Dune: Awakening is rather a lot like actual life in that two issues are assured: You’ll pay taxes, and also you’ll die. The good factor about dying in Dune: Awakening is you pop again up with nearly every thing intact and might keep on with no matter you have been doing earlier than — until a sandworm will get you. If certainly one of these Jaws-like monsters catches you, you lose greater than only a little bit of progress.
Even for those who haven’t seen a sandworm in Dune: Awakening, you’re seemingly conversant in it in some capability (whether or not via film posters or questionable popcorn buckets). Sandworms are successfully shorthand for Dune imagery. In Awakening, in addition they pose an enormous environmental problem: Once they eat you, sandworms will strip you of every thing besides your underpants. It’s a intelligent solution to make you construct your plans round an setting you may by no means grasp, nevertheless it additionally created an ideal storm of Horrible Conditions that just about made me cling up my cutteray for good, all thanks to at least one little factor — a respawn toggle.
I turned carefully acquainted with a sandworm’s gullet on a couple of event earlier than this level, however all the time after planning forward — valuables safely saved away; junky, low-level instruments available; nothing in my pockets that I’d miss. It was little greater than inconvenient, notably as my sole car was protected from the worm’s intestines. This time, I obtained a bit cocky whereas gathering flour sand and thought I might certainly outrace the worm on my sandbike ought to it come calling. I stored my necessaries on my particular person, parked my bike close to the flour sand patch dealing with away from the desert, and promptly obtained devoured.
That was an issue. Dune: Awakening was variety sufficient to let me respawn with the car backup device, however the worm ate my bike. It ate my garments, my instruments, every thing. So right here I used to be, in my underwear, on the Riftwatch buying and selling publish, roughly 1,500 kilometers away from residence, half-dehydrated and with no solution to carry water throughout the 2 prolonged stretches of desert separating me from security. I believed I have to’ve clicked the flawed respawn level by mistake, so for science, I attempted dying and reviving myself once more. It was no mistake. With no car and no energetic respawn beacon — as I foolishly forgot to craft and place extra — my solely choices have been Riftwatch and one other buying and selling publish on the far northern finish of the map.
You can revive at your base, however it’s a must to activate the function each time you construct a brand new one. Making the state of affairs even crueler was the truth that the sand in Dune: Awakening’s Vermillius Hole area has a singular function dubbed “drum sand.” It makes thumping noises while you stroll on it, which summons the sandworm. Typically, I don’t thoughts the friction in Dune: Awakening. The way in which Funcom builds survival round Arrakis’ ecological complexities is among the recreation’s finest options. This, nonetheless, was simply foolish.
I can’t keep in mind if Dune: Awakening tells you to activate your base console’s respawn capabilities while you construct a primary residence throughout the tutorial. It should have, as I vaguely recall reviving at my little hovel within the South Hagga Basin beginning space as soon as after dying from thirst. Regardless, when area magic helps you to spring again to life at a random buying and selling publish, it’s baffling that reviving at house is one thing it’s a must to exit of your solution to allow. After throwing a lot extra info at you following the tutorial, the least it might do is ask you if you wish to make your new base a respawn location while you construct it.
Throughout 90 minutes, three extra unintentional worm dinners, and two deaths by dehydration, I lastly made it again residence, my reserves of endurance exhausted and with no need to start out crafting replacements for every thing I misplaced. I’ll play Dune: Awakening once more. It’s certainly one of my favourite video games of 2025 up to now. Simply… not for some time — and positively not with out triple-checking that I’ll truly respawn at my new base.
