REVIEW | Dune: Awakening

The unforgiving deserts of Arrakis have never felt more alive or more brutal than they do in Dune: Awakening. As a lifelong fan of Frank Herbert’s original novels and Denis Villeneuve’s stunning adaptations, the chance to step onto the shifting sands of Sci-Fi’s most iconic planet was both thrilling and intimidating.

This open‑world survival RPG throws players headfirst into an alternate timeline of Arrakis, where the Duke never fell, forcing you to navigate deep political intrigue alongside harsh survival mechanics. From managing your water supply and mastering the “desert walk” to building hidden outposts and hunting for Spice, every system is designed around the raw, isolating terror of surviving the deep desert alone.

For this review, I spent most of my time exploring Arrakis in single‑player mode, though I also dipped my toes into the MMO side to see how the other half lives. It’s worth noting early that these two experiences exist in completely separate worlds. Rather than letting you carry a single character between solo play and online servers, the game treats them as distinct paths. You’ll need one character dedicated purely to your solo journey and another for multiplayer. Even before taking my first steps into this vast sandbox, the sheer scale of its narrative and survival systems promised an ambitious journey that every Dune purist has dreamed of experiencing.

Now, let’s step into the sands and see how Dune: Awakening truly holds up.

Things I liked!

• Story & Lore | The narrative foundation of Awakening takes a bold risk by exploring a massive “What if?” scenario. Since the introduction already notes that Duke Leto Atreides never fell, the story branches into an entirely new timeline that instantly grips you. This creative choice strikes a wonderful balance for dedicated fans. It feels deeply familiar, steeped in the terminology, religious undertones, and cultural friction that define the universe, yet remains unpredictable because history itself has been rewritten. You are not replaying the books or films; you are discovering a parallel version of Arrakis.
  
  Experiencing this narrative primarily through the single player path allows the storytelling to take centre stage. The presentation of the lore shows immense respect for the source material, introducing familiar factions like the Fremen, Harkonnens, and Atreides in fresh contexts. Dialogue, environmental storytelling, and scattered world building details are all carefully written, capturing the philosophical tone that Frank Herbert pioneered. Rather than feeling like a generic sci-fi backdrop wrapped in a Dune skin, the narrative rewards your investment in the franchise. It makes you feel like an active participant in a grand political chess match where the rules have suddenly changed.

• Gameplay | At its heart, the daily routine of surviving on Arrakis masterfully captures the brutal reality of the fiction, turning resource management into a tense, rewarding mechanical loop. Unlike traditional survival sandboxes where you casually wander and harvest, Awakening forces you to constantly adapt to the planet’s harsh rules. Your entire experience revolves around managing your water supply and avoiding the deadly rays of the sun. Operating in open sunlight triggers a rapid heat stroke mechanic that drains hydration quickly, forcing you to treat shade as a literal lifeline. You will find yourself timing resource runs carefully, darting between the shadows of towering canyons and rocky outcroppings, calculating every step to avoid dehydrating in the deep desert.
  
  This constant environmental friction makes exploration feel incredibly high stakes. Finding water becomes an immediate obsession, whether you are harvesting rare desert flora or extracting moisture from fallen enemies. You also need to keep a constant eye on the horizon for distant cloud formations, as storms can arrive at any moment. While the game often warns you to seek shelter when a massive Coriolis storm approaches, it is the smaller, unannounced ones that catch you off guard. These mini storms can be deadly if you are trapped in wide open sand without cover.
  
  Stepping onto the open dunes brings a completely different level of fear. Your vibration reader constantly picks up signals of nearby sandworms, making every step on foot feel like a gamble. Sprinting across the desert while watching your stamina bar drain is genuinely terrifying. If a sandworm kills you out in the open, you can lose everything in your backpack if you are not careful, adding a real sense of danger to every journey. For your own sanity and survival, using a vehicle is a much safer option for crossing the deep desert.
  
