Dune's big survival MMO spin-off breaks silence to explain how to build a base on the most dangerous planet in the universe

Dune: Awakening, the upcoming survival MMO based on Frank Herbert's sci-fi masterpiece, has shown off its base-building systems for the first time.

In a video posted on Twitter, lead game designer Leo Welter walks us through the early stages of base building, stating that "shortly after starting out, you'll be able to claim land and build your first base." From there, you can upgrade and decorate, gaining access to more advanced technology as you go, but Welter also points out that the threat inherent to life on Arrakis means that you'll also have to shield your base from threats. Presumably that means building on a pretty solid foundation to ensure that no Shai-Hulud make their way up through your floor.

A couple of things catch my attention here: The first is the idea that you'll need to "claim land" upon which to build your base. That's an interesting nod to the arc that the Dune: Awakening devs have pointed to in the past - the idea that from a bare-bones start, you'll need to build up to create your own guild, or even push towards Harkonnen levels of power and influence.

That's tied to the second thing that's caught my eye - the idea that this is the process of building your "first" base. Welter implies that you'll eventually want to be crafting settlements all across the game's world, which further points to something like Starfield's outpost system - perhaps you'll have different locations dedicated to different resources, with the idea being that you can ferry what you need back and forth.

It's only a brief look at Dune: Awakening, but it's one of comparatively few we've had. Since the game's announcement at Gamescom 2022, the team has stayed relatively quiet. That's little cause for concern, however, as developer Funcom has another, very similar game under its belt in the form of Conan Exiles, a multiplayer survival game that launched in 2018. That might not necessarily hit the 'massively' multiplayer part of an MMO, but it's certainly a suggestion that this is a team with some pedigree when it comes to survival games in unforgiving worlds.

The Dune MMO is turning to Valheim to help build its thirst meters.