One of Steam’s best-reviewed games of the last month isDune: Awakening, the sci-fi MMORPG set in the expansive universe of Frank Herbert’s iconicDunenovels. With the popularity of Denis Villeneuve’s movie adaptations,DuneandDune: Part 2, this game seeks to immerse players as custom characters on the desert world Arrakis. While this game has robust survival and RPG mechanics, fans have noticed one feature holding it back.
Currently,Dune: Awakeninghas a favorable score of 78 on Metacritic, mainly for its solid survival systems and stunning open-world. Many players have discovered tons of nuance to the planet Arrakis, including references to the novels and movies within the stories, locations, and characters within it. Despite anextensive and incredibly helpful tutorial, players have found content later in the game to be far less impressive than its beginning chapters.
Dune: Awakening Has Players Frustrated Over Endgame Content
Tedium And Competition Creates An Aggravating Grind
While the initial stages ofDune: Awakeningare very compelling,players have had plenty of complaints regarding the MMORPG’s endgame. For starters, the lategame crafting systems make a large portion of the interesting survival mechanics obsolete after a time. The desert sands of Arrakis make for a complex and deep world, but once you build the means to travel it without risk, it loses much of its mysterious luster.
As you acquire moregear and weapons inDune: Awakeningduring the endgame, you’ll quickly find that the game is not designed in the best way for item clutter. You only have a measly eight slots on your hotbar to access materials fast, soit’s hard to manage your inventories as you keep playing. With the amount of weapons and tools you eventually have to use often, part of the grind becomes just cycling between what you have.
Theendgame removes one of the most interesting threats to your character as well - Shai-Hulud. The massive sand worm is a persistent danger to your character, even if you craft vehicles like a Sandbike to get through the desert faster. With enough time, though, a craftable Ornithopter allows you to fly over the creature like it was never there, trivializing a unique part of the open world.
The Deep Desert Is An MMO Player’s Worst Nightmare
Constant Forced Online PvP Leads To Brutal Battles
That being said, all survival-focused games eventually have ways to automate the risks players contend with when they start.What makesDune: Awakeningsomewhat frustratingis how endgame crafting works, especially regarding one area.The Deep Desert section of the in-game map forces players into an online PvP zone to gather important materialsneeded to craft many important late-game items.
Originally, the PvP of the Deep Desert was considered"optional"inDune: Awakening, which can be in some areas that are more PvE than anything. However, given how the Deep Desert location resets weekly, running into other hostile players is unavoidable.
Since the Deep Desert is online only,you have to interact with and sometimes fight players to get the game’s rarest resources. In some instances, I’ve had to go up against maxed out Level 200 characters just to get a small amount of Titanium that I would have to go back into the Deep Desert to get again later. With each item having a long respawn time, it can be brutal to fight other players all the time only to get crumbs as a result of your efforts.
To make matters worse, you can’t group up with too many friends to take on the challenges of the Deep Desert in a group.The Deep Desert only allows three allies to join you in expeditions, with the mini-map not even tracking them once you reach the area. The combat system will also have you accidentally targeting your companions instead of enemies, leading to frustrating combat encounters.
Single Player Modes Might Keep An Audience Around
Some Small Changes Could Extend Player Attention For Longer
Although it takes awhile to reachDune: Awakening’s endgame obstacles, adjusting them could keep players on for much longer. Even now,the developers of the game have greatly increased the number of PvE zones in the Deep Desert, making sure players don’t always have to engage with PvP. By improving rare item respawn times, this could cut down the endgame grind too, giving players more reasons to travel into that part of Arrakis.
Other adjustments to single-player content might be received well by players too, such as new enemy types or locations in the general survival mode. If Shai-Hulud is no longer a threat, perhaps players then have to contend with flying Ornithopters controlled by hostile AI enemies.Keeping a degree of difficulty in the endgame will keep players searching to craft better gearand accept the inevitable MMO grind.
Reallocating important resources to PvE and PvP zones equally will give players more opportunities to play through the game solo, rather than forcing them into strange Guild and combat systems. The more emphasisDune: Awakeningputs into its strong survival mechanics, the better the endgame will feel to start aleviating player concerns.
