Dune: Awakeningis understandably brutal. Set on the desert world of Arrakis, you don’t only have to contend with a severe lack of water, but also enormous sandworms that will swallow you - and your vehicle - whole. I have died multiple times in a myriad of silly ways, some hilarious, and some that left me actually raging at my PC.
Sandstorms, quick sand, worms, Ornithopters, massive falls…I will lead you through a story of humiliation and panic now, with a breakdown of all the dumbest ways I’ve died out on the dunes.
5The Quicksand Failure
Very early on in the game, I was leading two friends from the Vermillius Gap to our more permanent base location just south of the Eastern Shield Wall. I was the designated guide because I’d already made the journey and had established a sub-fief to begin construction of the guild base.
My two friends loaded up their sandbikes withallof their accumulated loot so far. Salvaged Metal, weapons, batteries, fuel cells, everything they could carry. We headed out.
Now, as you progress into Dune: Awakening, the open expanses of sand become much more dangerous, due to the huge pools of quicksand. These will grind your bike to an almost complete stop. I think you can see where this is going.
I lead my two friends over the sand. I can see the quicksand on the map. I’ve dodged it before. As I say, “Watch out for the quicksand,” I hear a guttural scream. One of my friends…and then the other…have become stuck. A worm rumbles in the distance. My friends jump off their bikes and make a run for it.
I’ve got space on the back for one of them, so I drive into the sand (“I’ll save you!")…only to become instantly stuck in quicksand. What is a terrible situation almost immediately makes us all burst out laughing.
I died. One of my friends made it out alive. Brilliant.
4Death By Worm
This one isn’t one of my deaths, but one I saw during the first couple of hours of playing Dune, the kind of experience that cemented that growing feeling I had right at the start of the game: this game is going to be a lot of fun.
I met a German man on the edge of a rock face. We were both staring out across the desert.
“Have you seen a worm yet?” he asked me over voice chat.
“Nope,” I said.
It’s true: at this point I’d yet to see a worm. I’d heard them. And saw the clouds of sandy dust they’d kick up. But actually a worm? With its full head out of the sand? Not yet.
“They’re absolutely terrifying,” said the German. “Be careful out there.”
And off he went. It was a funny moment, the sort of light RP that makes the world of Dune: Awakening so fun to explore.
Mere minutes later, I heard a guttural scream in the distance. I could tell from the mic quality that it was our German friend. I crossed over a small rocky outcropping, and saw him running across the desert, still screaming. A worm was coming up behind him, and then it enveloped him. The screams abruptly stopped.
3The Greatest Fall
Located in the centre of Dune: Awakening’s map, the Hand Of Khidr is an enormous rocky structure that you may climb for unreal views of the world and a chest with a useful blueprint for a mid-game blood extractor inside.
One of our guildmates led what was essentially an expeditionary troop up the side of this mountain, as he’d previously visited the area during one of the previous tests. This thing is a real pain to climb: don’t even attempt it if you don’t have a Shigawire, because it’s a nightmare.
You’ll also need a Suspensor belt. As you’re about to find out.
So there we are, about three quarters of the way up the Hand of Khidr. One of our guildmates has already reached the top and is describing the view. Sounds pretty great.
I grapple on to another rocky outcropping and attempt to climb over it. My stamina falls to zero. And I began sliding. And sliding. All the way down the mountain. I try to jump and use my Suspensor belt to cushion the fall, but my power pack is out of battery, and the belt doesn’t work.
Let’s just say I never saw the view.
2Death By Ornithopter
Dying to a horde of Ornithopters sort of felt like being booped to death by a dozen dolphins. If you weren’t aware, Ornithopters can be used to squish players flat in the Deep Desert (Dune’s endgame zone). For now, at least.
Anyway, I was boooped to death by a horde of six Ornithopters flown by a rival guild. They descended on me like seagulls.
1Death By Sardaukar - Over And Over Again
When you first reach the zones beyond the starting area, you will encounter Sardaukar ships that fly overhead at night and locate you with some sort of homing-tractor-beam type thing.
They’ll freeze you in place and then drop five or six elite soldiers on your head. The first time this happened to me, I was absolutely terrified and laughed hysterically as these heavily-armored troops descended from the sky.
It was a real wake-up moment and a brilliant bit of game design. Up until that point, the world had feltlargelyharmless (other than the worms, of course), and then suddenly there were the evil troops of the empire descending on me from the heavens. Awesome stuff.
