Dune: Awakening offers a fantastic and deeply immersive survival experience through its mid-game, with excellent world design and progression. However, it's significantly held back by a lackluster, empty endgame and unbalanced PvP.
Dune: Awakening presents a compelling survival experience on a harsh desert world. The game's greatest strength is its immersive atmosphere, particularly within the vast Haga Basin. This region feels alive, thanks to dynamic environmental events like unpredictable dust storms, crashing spaceships, and the ever-present threat of sandworms, which create memorable, cinematic moments. The world design is varied and visually interesting despite its desert setting, providing a strong foundation for exploration and base-building. This meticulous crafting of the environment makes simply existing within the world a captivating endeavor.
The core gameplay establishes a dynamic and engaging progression system. The journey from a vulnerable survivor to a powerful force on Arrakis is satisfying and well-paced, accommodating solo players effectively. A standout feature is the movement system, which evolves from clunky to exhilarating with the acquisition of key gear, making traversal a joy. While the combat itself can feel weightless, the loop of clearing enemy encampments, gathering resources, and unlocking new schematics is highly addictive. Quality-of-life features, like automatically pulling crafting materials from storage, further streamline the experience, keeping the focus on adventure.
Despite its strong core, the game falters in its later stages, creating a tale of two distinct experiences. The expansive endgame zone feels underdeveloped and empty, failing to deliver on the promise of large-scale, combined-arms battles. Combat, especially melee, lacks visceral impact, and the rudimentary enemy AI offers little challenge. Furthermore, player-versus-player encounters are heavily skewed towards aerial combat, leaving ground battles feeling unbalanced and unrewarding. These issues contrast sharply with the polished early-to-mid game, leaving the final act feeling like a missed opportunity compared to genre contemporaries like Valheim, Enshrouded, and V Rising.
