Dune Awakening, the brand new survival sport based mostly on Frank Herbert’s sci-fi universe, feels surprisingly genuine to the current Hollywood films, however on the similar time fleshes out the Villeneuverse with new concepts we haven’t but seen on display screen, or within the books.
Final yr, Funcom revealed that Awakening takes place throughout an alternate historical past timeline of the Dune story, when protagonist Paul Atreides isn’t even born. On this Timeline, Girl Jessica has a daughter as an alternative, which means occasions don’t play out fairly the identical approach on the planet Arrakis.
Try our unique Dune Awakening gameplay video:
This makes the Dune online game a genuinely attention-grabbing ‘what if?’ for followers, the place the Fremen have been all however worn out and an influence vacuum exists on the desert planet, whereas concurrently giving Funcom the liberty to flesh out its personal playground within the universe. Nevertheless, in accordance with sport director Joel Bylos, it was all a little bit of a cheerful accident.
“The rationale for the alternate timeline, and why we weren’t allowed to indicate the Fremen, or no less than have the Fremen at launch, was as a result of we had been initially planning to launch the sport earlier than the discharge of the second film,” he advised VGC at a current preview occasion. “And Villeneuve hadn’t totally developed the second film Fremen once we began speaking about this.
“So the constraint on us was like, ‘we wish to present the Fremen within the second movie, so you possibly can’t present them once you launch the sport. You’ll be able to add them in an replace after the second film comes out’. After which, after all, right here we’re a yr after the second film got here out, not having launched but, going, ‘shit, we don’t have any Fremen but to indicate.’ And that’s tremendous: there are echoes of the Fremen, you discover Fremen’s stuff within the sport, you simply don’t meet the Fremen but.”
Based on Bylos, the considerably pressured determination to maneuver right into a non-canon narrative for Awakening has had the good thing about permitting it to be extra artistic with the sport world, even permitting for some well-known ebook characters to characteristic in different roles.
“The difficulty was with Fremen; it was not spoiling something character-wise from the film, not speaking about occasions that may present up within the films. Which is why the alternate historical past was our approach of sidestepping away from that and giving us more room.
“And likewise, we wished a selected setup; we wished Atreides and Harkonnen on the planet combating so gamers can use their faction and issues like that. So I feel yeah, the alternate historical past sort of allowed us to sidestep a few of these constraints, and it additionally gave us simply freedom to create the world we wished.”
The sport director mentioned that regardless of the numerous narrative modifications, the sport’s growth staff is not any much less dedicated to the supply materials. Throughout growth, each Villeneuve’s staff and Frank Herbet’s son, Brian, had been consulted – and it reveals.
We got here away from our 8 hours with Dune Awakening most impressed by the sport’s authenticity to matching the general feel and look of Villeneuve’s films. The rating, composed by Funcom’s common collaborator Knut Avenstroup Haugen, sounds pleasingly evocative of Hans Zimmer’s thunderous movie music, and its characters, automobiles, and cities share the distinct visible language from the movies.
“We wished Atreides and Harkonnen on the planet combating so gamers can use their faction and issues like that. So I feel yeah, the alternate historical past sort of allowed us to sidestep a few of these constraints, and it additionally gave us simply freedom to create the world.”
“Once we’re displaying components which might be within the movie, we’ve to be considerably styled in the direction of that. However once we’re transferring away from that, we simply run it by Legendary [Entertainment] to verify that the design language feels prefer it matches within the universe,” Bylos defined.
“Now we have an approval course of with Legendary. They see all our idea artwork [and] they tell us if that is going to be adequate, or not adequate, or if we’re creating one thing in a single route and possibly within the new film, they’re creating in a unique route, and we form of discuss what which means, and whether or not we should always pull ourselves extra in the direction of them.”
With its harsh desert environments, factions battling for assets, and monstrous worms lurking underneath the sands, the world of Dune already feels tailored for a survival sport. With Funcom’s expertise constructing Conan Exiles, it’s little shock that, within the opening hours no less than, the gameplay fundamentals right here really feel proper. The world is very large and enjoyable to discover, the crafting and ability timber huge, and there are a number of distinctive survival mechanics that really feel acceptable for the Dune universe.
On the core of that is thirst. Gamers begin off stranded on Arrakis, with no water and no Stillsuit, and their first problem is to search out shelter and sustenance. A thirst meter reveals how a lot water gamers have, whereas one other meter indicating shade encourages you to remain out of the solar. Initially, it’s essential to extract what little water you possibly can from the few crops left – however not an excessive amount of, otherwise you’ll be sick. Later, when you’ve gained sufficient tools, you’ll be capable to extract it from the blood of AI enemies and rival gamers.
It’s fight the place Funcom has expectedly determined to make some tweaks to the Dune universe, whereas on the similar time sticking to its ‘lore first’ mantra. Taking pictures weapons – successfully absent from the ebook lore – are made doable by the lore rationalization that weapons are actually fitted with a security mechanism that shuts them down when aimed toward a shielded enemy – one thing that may trigger a nuclear explosion within the books.
There’s additionally a particular kind of dart weapon invented only for the video games, a ‘disrupter’, which fires darts at variable charges and units off an EMP in the event that they get by, disabling a participant defend. This enables for extra conventional capturing fight, whereas holding melee fight core to the expertise.
“Initially, it’s essential to extract what little water you possibly can from the few crops left – however not an excessive amount of, otherwise you’ll be sick. Later, when you’ve gained sufficient tools, you’ll be capable to extract it from the blood of AI enemies and rival gamers.”
