Did you not have two hours to yourself to sit and watch Dune: Awakening’s recent livestream? Don’t worry because Funcom has elected to cut the important portions of that broadcast into two pieces that answer player questions and provide a look at some live gameplay.
The first video spends about a third of its runtime showing off the goodies available to those who pre-order the survivalbox while also providing a rough idea of what DLC plans will be. Basically players can expect cosmetics and “optional side stories” to be on offer, but nothing that’s required to play or content that moves you to upper tiers of progression.
The devs also discussed the matter of pre-order headstart access, specifically addressing concerns that those who want to play with friends but can’t buy a pre-order bundle will be locked away from one another. They point out that while the Hagga Basin area that players start in will be limited to 40 players, there will also be a queue system in place in order to keep players together.
There is also assurances that other locations will house hundreds of players and once again assure PvE players that the FFA PvP Deep Desert area is totally a fine place to enter into, no really, the wolves totally won’t eat your sheep face. “It’s not that scary as long as you don’t go where all the big guilds fight it out,” the devs claim here.
The rest of the first video then answers player questions:
- Controller support will be available at launch.
- Players will be able to do all things solo, including contracts.
- Base decay mechanics are in place; players will need to have them powered and shielded in order for them to avoid being destroyed.
- Maximum guild size is 32.
- PvP death will not mean a lootable corpse but will see players drop spice and materials and take a hit to their gear durability, though the devs also hint that there is “a thing that can happen” that will “modify that for one week.”
As mentioned, the second video is all about live gameplay that shares about 30 minutes’ worth of general gameplay beats including finding POIs, taking on contracts, unlocking skill trees via NPC discovery and mission-running, and a bit of base-building and exploration. Much of the footage appears to be from the viewpoint of a character that has established a bit of a foothold, but it does seem to give a pretty good overview of activities.
