After a more than successful PC-launch, the Dune: Awakening console edition is here. Dune: Awakening is a survival MMO set within the world of Frank Herbert’s Dune series. Released last year, the Funcom-developed game has met the IP’s excitement by giving players an immersive experience on Arrakis. In the game, you pick your house, your home planet, and your specialty (Bene Gesserit, Swordmaster, Trooper, and Mentat), and then you wind up crashed on Arrakis.
Part survival game, part MMO, Dune: Awakening has been a hybrid of both that served two audiences. With PVP constrained to one area, and through server-density control, there were often times that playing the title on PC at launch felt close to being a single-player title.
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Outside of hubs or Clans, it wasn’t entirely common to see another player constantly; through their buildings, you always knew that someone was there. Since its initial launch, the game’s focus on gameplay customization and single-player has been a bigger effort to make sure there’s no mistake that the game is an open-world survival title, even with its MMO tendencies.
The Dune: Awakening console launch was a way to reach new audiences, but even for returning players, it stands out.
Dune: Awakening’s console launch marks the game’s arrival on Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5, along with the introduction of a brand-new single-player mode. When you enter the game, you can choose between the traditional experience of playing with others or playing alone.
Cross-play support is coming in a future post-launch update, but it isn’t fully supported yet. The only exception is Dune: Awakening’s support for Xbox Play Anywhere, which lets Xbox and PC players who bought the game from the Microsoft PC Store play together with full cross-progression. But honestly, starting over in a game this massive isn’t all that bad.
As a port, the game has some technical issues on the Xbox Series X. Sputtering and loading hiccups mean textures sometimes don’t load until a few moments after a sequence begins. Despite the noted optimization in the Dune: Awakening console launch, the controller integration still doesn’t always make sense, especially in menus, particularly with the ability to use the D-pad and right stick for movement interchangeably.
Using the left thumbstick as a mouse cursor in menus is iffy at best (a holdover from the PC launch), primarily because interaction and highlighting aren’t always readable. Additionally, the slight delay when using the cursor, then switching back to pressing a button for an action, can get frustrating.
When I first started playing, the quest wanted me to craft the game’s equivalent of a gun and then the ammunition for it. But in doing so, I ended up crafting nearly 2,000 rounds of ammunition because, despite moving my cursor over the item, it wasn’t the one selected.
Resource gathering and combat all feel natural, intuitive, and engrossing.
With some finicky menu controls, the larger controller experience with the standard Xbox Series X|S Elite controller was relatively painless. After about two hours of play, everything became second nature. Still, controller support hasn’t improved much between the PC version and the Dune: Awakening console edition, but when the game is good, small annoyances don’t trump the overall experience.
Even with the small number of technical issues, the Dune: Awakening console edition feels just like playing the game on PC. Outside of playing it on my 65-inch television on my couch, instead of on my monitor in my office, the experience is almost a one-to-one in every way. The game’s menus are its weakest point on console, but the game loop is no less gripping.
Resource gathering and combat all feel natural, intuitive, and just as engrossing. Building feels no different. There are far fewer differences between playing the game on console or on PC than I had initially expected. Still, this second launch really shines with the addition of single-player.
Ultimately, the game’s approach to worldbuilding and lore has always been enough to keep you invested, and the wide-open desert of Dune: Awakening has always presented itself as a character and challenge. The amount of time we put into the PC launch was dedicated to crafting, building, and writing our own story in the game. But what happens when you take away the collaborative creativity that the game offered? Is it still fun completely alone?
Funcom’s approach to creating a survival game first is Dune: Awakening’s biggest strength.
With the Dune: Awakening console edition, Funcom has also launched the single-player version of the game. By launching a way to solo the entire game, it may seem like the developers moved away from multiplayer, but through our interviews with the devs, it’s clear how natural a soloable Dune: Awakening is.
When we spoke with Funcom developers pre-launch, they explained, “When we’re communicating the direction with the designers, it’s that we’re not making an MMO. We’re making a survival game… [We start] from that DNA and that basic concept and that expertise that Funcom has, but then we made it Dune. It’s not just Exiles-Dune, but rather a Dune game in this mold, and then we blew it outwards. That’s the key to the DNA for me: it’s a survival game writ large, not an MMO squished down.”
