I'm a long time Dune fan, but I was a little hesitant to try Dune: Awakening when it came out last year. I finally decided to give it a go around last October, so I've had some time to think about the game.
Dune: Awakening is a survival MMO from Funcom (the studio behind Conan Exiles). It takes place on Arrakis, in an alternative version of the Dune universe where Paul was never born, because Jessica actually followed the Bene Gesserit's directions (and had a daughter instead of a son).
Disclaimer: Most of my time with Dune: Awakening was before update 1.5, released in September 2026. That update changed a lot (see the Update 1.5 section below), and some of my criticisms, especially about the Deep Desert and the end game, may not apply in the same way anymore. I'll update this review once I've had time to play the new version.
Graphics & Setting
Even though the game takes place on a desert planet, they've managed to make it look interesting. There's a lot of sand (obviously), but the landmarks and rock formations really make the world stand on its own.
Audio
The audio is nice. You can hear things moving around out in the desert, especially the sandworms. The music adds some nice ambience in places, but nothing that really stands out.
Getting Started
You're dropped into the desert with nothing and introduced to the game's storyline, which you can continue at your own pace. The early parts of the game are a nice introduction to its concepts, but after a very short introduction you're free to explore the world.
As in most survival games, you build your own base and craft your own items. Since this is an open world, you share it with other players. The total number of players was quite low when I last played, so depending on the server you play on, you might not run into many others (more on player interactions later).
Hagga Basin
The PvE area where you start the game, Hagga Basin, is where this game really shines. It's a large area with a lot of interesting locations and things to do. You can pick up quests at trading posts, continue the main storyline, or simply explore the desert while trying not to get eaten by sandworms or killed by other hazards.
You'll quickly learn the importance of water. That becomes much less of a problem later on, when you can mass produce it. This makes the game a lot harder early on, before you have plenty of water and vehicles to cross large distances quickly and without risk. I wish the game was better balanced in this way.
Having said that, the game is probably at its best before you build your first ornithopter. Until then you have to think about where and when to cross open desert, and how to avoid storms and sandworms. Hagga Basin is great, and this area alone makes the game worth playing. It's where you'll spend your first 50 to 100 hours, depending on how you play. Some people never leave it.
The Deep Desert
After you leave Hagga Basin is where things start to fall apart. First you have the Deep Desert. The early part of it is a regular PvE area, a little like Hagga Basin, but the dungeons are randomly placed and there's less content overall. You won't find some of the things that make Hagga Basin interesting, such as the nightly Sardaukar patrols.
The rest of the Deep Desert is opt-in PvP. It's a vast desert with small islands where you'll find "dungeons" and crashed ships. The Deep Desert is wiped every week, so if you build a base there you'll have to rebuild it each week (which is fine). I just find Hagga Basin much more interesting.
The advantage of playing in the Deep Desert is the amount of spice and higher tier resources you'll find there. You obviously need to collect spice in a Dune game, and there's not much of it in Hagga Basin, so you're pretty much forced into the Deep Desert if you want to progress towards the end game. It quickly becomes very repetitive.
I wish the developers had focused on adding more Hagga Basin style areas, but I understand that's a lot of work. To attract more players, they decided to take the game in a different direction.
The Landsraad & Testing Stations
That brings us to the Landsraad system. There are 25 or so Landsraad houses you can choose to do missions for. Before, each house had certain missions each week. With the revamp this spring, they also added repeatable dungeons (Imperial Testing Stations) to the overland map. Before that, the overland map was just how you traveled between areas: Hagga Basin, the Deep Desert and the two faction cities.
These dungeons come with a new leveling system, where they scale up based on the level you choose to play them at. The scaling feels insane to me, with damage multipliers in the hundreds to thousands of per cent. The new boss fights are interesting the first few times, but I couldn't care less about the system overall. Some people probably like it (to each their own), but I basically stopped playing after trying them a few times.
They also added new gear enhancements, I guess to balance for the new scaling. That makes me wonder what will happen if they add a new open world PvE area like Hagga Basin. Will we be expected to grind out these dungeons just to be able to play it? There's a new open world area called the Polar Cap on the way, but I'm not sure how it will work. I assume you'll have to craft entirely new gear for it, but how they'll balance that for all the different types of players (everything from people who stay in Hagga Basin, to people who did a little of the Deep Desert, to people who grinded out the new testing stations) is beyond me. Maybe they'll solve it, but it will be difficult to satisfy everyone.
Dying & Losing Things
The game has also made you lose less when you die. Before, when you got eaten by a sandworm, you lost everything. Now you still lose everything you carry, but your vehicle can be recovered at a durability cost. They've also made some nice additions that let you back up your base if you're taking a break.
Story
The main story is fine as far as I've played it, but it seems to deteriorate a bit after chapter one. There are also faction storylines that unlock certain cosmetic upgrades. I did the Atreides one, and it was good for this type of game.
Update 1.5
Update 1.5 was released on September 17, 2026, together with the console launch. I haven't played enough of it to say how well it works, but according to Funcom, these are the biggest changes:
- Single-player mode: the whole game can now be played solo, with difficulty presets or custom settings. The Landsraad simulates other guilds, and the Coriolis storm no longer wipes the Deep Desert in single-player.
- Optional PvP: everything in the game can now be played in PvE. The Deep Desert has separate PvE and PvP versions on every official world, with the PvP version giving 2.5 times the mining and harvesting yield. Hagga Basin is fully PvE (shipwrecks included).
- Less spice needed: spice is no longer part of the build cost of several endgame crafting stations, to make the end game reachable for solo players.
- Story: the final chapter of Book One is out, so the whole story can now be played from start to finish. Story missions also give new cosmetic rewards, retroactively.
- Losing less: you can store up to three snapshots of your base and rebuild them later, even on another world. Destroyed vehicles can be recovered for up to 30 days, for a Solari fee and a durability penalty. Base upkeep taxes are gone, and the durability penalty on death was lowered.
- Custom rules: in single-player and on self-hosted servers you can adjust things like sandstorms, sandworms, PvP zones, harvesting and XP rates, base decay and what you drop on death. PC players can also host their own server for free.
- Combat: more forgiving parrying, clearer enemy attacks and better enemy AI.
- Coming later: the Polar Cap, a new survival area with its own storyline, is planned as a free update later this year. Cross-play between PC and consoles is also planned.
On paper, this should address a lot of my complaints, especially the clash between PvP and PvE, but I have a feeling it may still leave a lot of players unhappy. Whether it fixes the end game is another question, since the testing stations and their scaling are still there. I'll update this section once I've played more.
Conclusion
Can I recommend Dune: Awakening? Yes, if you know what you're getting yourself into. Hagga Basin is great, and you'll probably have a great time playing that part of the game. If you want a good end game though, I would say no, not in its current state. It suffers from the same problem most MMOs do.
If this was just a PvE or co-op survival game, it would be even better. I feel the developers are trying to satisfy everyone, and that creates clashes between PvP and PvE. They've been trying to resolve this with update 1.5, but it remains to be seen if it works. If you're a Dune fan or like survival games and mostly want to explore and build, this game is for you. If you're looking for a long-term end game, I'd wait and see.