  Even after many hours, the sheer scale of what you can do remains overwhelming. The sandbox is incredibly deep, and between upgrading tech, exploring new territories, and managing outposts, the loop becomes highly addictive. It is a massive undertaking, and I could easily see myself playing for hundreds of hours as I continue to master the sands of Arrakis.
  
  
• Visuals | Stepping out onto the surface of Arrakis, the first thing that hits you is the sheer, overwhelming scale of the world. Awakening does a spectacular job of translating the cinematic spectacle of the recent films into an interactive space. The visual draw distances are immense, making the endless oceans of sand look beautiful and incredibly intimidating.
  
  Awakening manages to take what is essentially a giant desert and give it a surprising amount of visual variety. While the environment could easily feel repetitive, the world is filled with distinctive landmarks and stone formations that help you navigate and keep exploration visually engaging. You will cross sun‑bleached rock formations, navigate towering canyons, and explore massive, atmospheric structures like abandoned research stations or bustling city hubs. The lighting is a clear highlight, capturing how the harsh, direct sunlight changes throughout the day. Watching the sun dip low over the horizon, casting deep orange and brown hues across the dust devils and shifting dunes, creates a genuinely mesmerising atmosphere. Even the gargantuan sandworms perfectly sell the absolute terror of the Maker, with exploding sand and towering dust clouds that showcase their immense scale.
  
  
• Audio | Complementing the visuals, the sound design is a triumph that pulls you directly into the universe. The environmental effects are incredibly immersive, from the gritty hiss of wind‑blown sand against your stillsuit armour to the deep groans of rock formations under the heat. When the weather shifts, the audio moves seamlessly from eerie calm to the deafening roar of a dust storm, making the desert feel alive and hostile. I really liked how the storm sounds carried a sense of danger and power, perfectly matching the intensity of the world around you. Even the general sound effects, such as weapon fire, vehicle engines, and equipment interactions, feel crisp and impactful, adding weight to every action.
  
  The soundtrack is a major highlight for any fan of the franchise. It draws clear inspiration from Hans Zimmer’s haunting, industrial style from the recent films. The music swells dynamically with your actions, using hypnotic vocal chants and strange instruments to build tension while exploring, then shifting to pounding percussion in combat. I found myself completely absorbed by the score, which captures that blend of ancient mysticism and futuristic science fiction that defines Dune.
  
  Voice acting anchors the narrative with real weight. Performances are serious and measured, fitting the political tension of Arrakis. Hearing familiar terms and complex jargon spoken naturally makes dialogue sequences engaging, and the muffled distortion of voices through stillsuit masks adds authenticity. The only odd choice is that your custom protagonist remains silent during conversations, with responses appearing only as text, which feels unusual given that you select a voice during character creation.
  
  
• Crafting | The survival loop on Arrakis shifts dramatically once you begin establishing a permanent footprint through the game’s crafting systems. Progression feels deeply satisfying as you move from assembling crude tools out of scrap metal to manufacturing high‑tech weaponry, advanced stillsuits, and heavy machinery. Resource gathering is paced well, encouraging exploration into hazardous territory to find the high‑grade materials needed for top‑tier gear. Crafting becomes the lifeblood of survival, and watching your technology evolve feels like a direct reflection of your growth as a true master of the desert.
  
  
• Base Building | Construction offers an impressive amount of freedom. The modular system lets you design anything from a modest canyon outpost to a sprawling fortress. The piece‑by‑piece interface is intuitive, allowing you to snap foundations, walls, and structural components together with ease. Early on, it can feel clunky while you learn its quirks, but after some time I was able to build my perfect base with little trouble. The constant threat of Coriolis storms adds a clever layer of strategy, forcing you to use natural rock formations as shields and think like a true Fremen when choosing where to build.
  
  My first base placement limited how far I could expand, as the open sand blocked further construction. Thankfully, I found a tool that let me copy my entire blueprint and relocate it to a safer area, though you can only use this function once per base. There’s also a limit to how many bases you can build, so I maintained one main base with two smaller outposts spread across the map. You can abandon a base at any time, freeing up space for new builds or shifting focus to a different region.
  
