Dune Awakening: Crucial Tips & Tricks You Need To Know

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Dune: Awakening is an open-world survival MMO with fantastic character creation, intuitive base-building, complex combat, and giant sandworms stalking your every move . The unforgiving desert of Arrakis has many ways to wear you down slowly, or abruptly end your life when you're least expecting it, so it's a great idea to know exactly what you're up against.

From prime-base building locations to sandworm survival strategies, there are a lot of things that Dune: Awakening doesn't tell you upfront. After finding myself unprepared, dehydrated, and stuck in the middle of a sandstorm, I realised that Funcom has given gamers something extremely precious— a survival game that doesn't hold your hand.

The focus of this guide is to optimize your early-game progress and help you survive the many threats you'll encounter. Based on my own deaths and downfalls in Arrakis, here are the most crucial tips and tricks you need to know before you begin.

Choose Your Starting Class Wisely

Dune: Awakening allows you to choose from four starting classes : the Bene Gesserit, the Trooper, the Mentat, and the Swordmaster , but as you progress through the game, you'll meet the mentors of each class and be able to mix-and-match skills, passives, and techniques from every class. Eventually, you'll be able to utilize a fifth class called The Planetologist, which specializes in exploration and resource gathering.

This allows you to build hybrid characters, and will take some real time to find out what works for your playstyle the best, which is why choosing your starting class is such an important decision. The sandworms are near, and there's no time to waste starting over.

While you are able to reset your skill-trees, you can't change your starting class once you've confirmed it , so to help you make an informed decision about the best starting class, take a look at my guide, Dune Awakening: What Class Should You Choose?

Always Be Prepared

There's a fine line between satisfying and annoying when it comes to survival mechanics, and Dune: Awakening nailed it. Hydration is key in the hostile desert lands of Arrakis, so you'll have to keep a keen eye on your hydration meter, seek out plants that carry dewdrops to hydrate yourself, and build a blood purifier in your base.

Once you have a blood purifier and a blood bag, you'll be able to collect the blood of your enemies, purify it, and drink it to survive. There are a few things you need to do in order to be prepared for Arrakis. Hydrate, stock up on healing supplies and ammunition, make sure your equipment is repaired , and make room in your inventory for new loot.

Nobody likes doing the walk of shame to retrieve items after being killed, and it will slow down your progress considerably, especially if a sandworm gets hold of you. So take a moment to prepare, and you'll be on your way to dominating the dunes.

Beware of Sandworms

Sandworms are unkillable goliaths that will pop out of the sand and swallow you whole. As you pass over large open sections of the desert, you'll notice a sand vibration meter that will show you how much noise you're creating. If you stay out in the open long enough, a sandworm will charge you, and dying to one means losing every item you're carrying.

I recommend staying close to the rocks as much as possible, and when you need to cross open spaces, look for paths that don't leave you exposed for long periods of time. Avoid dashing or jumping, as it will create more noise and attract sandworms to your location much faster.

I love the way Funcom designed the sandworms in Dune: Awakening because it adds a layer of urgency and thrill when your inventory is full of valuable loot, and you really don't want to die. Hug the rocks, watch the sand vibration meter, and look for the shortest paths when crossing open sand.

Hoarding Helps

Some people might think stopping to gather every last piece of plant fibre or metal scrap along your way might slow you down, but eventually you'll begin reaching massive progress spikes if you stockpile materials and loot . You'll find resources and loot everywhere you look, and there are a couple of reasons why it's very worthwhile to spend extra time gathering.

When you pick up a resource, you gain experience, so even as you're sprinting towards a quest marker, you can pick up resources along the way without even stopping , giving you a way to gain XP while you travel. Not only do you get XP just from picking a resource up, but once you have a nice stockpile in your storage, you'll be able to craft ammunition, consumables, gear, and build your base without having to stop and go searching for more materials.

Base Positioning Matters

Arrakis is massive, and you'll be building several bases in different locations, but if you choose where to put your first base wisely, you'll have a much smoother early-game experience. I recommend settling close to the trading post, which will allow you to trade currency for crafting materials and save you a ton of travel time.

Another thing to consider is settling close to larger camps and POIs, which will give you easier access to combat XP and loot. This is essentially a leveling multiplier if that's what you're looking for, and because of the satisfying combat mechanics, farming camps and leveling don't feel like a chore .

Resources will also respawn after you mine or collect them, so a good starting base location will be close to POIs for combat XP and loot, resource spawns, and a trading post.

Finding the perfect spot to call home isn't easy, especially in a desert full of Godzilla-sized worms, but if you take some time to explore, you realize that there are some great advantages to planning ahead for your first base construction.

Shigawire Sandbike Combo

Arrakis is a vast desert filled with mountains to scale, and a ton of worm-infested ground to cover, so any mobility advantages are very valuable . One of the best ways to get around the desert is the Sandbike, which you'll be able to build yourself once you find or craft all the parts and weld them together.

You can get individual bike parts by looting Imperial Testing Stations or from merchants at the trading post. Use the fabricator in your base to build the welder, and then use it to manually construct your Sandbike. This will cut your travel time in half and make it much easier to collect exploration experience , which is one of the fastest ways to level in Dune: Awakening.

Once you've progressed far enough to unlock the trooper skill-tree (or if trooper is your starting class), you'll have access to the Shigawire Claw, an incredibly important mobility tool . The Shigawire is essentially a grappling hook that will allow you to discover hard-to-reach places with ease, and can also be used to stagger your enemies in combat.

At the beginning of the game, you'll have the option to have your research tree locked or unlocked, and I recommend having it unlocked so that you have the freedom to forge your own path and potentially add the Shigawire-Sandbike combo to your kit as soon as possible.