Developing a live-service game is tricky, especially when it's based on an already established universe. Funcom has the unenviable task of finding the balance between what we as players want and what the devs as artists envision for us in Dune: Awakening, but the team seems confident.
"You need to strike the balance of what's fun gameplay and what's correct in terms of the lore and the canon of the universe, and then at the same time, hit what players' expectations are," production director Ole Andreas Hayley tells GamesRadar+ at Gamescom. "It's a tricky balance to strike, but we have a great team I would trust fully to take all of those things into account."
But, the question on everyone's minds is: where does that leave sandworm riding? It's an epic act in the books and the movies that most Fremen can do, but in this MMO, if you so much as touch a sandworm, you die instantly.
"So when we do bring stuff like sandworm riding into the game, it'll feel like an epic moment like in the movies, still respecting how the lore described it and how complicated that is as a thing," Andreas Hayley explains. "You have to be trained in the Fremen ways to be able to even attempt such a thing. And then at the same time, it needs to be an interesting gameplay mechanic, and that's a tricky balance to strike, but I think the team can pull that off."
So, that could mean once it is added, it'll be gated behind a questline that requires us to complete some training with the desert-dwelling natives of Arrakis. I'd love to see Stilgar make an appearance for that. But it's important not to turn the greatest threat Dune has ever known into little more than a taxi service.
"Exactly. We've seen that with the sandworm as it is right now in the game," says Andreas Hayley. "There's been so many discussions throughout development of, 'should we not let the player lose everything when you die by the sand worm?' It's been such a hot topic.
"But we're very firm in our belief that once you do that, you trivialize the sandworm as an entity, as one of the most dangerous things that you can experience or features you can find on the planet. And that is something we've stood by. And it's the same when we introduce sandworm riding, it needs to have that same sense of firm place in the world, and it needs to play a specific role that feels genuine in the setting of Dune. So I'm sure we'll find a good balance here."
Players used to have a way to ride Shai-Hulud, but that eventually got patched out. I'm glad to know Funcom is working this in as a proper feature, though.
While you're here, check out the best MMORPGs you can play. But there's no sandworm riding in any of them unfortunately.
