be quite dangerous and time-consuming, especially with the Shai-Hulud, or sandworms, if you’re not the Fremen. Sandworms are a constant threat, and one you can’t recover from.
That said, vehicle construction has a dual edge, specifically because everything is component-based. There will be plenty of vehicles in the full game that were not available in this preview build, so it will be interesting to see the full extent of these customization options.
This allows for quite a bit of customization; for example, with the sandbike, players can choose from a booster, an inventory module, or additional seating. Component building also allows players to quickly swap to a better engine at any time if found in the open world. However, this also requires players to craft and/or acquire a considerable number of parts for each vehicle, which can get tedious.
Vehicles, like most things on Arrakis, deteriorate over time and with increased use. The repair system is quite interesting because parts can not be fully repaired. So, eventually, no matter your skills or perks, you will need to replace the parts. This is also something that happens with your gear and weapons. I enjoyed it because it forces players to keep up with their equipment and not just rely on a simple repair. Once again, pulling the survival genre through everything.
Funcom includes two main elements to keep players from littering the map with bases.
Vehicles aren’t the only thing that can be constructed in Dune: Awakening. Base building also plays a crucial role for players. Between the deadly heat and massive sandstorms that can cover entire zones, having a base becomes a necessity. As you explore, bases are everywhere across the map, especially with players having no fear of other players raiding their hard work.
It does seem players can and will have multiple bases across multiple zones to help navigate the environments. However, there do seem to be a few things that will help keep mass spamming of bases and/or random “foundations” across zones.
The first of these mitigating elements is that players can only build a base around a sub-fief console that “claims land” for them, allowing them to build a base within that area. This area can be upgraded by researching components and using more advanced sub-fief consoles.
The second element is that players will be required to pay taxes on their bases in zones. If players fail to pay their taxes, things can become unfavorable for them and their teams. How this plays out overall in Dune: Awakening wasn’t something I got to experience, but we’re sure to see more soon, especially as more players join and what the other zones look like.
Dune: Awakening’s component is its combat.
Surviving in Arrakis involves more than beating the elements. Fighting is necessary and quite frequent. Whether it is looking for loot or blood, players will be in combat more often than not. There are a variety of weapons to choose from, whether it’s a sword or a dart gun; players will have some options that fit their play style.
The combat, however, felt like the most lacking part of Dune: Awakening. Felt random on damage output as sometimes felt like you’re down someone quickly, and then next time you’re using a whole clip of darts and did nothing. There could be some refinement on the range weaponry, as it just didn’t feel consistent.
The close PVE combat in one-on-one situations wasn’t too difficult thanks to dodging and parrying mechanics. But when most battles involved more than a single NPC, it became a pain as you are trying to do a knife fight while people in the back are just shooting you the whole time. As a Bene Gesserit, using The Voice proved to be inconsistent in both timing and overall effects. There were times when it would work perfectly, and you would eliminate NPCs with ease, and then there were other times when literally nothing would happen.
The other combat hiccup is that there is no easy way to immediately distinguish NPC characters from Player characters. While the PVP combat zone wasn’t available in this build of the game, not being able to recognize the differences meant that we would waste resources by firing darts at friendly characters, or not realize that an enemy character was in an area and that we should approach with caution.
There is still more we haven’t seen from Dune, but right now, it’s shaping up nicely.
There was plenty to see and explore in this preview build, but there was also much that remained to be discovered. the Deep Desert, social hubs, the Landsraad end game, along with faction progression, and more are just some of the things that are still left to be seen. Dune: Awakening feels like it will be a large and expansive game, given its size and the variety of activities available, even with just this build.
There is a Main Story Questline and side quests that appear as contracts, which will give players plenty of things to do with their time in Arrakis. Additionally, the progression is easily accomplished solo or with others, marrying individual survival with an MMO. The latter of which we will understand more when the larger elements of the game are available at release.
There is still a ways to go, and with the release window being moved from May to June 2025, it will be interesting to see what the development team shores up. There is a lot to look forward to with Dune: Awakening for both survival and MMO players alike. By embracing the lore and complexities of Arrakis, this survival MMO has the chance to win over a wide swath of players.
