The most interesting thing about Dune: Awakening is the concept. Rather than being set in the world of the books or the films, it assumes an alternate universe where Paul's mother Jessica bore a daughter as she was ordered, rather than the son. This small but significant change has caused a rippling butterfly effect that has led to a very different world, one where the Atredes family was not destroyed by a secret spy. The desert world of Arrakis is now the centerpiece for a war between the Great Houses for control over the spice Melange. Players take on the role of an agent of the Bene Gesserit who's been dropped on the planet to investigate the mysteries of the Freman and the spice.

The alternate universe take was the best idea Dune: Awakening could've gone for. While our preview build only gave us access to part of the gameplay, it's a really appealing way to introduce the bulk of the story's most popular characters without working around the psychic messiah at the center of everything. I'm curious to see where the story goes, but it has a lot of potential.

On the surface, Dune: Awakening is a survival game with MMO elements, very akin to something like Conan: Exiles. Dune is an incredibly inhospitable planet, and you'll need to quickly figure out how to gather resources to survive. This follows much of the basic loop in standard survival/crafting games, where you're seeking materials to build a base so you can go out and get greater amounts of material. As you might expect, water is the most precious resource of all, and you're going to need a lot of it to stay alive in the desert wastes. This  means you'll have to resort to stealing dew from plants or harvesting enemies for material.

Less necessary but not necessarily less important is spice. Spice is a specialized drug that can only be harvested on Arrakis; spice grants longevity and health, and it can bolster precognitive and mental abilities. The only downside is that it's rare and potentially addictive. Once you get past the earliest days of survival, gathering spice is one of your primary goals. It's not simply because of the spice's net worth but because having access to spice can give your character a boost in their abilities and special visions. We were asked not to say too much about this, but spice will be central to the gameplay.

Acquiring resources is going to require fighting. Dune: Awakening allows you to build your character in a number of ways, including various combat techniques and specialized Bene Gesserit powers. You can learn to force enemies to walk toward you with your commanding Voice, set up powerful turrets to blow them away, or gain a cool super sprint technique that makes it easy to get up close to an enemy. You can focus on melee or ranged combat, and there are both classic PvE and specific PvP zones if you want to get your Harkonnen backstabbing on.

Dune's combat is interesting in that it is clearly balancing the needs of the canon with the needs of gameplay. In the main Dune story, ranged weapons have fallen by the wayside due to the creation of personal shields that deflect most ranged weapons, but the shields can be pierced by slow-moving melee weaponry. Awakening portrayed this as shields being immensely powerful and capable of stopping most ranged attacks, but shields can eventually be overloaded. If you get close and use special melee skills, you can break through a shielded enemy's defenses.

Of course, the biggest danger on Dune is the infamous sandworms, and you're not going to be able to fight those. As you travel across the desert, you make vibrations. If you make too many vibrations, you risk attracting a sandworm, which will kill you if it catches you. These giant creatures are terrifying and omnipresent, and if one kills you, then you'll lose everything you had on you when you die. It's in your best interest to not tick off the worms. This is an important part of the Dune mythos, so it's nice to see it represented.

Dune: Awakening sets itself apart from other similar survival games by emphasizing the nobody-to-somebody feel. When you start out, you're basically little more than an unlucky newcomer to a planet that is known as being extremely inhospitable, but the protagonist appears to be aiming for something significantly greater. While our preview build took us through the earlier levels, we know that there are plans for more complex political and social elements in the endgame, mirroring Paul's journey from yeomen Freman to the next emperor of the galaxy. I'm curious to see how that will pan out in the final version.

Based on what we were able to play in Dune: Awakening, the game has a lot of potential. Most Dune games tend to focus on the grand strategy aspects, but Awakening tries to capture the feeling of being an individual on the deadly desert planet. The crafting gameplay feels familiar but features a number of distinctive Dune touches that will please fans of the series. The alt-universe concept means the development team is free to introduce characters and take things in new directions. Dune: Awakening is scheduled to launch on June 10, 2025, so Dune fans should keep this title on their radars.