by Anthony O'Connor
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Intro:
… an imperfect attempt at a lofty goal, but it’s absolutely going to be an all-time classic for some people …
It’s kind of wild how big Dune has become as a property, considering the levels of niche geekery it used to occupy. Based on the 1965 novel by Frank Herbert, Dune basically sketched out a kind of ‘Middle East in space’ vibe, with various factions warring over the drug/evolutionary tool Spice on the desert planet of Arrakis. At the centre of the narrative was one Paul Atreides, a messianic figure who unites the planet’s indigenous tribes and leads them on a bloody holy war that results in the death of countless millions. It’s a fascinating story (the first book is a must read, the rest are… optional) and David Lynch made a wildly out of pocket adaptation in 1984 that sure is something. Less baffling TV movies followed, but it was not until 2021’s Dune and 2023’s Dune: Part 2 that we finally got a more faithful rendition of the material. Hell, there’s even an HBO series and a third movie on the way! Still and all, fans who love the world of Dune have often pondered ‘what if’ stories, narratives that exist outside of the six main books. Now, there finally exists a way to explore these potentialities without resorting to Brian Herbert’s books and that is Dune: Awakening, an open world survival game set on Arrakis that asks the question: “What if Paul Atreides wasn’t?”
Dune: Awakening puts you in the sand-filled shoes of a player-generated character who, at the start of the game, is essentially marooned on Arrakis with nothing to their name. The ever-present threats of the merciless sun, the hungry sandworms and devious scavengers means that you’ll need to get kitted out quicksticks with weapons, a stillsuit and a base of operations. Because this is a survival game, achieving these goals will involve collecting sixteen widgets, crafting a new pair of trousers and doing it all over again as the game moves the goal posts further and further away.
On the plus side, the world is remarkably effectively realised. The sun is a genuine threat, the sandworms are really scary and there’s an authentic sense that everything wants to kill you. A bit like our country, really! On the downside, the combat and enemy AI is pretty poor, with samey looking antagonists extremely easy to aggro and trick into painfully obvious killzones and the weapons on offer aren’t particularly thrilling in the opening hours.
The game has actually been out for a while on PC, but is making its console debut now with an improved single player story mode that has you siding either with House Atreides or Harkonnen. However, while the story technically exists, it still feels too spread out between fetch quests and gathering sessions. One had hoped that the survival elements would have been streamlined a little more deftly, so that those of us who just want a decent yarn set on Arrakis could skip the more egregious fannying about.
However, this is the perspective of a gamer who doesn’t particularly like survival games. Those attuned to the genre, who adore either the Dune books or movies, will likely find a lot to love here, even with some of the AI shortcomings and repetitive gameplay. And there’s plenty of buildcraft and character options to keep the aggressively nerdy invested.
Dune: Awakening is an imperfect attempt at a lofty goal, but it’s absolutely going to be an all-time classic for some people, even if it wasn’t for your humble scribe. Much like Lynch’s 1984 adaptation, some gamers will be able to look past the jank and grind and adore the gaming equivalent of Patrick Stewart’s battlepugs. Now that’s Spicy!