  As you explore, vendors sell unique furniture sets and decorative items, letting you personalise your base and give each outpost its own character. I even built a small balcony with a chair purely to watch the sunrise and sunset, which look incredible with multiple moons hanging in the sky. That setup worked perfectly for managing resources and travel across Arrakis.
  
  Your main base quickly becomes a sanctuary and a personal staging ground for manufacturing vehicles like the Sandbike, your first ride. Returning from a gruelling journey across the dunes to a powered, self‑sustaining hub you built yourself feels genuinely rewarding. The crafting benches, automated refineries, and storage networks give your base a strong industrial purpose that goes far beyond aesthetics, grounding you in the world and making you feel like a permanent, powerful force on Arrakis.
  
  Once your base is fully operational, the game’s mechanical depth really starts to show. Advanced crafting machines, refineries, and vehicles add layers of complexity that turn your home into a functioning industrial hub. Managing power, fuel, and maintenance becomes a constant balancing act, rewarding careful planning but occasionally feeling overwhelming during solo play. It’s a fascinating system that blends creativity with logistics, giving your base a sense of real engineering weight beneath its beauty.
  
  
• Multiplayer | I only spent a few hours in multiplayer, but it was enough to see how different it feels from solo play. Public servers are split into smaller regions, and the starting area is completely PvE, so other players can’t steal your resources or damage your base. It’s a safe space to learn the basics before heading out into the wider world.
  
  The biggest change comes from how alive the world feels when real players are involved. Even though I only crafted my basic gear and raided a few enemy camps, I still saw how the online side shifts the focus from quiet survival to shared activity. Players trade materials and blueprints through the global Exchange, gather in busy hubs like Arrakeen, and form squads or guilds to tackle tougher content together.
  
  You can choose peaceful PvE zones or riskier PvP areas where harvesting rewards are increased, giving players a reason to take on more danger. Even with limited time, it was clear that multiplayer turned Arrakis into a constantly shifting ecosystem shaped by player ambition, offering a very different experience from the slower, more personal journey of solo play. I could easily see myself losing hundreds of hours to both modes, making Awakening incredible value.
  
  
• Performance | Performance holds up well enough to keep you immersed, offering a choice between a crisp Quality mode and a fluid Performance mode. As someone who always prioritises frame rate, I switched straight to Performance mode, and the game rewarded that choice with a remarkably stable 60 fps during solo play. Sprinting across open sands or piloting vehicles feels responsive and smooth throughout.
  
  When building at my base, I occasionally noticed frame rate dips, though other times it ran perfectly fine. Online play also introduces some minor drops, with occasional flickering in the distance, but never enough to spoil the experience. There’s a slight visual pop‑in when looking out over the landscape, with grass and bushes appearing suddenly in the distance, though it rarely detracts from the bleak, highly detailed beauty of Arrakis.
  
  
• Accessibility & Custom Difficulty | One of the standout features of the single‑player mode is the inclusion of robust accessibility options and an incredibly deep custom difficulty system. Awakening understands that its standard survival loop can be brutal, so it hands control directly to the player to adjust almost every aspect of the experience. You can tweak everything from hydration loss speed and environmental aggressiveness to enemy damage and resource abundance. This flexibility lets you transform the game from a punishing survival simulation into a more relaxed, exploration‑focused RPG if that’s how you prefer to play.
  
  This level of customisation is a lifesaver for solo players who might find the game’s scale daunting at first. Fine‑tuning the settings allows you to bypass the harsher micromanagement elements without losing the magic of exploring Arrakis. It’s an incredibly thoughtful addition that makes the journey accessible to a much wider audience, ensuring that both hardcore survival purists and casual fans can enjoy the game at their own pace.

Mixed & disliked!

• Combat | Combat is a lot of fun, and I had a great time experimenting with the different weapons and loadouts you can equip. Finding the right combination of firearms to suit your playstyle adds a fantastic layer of strategy to every encounter. However, the fighting isn’t without its rough edges. Melee weapons can feel a little clunky at times, lacking the fluid responsiveness you get during firefights.
  
