Thursday, June 20th 2024
Dune: Awakening Direct Reveals What Makes it an MMO in New Major Showcase
Dune: Awakening, the Open World Survival MMO set on Arrakis from developer Funcom, today unveiled the second Dune: Awakening Direct. The showcase offers 30 minutes of in-depth interviews and game footage showing character creation, the MMO-like server structure, the narrative ramifications of a world where Paul Atreides was never born, and the spiritual journey the player will undergo in the game, following in the footsteps of the Fremen.
Dune: Awakening, which recently shot past 1 million wishlists on Steam, draws on the visual and aural identity created by Denis Villeneuve and Legendary's recent blockbuster movies and is deeply rooted in the original masterpiece by Frank Herbert. The game unleashes you on a vast and open Arrakis torn by war, where you must survive and strive for control of the spice alongside hundreds of other players.
Premiered at Summer Game Fest, the Story Cinematic - The Vision of Paul Atreides, revealed the alternate timeline that Jessica Atreides creates by choosing to give birth to a daughter instead of Paul, beginning a cascading chain of events. Paul's absence leads to a huge power vacuum into which players will venture, creating their own story.
"Expression and customization" is one of the core pillars of Dune: Awakening. To showcase a part of that, the Direct shows off the robust in-game character creation tool. Choose every detail of your appearance, then your home planet, and even your mentor's specialization, such as Mentat, Swordmaster, or Bene Gesserit, which determines your starting abilities.
Creative Director Joel Bylos also dived into the server structure and the Overland Map, which connects various massive sandbox maps, allowing for a larger number of players in each, both of which set Dune: Awakening apart from many other survival games.
"Making the world feel seamless and connected has always been one of our goals on Dune: Awakening," said Joel Bylos. "We built this structure with the idea of making the game expandable, which is difficult with a single map. The idea with the overland map is that it allows us to just keep building the world and giving players new spaces to explore. Who knows what it will look like 5 years from now?"
Dune: Awakening has recently entered its persistent closed Beta, giving access to the full breadth of the game, from the Hagga Basin starting area to the Deep Desert endgame. Sign up for a chance to join on the official website, and wishlist the game on Steam.
With Gamescom coming up in August, Funcom now prepares for an epic Dune: Awakening gameplay reveal.
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Dune: Awakening
Dune: Awakening, which recently shot past 1 million wishlists on Steam, draws on the visual and aural identity created by Denis Villeneuve and Legendary's recent blockbuster movies and is deeply rooted in the original masterpiece by Frank Herbert. The game unleashes you on a vast and open Arrakis torn by war, where you must survive and strive for control of the spice alongside hundreds of other players.
"Expression and customization" is one of the core pillars of Dune: Awakening. To showcase a part of that, the Direct shows off the robust in-game character creation tool. Choose every detail of your appearance, then your home planet, and even your mentor's specialization, such as Mentat, Swordmaster, or Bene Gesserit, which determines your starting abilities.
Creative Director Joel Bylos also dived into the server structure and the Overland Map, which connects various massive sandbox maps, allowing for a larger number of players in each, both of which set Dune: Awakening apart from many other survival games.
"Making the world feel seamless and connected has always been one of our goals on Dune: Awakening," said Joel Bylos. "We built this structure with the idea of making the game expandable, which is difficult with a single map. The idea with the overland map is that it allows us to just keep building the world and giving players new spaces to explore. Who knows what it will look like 5 years from now?"
Dune: Awakening has recently entered its persistent closed Beta, giving access to the full breadth of the game, from the Hagga Basin starting area to the Deep Desert endgame. Sign up for a chance to join on the official website, and wishlist the game on Steam.
With Gamescom coming up in August, Funcom now prepares for an epic Dune: Awakening gameplay reveal.
12 Comments on Dune: Awakening Direct Reveals What Makes it an MMO in New Major Showcase
Their MMO track record is abysmal. Conan could have been good, if it weren't Funcom at the helm. The rest of their MMOs have been company-ending disasters. How, exactly, are they still in business?!
Though I gotta say if 'Expression and customization' is the first 'pillar' they mention, I'm not directly happy lol. That just reads as 'we'll drown you in skins'.
For me Dune has a bit of space-opera and diplomacy in a dystopic cultural crash between maneaters, industrials and a messiah-tale.
btw. Am i the only one who is always thinking: "Again a missed opportunity to go full-pathtracing and abandon the rest?"
I mean just go up from 1600x900 with upscaling, forget raster ... was ther any raster? My brain avoids remembering it.
"the narrative ramifications of a world where Paul Atreides was never born, and the spiritual journey the player will undergo in the game, following in the footsteps of the Fremen."
implies that ... You, The Player is the one to become the Kwisatz Haderach, but that doesn't make sense because the last part of the sentence implies that you're following a character through the pogroms and stuff the Zensunni went through before they eventually landed on Arrakis.
I mean i'll probably play it, but I also on a very conceptual level hate it, like I right now hate everything related to Dune*, but yeah I'll play it.
*because The Milking Has Begun.
but playing it as an mmo? becoming the Kwisatz Haderach? that's too unrealistic in an mmo, unless the first player to attain it will be the only one, and they will not do it like that.
Gief me WoW faction vs faction animosity carried by the game. That shit was awesome.Honestly even after playing with PT in Cyberpunk I can't say I'm looking for the feature. Even if it did run at acceptable FPS; good lighting has been done countless times without it, and running a lot better. The best looking games don't look great because of graphics/effect quality, but rather because they are well designed. Art direction is everything, some ancient games still look the part because of art direction, not because of quality parameters.