Sandworm-bothering MMO Dune: Awakening will release on 20th May, developers Funcom have announced, and you can start tailoring your very own Arrakish (I swear it’s a canonical term) adventurer by means of the just-released character creator. Any desert delver you produce with said creator can be imported to the full game at launch.
Inspired by Monster Hunter’s Hunting Horn, I’ve recently gotten into the habit of making characters who look like Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson. I’m not sure Dune: Awakening has sufficiently puckish hair to support this – not many big frizzy gingers in the Dune universe, in my experience. But I’m willing to give it a shot, for science. Anyway, here’s a trailer.
And here’s some blurb about that character creator: “Fine-tune every aspect of your looks, then choose your home planet, caste, and mentor, be it Swordmaster, Bene Gesserit, Mentat, or Trooper. The final choice determines your starting abilities, but you will gain access to every School eventually, and can even mix and match abilities from any of them.”
The character creator accompanies a benchmark mode, which “lets you check your hardware performance and system compatibility while being treated to some epic scenes from the game, including soaring with an ornithopter and a dramatic encounter with a colossal sandworm.”
In the full game, sandworms are a persistent threat that roam the world and are drawn to the sound of players using thumpers, mining spice melange or just walking around on the bare sand. As I discussed in my preview last year, you can lure the worm into attacking rival spice miners. I think this is the part of Dune: Awakening that most has my interest. The idea of building another base and levelling up doesn’t really grip me, as much as I like the setting.
Read more of Dune: Awakening on Steam. Ah, steam. There isn’t a lot of that on Arrakis. Water is scanter here than redhead prog rock musicians.