  Another issue I ran into often was how easily enemies would box me into tight corners. The AI can be quite aggressive, and if you get pinned against a wall or caught in a cramped space, the movement mechanics sometimes lock up. When this happens, you’re completely trapped, unable to move out of harm’s way or even reload your weapon. It’s a frustrating quirk that can turn a fun, tactical battle into an unfair defeat simply because of a positioning glitch.

• Mission Tracking | As you progress through the story, you’ll meet various characters and visit countless locations. Along the way, you’ll pick up contracts, lots of them. Completing these is essential for progression, rewarding you with experience points, currency, and other useful items to help you survive. While I appreciated the sheer number of contracts and the freedom to tackle them at your own pace, the way they’re presented in the menu could have been much easier to read and track.
  
  A cleaner layout, such as a dedicated tab for active contracts and quests, would have helped tremendously. Instead, you have to scroll through the entire list to find the ones you’re currently working on. Active objectives are only marked by a small coloured icon and the word “following,” which makes them easy to miss. Because of this, I often found myself wasting time searching through a massive list just to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. It’s a messy system that makes managing missions feel unnecessarily cumbersome.
  
  
• Map System | Another aspect of Awakening that gave me constant issues was the map system. While it visually shows everything you need in terms of icons and general locations, it’s severely limited by how it handles magnification. The zoom range is minimal, which quickly becomes a major hindrance when trying to pinpoint a destination in the game’s more vertical environments.
  
  This limitation becomes especially glaring when following quest markers. Arrakis is full of hidden caves, underground research labs, and towering rock formations, yet the map fails to clearly indicate whether your target is above or below ground level. You can sometimes see a faint indicator suggesting elevation, but it’s rarely clear enough to be helpful. Because of this, I spent a lot of time running in circles, unsure whether to climb a cliffside or search for a cave entrance beneath my feet. A simple elevation marker or more flexible zoom feature would have saved a lot of unnecessary backtracking.
  
  
• Character Models | Character models present a slightly more mixed bag compared to the stellar environments. The character creation system is incredibly detailed, offering an impressive array of sliders for scars, tattoos, and unique features that let you craft a rugged survivor true to Dune’s lore. In cutscenes and dialogue screens, your protagonist and NPCs look sharp and expressive. Once you step into the open world, however, the models can lose some of that fidelity, occasionally appearing stiff or plastic during fast‑paced movement and combat. Thankfully, you spend much of your time covered in highly detailed stillsuits and armour, which look fantastic and fit the utilitarian aesthetic of the universe perfectly.
  
  
• Bugs & Glitches | For a world this large, I expected a few bugs and glitches, and what I encountered were mostly minor. I ran into moments where enemies could shoot through rocks, or where breaking the seal on a door let me walk through only for it to suddenly appear fixed again. Another time, I cleared out a base of enemies and went to loot them, only to find all the bodies had vanished.
  
  Despite these oddities, I never experienced any crashes, and none of the issues I encountered spoiled the experience too much. They’re small quirks in an otherwise stable build, and given the scale of the world, they’re easy to overlook.

• How long did I play the review before publishing? 44 Hours
• How long to beat the story? 65+ Hours
• How many Achievements did I earn before publishing? 17/74 OR 259/1000G
• How long to get 100%? | 150+ Hours
• You’ll love this game if you like these | Conan Exiles, ARK: Survival Ascended & Starfield

Score: 86/100

Arrakis is harsh, unforgiving, and absolutely unforgettable.

Dune: Awakening delivers a survival experience that captures the scale, danger, and mystique of the Dune universe with remarkable confidence. Its world is vast, its systems are deep, and its atmosphere is unlike anything else in the genre. Even with a few rough edges in combat, mission tracking, and navigation, the core experience remains gripping and endlessly rewarding. I fully plan to carry on playing, and I hope to see future updates from the developers that smooth out some of the issues I encountered. There is still so much left to discover in the sands of Arrakis.