'Dune: Awakening': A dazzling and brutal journey to the sands of Arrakis

The task of adapting a work as dense and revered as Frank Herbert's Dune to an interactive medium is an undertaking fraught with peril.

Funcom, with the experience gained from Conan Exiles, has not only accepted the challenge, but has poured an almost insane ambition into Dune: Awakening, creating one of the most immersive and visually stunning survival experiences on the market, although not without paying a high price in performance and balance.

We've spent countless sunny cycles on Arrakis, from licking the moisture off the flora to piloting ornithopters in battles for spice. This is our chronicle from the dunes.

Dune: Awakening perfectly understands that, before being a power game, it must be a game about the fragility of life. Its opening loop is a masterclass in survival design. Forget condescending tutorials; the game throws the player into the arena with little more than their wits.

The sun isn't a simple day/night cycle; it's a mortal enemy that forces us to move from shadow to shadow. Water isn't an abundant resource; it's a luxury obtained by licking the moisture off leathery plants or, later, through the technological miracle of the stillsuit.

This first phase is a triumph. The making of the first knife from scrap metal, the construction of a rudimentary shelter to survive a Coriolis storm that turns the sky an apocalyptic orange, and the tension of hearing the unmistakable tremor of an approaching sandworm for the first time are moments that are etched in memory.

The game teaches you to respect the wilderness, to walk without rhythm so as not to attract death, and to understand that every decision, no matter how small, has consequences. It's a slow, methodical, and sometimes brutally punishing experience, but every small step forward feels like an epic victory.

Where Dune: Awakening transcends from being a great survival game to a memorable work in its audiovisual presentation.

Funcom has spared no expense, employing Unreal Engine 5.2 to bring to life an Arrakis that is, quite simply, the most breathtaking and photorealistic ever explored in a video game.

Nanite technology sculpts every canyon, dune, and rock outcrop with seemingly infinite polygonal detail, while Lumen global illumination bathes the world in light that feels tangible.

Watching the twin suns of Arrakis cast long shadows across a desert that stretches to the horizon is an experience that redefines what was considered possible in a massive open world.

This visual fidelity doesn't come for nothing; it's a statement of intent. Bringing the game to its full potential is a true stress test for modern hardware, a challenge worth taking on for enthusiasts.

On our test platform – a ROG STRIX SCAR 18 (2024) laptop with an Intel Core i9 and an NVIDIA RTX 4090 Mobile GPU – we pushed the settings to the limit: "Ultra" quality at a native resolution of 2.5K.

The result is a marvel. The game utilizes every bit of available power, with GPU utilization holding steady above 90% and temperatures stable at 68-70°C, indicating that the engine scales magnificently to take advantage of all the performance it has to offer.

While maintaining a steady 60 frames per second is a Herculean task under these conditions, the experience is mostly fluid. Yes, there is some occasional stuttering, especially when loading new areas or during effects-heavy events.

However, and here lies the key to the experience, these minor setbacks fade in the face of the majesty of the whole.

The splendor of the world is so overwhelming, the feeling of actually being there so powerful, that technical imperfections become a minor detail.

Once survival is assured, Awakening reveals its true nature as an MMO. Progression is structured into tiers of resources and crafting, from scrap tools to Imperial duralumin gear.

The modular and flexible base-building system allows you to create anything from a humble cave siege to a mighty fortress, with the added benefit of saving and trading blueprints.

The game invites you to choose sides between Houses Atreides and Harkonnen, which unlocks a political dimension. Through the Landsraad, the House Council, players can influence decrees that affect the entire server, participating in a cold (and sometimes not so cold) war for control of Arrakis. This strategic layer is what differentiates Awakening from other, more anarchic survival games.

However, the endgame is its most controversial aspect. The Deep Desert becomes an "extraction" zone where PvP is a constant threat.

You're harvesting a spice field and suddenly, an enemy ornithopter appears on the horizon. The idea is brilliant, generating incredible tension, but its initial implementation proved problematic, forcing PvE players to engage in combat they didn't want in order to progress. Funcom's swift response, patching the game to create separate PvP and PvE zones in the Deep Desert, was a direct and welcome response to community feedback, but also an admission that endgame balance is a work in progress.

Dune: Awakening is a monumental work, a testament to the potential of video games to create vibrant, immersive worlds. Its respect for the source material is absolute, and its survival core is one of the most accomplished in the genre. Funcom has laid an extraordinarily solid foundation.

It's a must-have for any fan of Herbert's saga and a rewarding challenge for survival enthusiasts. For everyone else, it's a worthwhile investment for the future: a game with the potential to become a cult classic, provided Funcom continues down the path of optimizing and refining its most complex systems.