“Doesn’t feel like Dune”: Dune: Awakening’s Gameplay Reveal Fails to Impress as Fans Start to Lose Hope
Dune: Awakening may be in for a few challenges, as Funcom's reveal of the upcoming MMORPG has not received the response it was hoping for.
- Funcom brings Arrakis to life in an MMORPG set in Dune's universe.
- The game promises to be a fun experience with a lot of activities to engage in alongside the search for Spice in its open world.
- However, Dune fans remain unimpressed by the gameplay showcased in its trailer and hope that Funcom finds a way to improve on its experience.
Among Gamescom 2024’s many announcements was a gameplay reveal for Dune: Awakening, a survival MMORPG that is set on the planet of Arrakis. It aims to bring a lot of what made Dune as popular as it is to a game loosely based on its central premise.
The gameplay trailer’s showcase of the game’s many elements has garnered a lot of attention, although a rather lackluster response from potential players may not have been what developer Funcom was going for with the revelation of what seems to be an ambitious project for the studio.
Dune: Awakening Brings a New Face to Arrakis
While there are many exciting elements to the gameplay loop that Funcom showcased in the trailer below, the ability to duplicate player bases across Arrakis and a potential addition of Thumpers used to summon Sandworms among them, it seems that Dune: Awakening may not be an experience that stays with its players once the initial excitement for the game wears off.
With the game being slated for an early 2025 release, along with the consideration that the footage showcased in the trailer is from a beta build of the final release, Funcom may have some time to tweak its upcoming title to make it more appealing to a fanbase that could be very invested in a game set on Arrakis.
However, that may be easier said than done if players’ opinions on the game are taken into account.
Is Dune: Awakening Set to Be Dead on Arrival?
Taking to Reddit to express their disappointment at what they believe to be an uninspired and generic title, Dune fans have not been as diplomatic as some of the franchise’s characters when it comes to voicing their opinions on the upcoming video game adaptation’s faults.
For instance, some players believe that the game’s base raiding mechanics could do with a revamp despite a community manager from Funcom attempting to sway their opinions.
Other players feel that the game may be relegated to the annals of history as just another looter shooter trying to make its mark in a very crowded genre – an outcome Funcom may hope to avoid considering its choice of the Dune universe as a way to draw on a massive fanbase.
Another opinion that seems quite popular among players is that the game should have been designed as a single-player experience from the very start – something that may be out of Funcom’s hands considering how close Dune: Awakening is to its release window.
While Dune: Awakening is sure to draw in a reasonable amount of players once it launches in early 2025, it remains to be seen if Funcom will be able to retain them once they get to experience all that Arrakis has to offer – a challenge that even the best studios have struggled to overcome in the past.