Awakening has been in closed beta for over a yr, and suggestions has led to a number of key iterations, notably to the way in which melee fight works. In contrast to capturing, sword fight is a vital a part of the Dune books and films, and it’s taken various variations for Funcom to decide on its present mechanics, which has gamers putting with a major assault till an enemy is shocked, after which launching a second gradual blade assault for the killer blow.
“I feel it’s possibly going to be essentially the most… I don’t learn about ‘divisive’, nevertheless it’s going to be one of many issues that’s most tough for us to show gamers, as a result of they’re not used to that sort of defend play,” says Bylos.
“Initially, melee was sort of a bit delicate. It began off with a Name of Obligation type stab, which I didn’t assume felt proper for Dune. It then advanced in the direction of extra of a Area Marine type, the place we had capturing, after which you could possibly pump a button to enter combo mode. And that felt good, nevertheless it didn’t permit for the talents the way in which we wished them to be.
“After which, finally, we ended up with the place we are actually. So yeah, it went by a bunch of iterations, weaving between various things. After which shields had been at all times the actually exhausting a part of this as a result of the gradual blade penetrates the defend, projectiles mustn’t go by shields. And it was simply determining that entire dynamic that was like very difficult, very complicated, and really tough to try to determine.”
Some of the compelling elements of Dune Awakening for me, nonetheless, is the gameplay away from fight. As is predicted from a contemporary survival sport, base buildings is a key characteristic right here, and in our session we assembled a reasonably complicated three-story constructing, by inserting its partitions and stairways like Lego.
Bylos hints at a extra important pacifist ethos in the long run sport, nonetheless, the place gamers can get forward nearly solely by crafting and buying and selling, or enjoying the political choices of its servers.
“I feel it’s possibly going to be essentially the most… I don’t learn about divisive, nevertheless it’s going to be one of many issues that’s most tough for us to show gamers, as a result of they’re not used to that sort of defend play.”
“Star Wars Galaxies was one of many unique sandbox inspirations for this sport,” the director explains. There are issues in place for gamers to change into higher at crafting over time, however proper now, the very best instance I can provide for our sport is how cartography works.
“There’s a surveying system, and once you survey, it reveals a fog of battle in an space of the map. You’ll be able to, if in case you have the appropriate feats, then craft these maps and promote them on the public sale home to different gamers. They will purchase it, devour it, and it’ll then reveal all the data you had on the map at that location of the world.”
Key to map crafting, Bylos explains, are the greater than 80 sectors of the Deep Desert space of Arrakis, which incorporates a number of the rarest loot within the sport. It takes gamers as much as eight hours to discover all of the Deep Desert, and each week it’s wiped by a sand storm and returns modified. So if a Cartographer participant has a map to a uncommon merchandise inside the Deep Desert one week, that would make them some huge cash.
One other key a part of the top sport we had been advised about concerned the Landsraad decrees, which can permit gamers to vote for sweeping server-wide modifications based mostly in your faction allegiance. In principle, this may make for drastically totally different experiences between servers, similar to permitting PvP in sure areas, or giving sure factions a bonus.
“For instance, the sport doesn’t have full PvP looting by default, however you possibly can flip that on through a server decree,” Bylos explains. “Within the beta, we’ve seen this prompted gamers to maneuver into the Deep Desert, as a result of no less than there it’s pure PvP battles.
“There are different issues prefer it modifications to crafting prices throughout the complete faction. So the Atreides can craft issues for 33% cheaper than anybody else on the server for the following week, which modifications the dynamics of the financial system.
“The sport doesn’t have full PvP looting by default, however you possibly can flip that on through a server decree. Within the beta, we’ve seen this trigger gamers to maneuver into the Deep Desert, as a result of no less than there it’s pure PvP battles.”
“How that performs out over time, we’ve sort of but to see, however hopefully it results in this attention-grabbing dynamic. The factor that we’re cognizant of, it could additionally change into a little bit of a landslide of victory after victory, which is why the uannounced third faction is so necessary, as a result of they’re sort of the, let’s say the Joker within the deck.”
We left our day-long play session with Dune Awakening impressed by its authenticity and concepts, genuinely wanting extra. Nevertheless, as identified in our Exoborne hands-on, these types of video games are at all times extra enjoyable in a bustling preview occasion atmosphere, and it’s by no means been tougher to inform which video games are going to achieve the tough fashionable video games market.
One factor which will have already left its mark is Funcom’s work with Legendary. Denis Villeneuve is presently planning the third Dune film, based mostly on the ebook Dune Messiah. This offered one more space of the universe Awakening’s developer needed to be cautious with – however it might but affect the broader Dune franchise.
“I wish to assume that typically as they work, they’ll begin to take a look at our ideas and be like, yeah, truly the way in which that they’ve performed that is good,” says Bylos. “I imply, I don’t know if Legendary shall be upset with me for saying that, however they’ve entry to all the things we’ve made and hopefully they have a look at it and take into account it as, you already know, as I’d count on affordable individuals do.”
He added: “Now we have an excellent open relationship, however I don’t know the way a lot Denis performs video games or seems at them… There was one factor, that previous historical past trailer that I confirmed at present, there was that shot of Paul standing in entrance of that large stone mural. We used to have him sitting on a throne as a result of it’s sooner or later, after all, and we had been advised, ‘no, no, no, you possibly can’t have that’ – not as a result of it was incorrect, however as a result of it seemed like one thing Denis might need performed.”
