Dune Awakening is not only exciting because of the massively-popular IP it’s pulling from but because it is an incredibly ambitious newcomer into the survival game scene. Its MMO approach means there are a lot of systems and opportunities to play with and against other players. That’s something we recently discussed with creative director Joel Bylos at Gamescom, who explained how Dune Awakening is aiming to make every element as co-op-friendly as possible, and how no matter how much time you can sink into the game, you won’t get left behind.
As is the case with so many MMOs, co-op combat is at its heart. Assemble your mates, enter a raid or a dungeon, strategize to take down a big old boss, and walk away with the loot. It’s a decades-old loop, and while it’s absolutely something players still love, Bylos says that it has become “easy” to do. Dune Awakening looks to go one step further by applying that co-op mantra to some of its core survival mechanics.
“[Co-op combat] is an experience that has existed for a long time, right? But what we tried to do with things like the building system was allow you to build as a cooperative. So we’re using solido projections. You place out the projection, then a friend of yours can fill it in if they have materials, so you can group build. And then we have the blueprint system, which lets you take a copy of a base, place that out as a full projection, and then group fill it in. So it’s like collaborative building.”
This base building system not only marks an interesting use of a piece of Dune lore in the use of solido projections, but brings that communal feel to a core tenet of Awakening. As Bylos explains, it’s the same story with the survey system, which helps with your exploration of Arrakis.
“In Arrakis, it’s notorious that the storms sort of make it very hard to map the planet, right? So as a player, you can go out, you can use the survey tools, and it reveals areas of the map. Then you can craft those maps, give them to your friends, [they can] just use them, and it reveals the fog of war on their map in that location, and also shares with them all the scanned data you have.”
Bylos also confirms that there is a similar approach to weapon crafting, whereby players can bestow powerful weapons on friends that may not have the time or resources. “I can craft the best gun in the game and give it to you ten seconds after you load in [to the server],” he says. There are no level caps on items, so you don’t have to grind for a certain amount of time just to be able to wield potent items.
All of this is done not just because teaming up and working cooperatively is fun, but also because it ensures that friends of all skill levels and commitment levels don’t get separated or distanced – something that’s certainly happened to me and my group of pals in some other MMOs out there. “The person who can invest, you know, 50 hours a week versus the guy who can invest two hours a week, they can still play together,” Bylos states confidently.
Dune Awakening is set to release in early 2025. You can find out more about it and wishlist over on its Steam page here. We also spoke to Bylos about the strange addition of a staple GTA feature to Dune Awakening, and you can read about that here.
If you want something similar to play while you wait for the Dune Awakening release date, here are some of the best building games and best survival games on PC right now.
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