Ahead of launch, Funcom was certain to assure that players wouldn’t have to face the pressure of constantly being online because of the threat of their buildings being raided or destroyed. With designated PVP and PVE areas, the title aimed to limit the harsh requirements of most survival titles like Ark: Survival Evolved or Rust. The servers were also designed to avoid being dense with other players, letting the planet be its own threat.
With the Dune: Awakening console edition and single-player launch, Funcom is addressing the age-old multiplayer problem of what to do with the audience who wants to play your game, just not with other people. Truthfully, I can’t get friends to play the multiplayer games I love because they just don’t want to be in a multiplayer setting.
That means fantastic storytelling and mechanics often go unexplored because of the aversion to multiplayer. While I’ve often rolled my eyes at the refusal to play with others, Dune: Awakening’s console version introduces a single-player mode that lets players invite friends and others who might not otherwise explore the game.
The Dune: Awakening single-player mode opened my eyes to what playing alone can do, even for those who love playing with others. For this console review, I focused on the game’s single-player mode, and I was rewarded with a game that didn’t skip a beat.
Even though I’d only ever played Dune: Awakening in a group, playing alone didn’t feel like I was missing anything from the overall experience. With the ability to drop in and drop out when I wanted with Quick Resume, the console edition proves one solid thing: Dune: Awakening isn’t just a great survival-MMO because of what others build and make in the world; it’s just a great survival game. Full stop. Alone or with others, Dune: Awakening is just good.
The Dune: Awakening single-player feels intentional, not tacked on.
The Dune: Awakening single-player mode does eliminate some of the more in-depth PVP combat that took place in the middle of the desert, making it less stressful in that regard. But with the worm just beneath the surface, Arrakis is just as unforgiving as ever. And in a way, playing alone made Arrakis, the freedom of exploration, and the Shai-Hulud (the sandworm) feel like even bigger characters. With no one to lean on, I had to manage my own weaknesses in survival games.
Resource management, and specifically thirst management, was something I had not thought about in some time because of how much we had progressed through the game. Additionally, my role in our group was always to build the base and be creative. The others brought me just about everything I needed. Now, I had to do it all, and in a way it ended up making my time with the Dune: Awakening console edition even more satisfying.
Dune: Awakening has launched on consoles to new audiences, but even among existing players, this launch also gives the title a second life. Playing the game alone feels different. The easier stakes of not needing to build immediately so that you don’t lose your spot aren’t a factor, and the guilt of only playing in bursts diminishes, since there’s no one else relying on you. Add in the lower stakes and complete control single-player mode gives players, and it can’t be overstated just how interesting this launch feels.
The single-player launch feels as intentional as the original multiplayer launch. This isn’t an afterthought, and much of that has to have come from Funcom’s assertion that the game’s MMO-style was not its primary game type; survival was.
Launching on console brings Dune: Awakening to more players who only seek out single-player games.
While other MMOs and multiplayer titles have carved out ways to play alone within the larger world, it’s often at the cost of bad builds entering multiplayer-only spaces, the inability to run certain mechanics, and ultimately a detriment to the existing multiplayer base the game is built on.
But with Dune: Awakening’s single-player mode, Funcom hasn’t looked past its larger player base or hindered their experience. Instead, the developers have given solo players their own sandbox while preserving what others enjoyed.
The Dune: Awakening console launch is exciting. The console experience largely matches what players have on PC, but its single-player also opens the door to more players who want to play alone without sacrificing quality for them or the game’s existing multiplayer base. And for those looking to hop in on console, I can’t stress enough how different the experience of playing alone is, in the best way.
Funcom may have to solve what to do if more core players move to single-player in terms of server density and economies, but the ambitious choice to bifurcate experiences proves the game’s quality beyond the friends you made along the way. Dune: Awakening is great, but its commitment to widening its audience and meeting its players’ needs is the real standout.
Dune: Awakening
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Rating - 8.5/108.5/10
TL;DR
The Dune: Awakening console launch is exciting. The console experience largely matches what players have on PC, but its single-player mode also opens the door to more players who want to play alone without sacrificing quality for them or the game’s existing multiplayer base.
