Funcom's open-world survival game set on Arrakis, combining exploration, building, crafting, RPG progression, PvE and multiplayer interaction within the Dune universe.
Adaptation normally sounds like a one-way process: a novel becomes a film, then perhaps a game. Dune: Awakening's Filmic Archive is stranger. It takes production design created for cinema and turns it into reusable material for thousands of characters who are not Paul, Leto or Gurney.
Dune: Awakening succeeds where a safer adaptation might simply have rebuilt famous scenes. Removing Paul Atreides from its timeline gives Funcom enough narrative freedom for the player to occupy meaningful space. Its characters and quests do not consistently approach the richness of the source material, and repetitive survival activities remain visible underneath. Arrakis itself is exceptional: few games have explained so effectively why water, shade, a flying machine and a few metres of rock can define an entire civilisation.
