Dune: Awakening beta patch says you're not Muad'Dib, makes riding Sandworms fatal and puts a stop to ornithopter griefing

Dune Awakening Sandworms
(Image credit: Funcom)

In the Dune books, Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides is a man carefully bred over the course of thousands of years – trained in combat, piloting, and politics beyond anything most people in the known universe can match. The latest Dune: Awakening patch reasserts that you are not him, you're no Kwisatz Haderach, and riding a sandworm will definitely kill you.

If you're signed up for the MMO's Public Test Client on Steam, you'll now have access to patch 1.1.20.0. The biggest highlight for me is this: "Colliding with the sandworm's body during any of its animations will now result in death or vehicle destruction." This is sad news for people who managed to ride Shai Hulud, even though this was clearly never supposed to be possible.

The devs have also asked that people prioritize testing ornithopters crashes, because they want to make sure a new fix actually works: "Colliding ornithopters will now get an impulse applied to separate them. This will mitigate the griefing done to Carrier ornithopters by swarming with multiple ornithopters."

If it does work, it's great news for players who fell foul of an old technique that saw an ornithopter land on their vehicle before the pilot hopped out, planted a thumper to summon a sandworm, and then waited to fly away after it consumed them.

Another great quality-of-life update is you can now search for items by name on the exchange. A lot of items have had their prices adjusted, too, to make them more affordable. Coffee and missiles are all heavily discounted, so get out there and get shooting.

You can read the full patch notes right here. This patch should be live across the whole game August 12.

While you're here, check out the best MMORPGs you can play.

Issy van der Velde
Contributor

I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.

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