Sometimes when it rains, it really pours around these here MMO parts. To demonstrate this, last week we not only got the official release date for Dune Awakening — May 20th — and the price tag ($50) but the benchmark and character creator on Steam. This way you can get a taste of the game, work on your future Arrakian toon, and decide whether this is an experience you want to pursue in a few months. It’s a great idea, honestly.
Today I want to poke around the character creator to see what options are on the table, how easy it is to make the avatar I want, and perhaps to glean a few more details about this upcoming title. Let’s dive in!
Funcom is fishing hard for movie fans
The recent (and ongoing!) Dune movies are pretty popular and well-respected, and Dune Awakening stands to benefit greatly from it. Funcom knows this, too, because whatever transmedia synergy deal it inked with Hollywood, it’s lashing this MMO tightly to the IP. You can see that right from the beginning, with the cinematic intro and the logo that uses the same design as the movies.
This is definitely a Funcom game, for better or for worse
It might be a gameplay trailer with some built-in functionality, but the benchmark is still worth viewing. You get three scenes — player-built bases, Harko Village, and a short scene with a sandworm — before the benchmark tells you how strong or puny your machine is.
Other than giving us straight-up flavor about the world and a glimpse into the possibilities presented by base-building, what really hit me is how very Funcomish this all looks. I didn’t have to squint hard to see DNA of Anarchy Online, The Secret World, and even The Longest Journey tucked into these characters and architecture design. That’s not a bad thing, as I’m quite fond of those worlds, but it’s not really something I had associated with this MMO until now.
Oh, and you also get a code for an in-game Flameblade at the end of the benchmark, so that’s a nice little bonus (it’s “WAKE-THE-SLEEPER” without quotes).
We start as prisoners
It maybe be just as much of an RPG trope to start a game as a prisoner as washing up on a beach after a shipwreck, but that’s the angle Dune Awakening selects. As your character walks up to the creation process, the Reverend Mother refers to you as a “prisoner,” which raises all kinds of interesting narrative questions in my head.
This is a pretty robust character creator
While you can’t pick from dozens of alien races, this character creator is stacked with sliders and options. You can choose to make your character as beefy or skinny as you like, add vitiligo or freckles, pick out your tattoo, toss on a scar or blemish, play around with makeup, modify your face and eyes, and (of course) have fun selecting your hair style.
I wasn’t that thrilled with the hair or beards, though. Sometimes MMOs do this really well, but here it looks shockingly poor — almost as bad as Cryptic’s hair options, and that’s kind of the floor for hair quality in this genre.
There are some fun roleplay options here
After you’re done customizing your face and body, you move on to other characterization choices. Next is picking your birth planet out of five, with each giving you a description, a special dialogue trait, and a unique emote. That’s pretty cool! Then you move on to selecting a caste, which also comes with a dialogue trait.
If you really want to milk this character creator, I would recommend going back and forth between all of these options to hear the Reverend Mother respond with some background flavor on that choice.
After these two roleplay screens comes the choice of mentor — or, in other words, your class. You can be a Swordmaster, a Bene Gesserit Acolyte, a Mentat (the Freshmaker!), or a Trooper. Each of these classes get a description and a starting ability as a way to help you make your decision.
Once your character is made, there’s a crazy little cutscene and your starting mission is given. Unfortunately, there is no opportunity to use any of those cool little dialogue traits before the creator exits and saves your character, waiting for that May 20th launch date.
One little cool detail: Once you go through this, your character will show up on the main menu the next time you boot up the creator.
Do you love spectating and speculating about upcoming MMOs? We do too! Every week, Justin tackles another upcoming title on the MMO Hype Train with opinions, analysis, and blind fervent hope. Choo choo all aboard!
