Dune: Awakening is an exciting open-world multiplayer survival crafting game set on the harsh desert world of Arrakis. Combining elements of survival MMO and open-world adventure, it challenges players to thrive in a brutal environment filled with deadly sandworms, rival factions, unpredictable weather, and scarce resources. Whether you’re a newcomer or a survival veteran, this Dune Awakening Beginner Guide will help you master the essentials, from character creation to base building, survival tactics, and PvP strategies.
Dune Awakening Beginner Guide – What Is Dune: Awakening?
Dune: Awakening immerses players in the iconic Dune universe, where survival depends on your wits, resourcefulness, and alliances. The core gameplay loop revolves around gathering resources, crafting gear, constructing bases, and exploring the vast desert while fending off threats from both AI enemies and other players.
Players start with nothing but their skills and must balance managing hydration, avoiding dangerous sandworms, and navigating rival factions. The open-world design means you’ll encounter other real players, making cooperation and conflict inevitable.
Getting Started: Character Creation and Choosing the Best Class
When launching Dune: Awakening, you begin by customizing your character’s appearance. Your look is purely cosmetic and won’t affect gameplay. However, your choice of background and heritage unlocks unique dialogue options and emotes, allowing you to shape your character’s story in subtle ways.
Best Starting Classes
More impactful is your choice of starting class. There are four classes:
- Trooper
- Swordmaster
- Mentat
- Bene Gesserit
The general consensus in the Dune: Awakening beginner’s guide community is to avoid starting as a Trooper. This is because Trooper skills can be unlocked early by visiting an NPC in Griffin’s Trade Post, making it less valuable to pick initially. Instead, consider starting with:
- Swordmaster: Excels in mobility with fast movement and dashing skills, great for exploration and evasion.
- Mentat: Provides ranged support with a deployable turret, useful for combat encounters.
- Bene Gesserit: Uses a special voice ability that can manipulate enemies, offering unique crowd control.
While you can eventually unlock all class skills through quests and trainers, starting with Swordmaster, Mentat, or Bene Gesserit gives you more versatility early on.
Understanding Servers: Worlds and Sietches
In this Dune: Awakening beginner’s guide, it’s important to understand how the game’s servers are structured. The game’s servers are organized into “Sietches,” which serve as individual game servers where your character lives, progresses, and builds their base. Multiple Sietches are grouped together to form a larger unit known as a “World.”
- World: A collection of about 20 Sietches.
- Sietch: Your specific server where you carry out daily activities, build your base, and develop your character.
Certain areas in the game, such as the Social Hub and Deep Desert, are shared spaces across all Sietches within the same World. This design allows players from different servers to interact. However, early-game zones like Hagga Basin are unique to each Sietch, meaning your initial progress, base, and character actions are confined to your chosen server.
Playing with Friends
If you plan to play with friends, coordinate which Sietch to join beforehand. Being on the same Sietch allows you to build bases together, complete missions as a team, and trade more easily. You can still meet friends from other Sietches in the Social Hub or Deep Desert, but cooperation and base-building work best when everyone is on the same server.
Survival Basics: Managing Water, Sun, and Sandworms
Survival on Arrakis is unforgiving. Water is the lifeblood of the game; there is no hunger bar, but dehydration can quickly lead to exhaustion and death.
Hydration Management
Your first priority should be managing your water levels and avoiding excessive sun exposure. A sun gauge tracks your exposure, and high levels cause dehydration to speed up. When your hydration falls below a third, your stamina decreases; if it reaches zero, you begin losing health.
Early on, you can hydrate by drinking dew from plants, but this only provides a small boost. More reliable methods will come later.
Crafting Water and Blood Processing
A critical survival mechanic covered in this Dune: Awakening beginner’s guide is crafting water from blood. To sustain longer expeditions across the desert, you need to craft a Blood Extractor and gather blood sacks by defeating enemies, primarily scavengers. With a Blood Purifier, you can convert this blood into safe, drinkable water, which becomes essential as you advance.
As you progress, investing in a stable water source like a water farm will provide a steady supply. Additionally, carrying water in Literjons (canteens) and storing larger quantities in tanks called Cisterns ensures you stay hydrated during extended explorations.
Avoid Sandworms
Sandworms are a constant threat. They are attracted to vibrations caused by movement on the dunes. You can monitor their presence with a sandworm gauge on your HUD.
The best way to avoid sandworms is to stick to rocky terrain and avoid crossing large stretches of open sand. Movement skills like the Bene Gesserit dash and the Trooper’s grappling hook help you cross dangerous areas quickly.
If you’re on your sandbike and a worm attacks, jump off; it will usually target the vehicle instead of you, giving you a chance to escape behind rocks or structures.
Leveling Up and Progression Tips
Progression in Dune: Awakening is tied to experience points (XP), which you gain by completing quests, exploring points of interest, fighting enemies, and gathering resources.
Early Leveling Strategies
- Follow the main questline: The story quests take you through key areas, unlock crafting recipes, and introduce new mechanics gradually. This prevents you from wandering into overly dangerous zones too early.
- Explore Points of Interest: These areas contain loot, blueprints, and research points to expand your crafting options.
- Farm events: Watch for special occurrences like enemy dropships at night, which provide bonus loot and XP.
- Play with friends: Team-based combat and resource gathering speed up leveling for everyone.
Skill points earned at level-ups can be spent in various skill trees. Prioritize mobility and survival skills early to increase your chances of thriving.
Building Your Base: Key Tips for Early Construction
Your base is your home and survival hub, housing crafting stations, storage, and your water supplies.
Start Simple
Your first base will be temporary; you’ll have to move it later in the story. So, keep it small and functional, focusing on essentials like:
- Storage chests
- Crafting stations
- Blood Purifier
- Water tanks
Avoid spending excessive resources or decorating extensively early on.
Base Location
Don’t build directly on open sand, as sandstorms will destroy your foundations. Instead, build near:
- Rocks for cover and sandworm avoidance
- Resource hotspots like plants, metal, or granite
- Trade posts or enemy camps if you want action
Building near busy areas can be good for PvP, but riskier for new players.
Power Management
Generators power your machines, but have limits. If your base loses power, check if you’re exceeding your generator’s capacity. Add more generators or switch off non-essential machines as needed.
Moving Your Base
One useful tip from this Dune: Awakening beginner’s guide is knowing when and how to move your base. The game will prompt you to relocate as you advance through the story. When this happens, dismantle your existing base carefully to recover your materials and loot.
To streamline rebuilding, make use of the Solido Replicator tool. This handy device lets you copy your favorite building layouts and place them quickly in your new location, saving you time and effort as you adapt to new zones.
Vehicles: Building and Protecting Your Sandbike
The sandbike is a crucial vehicle that dramatically speeds up travel and resource hauling.
How to Get Your Sandbike
Complete early quests and gather parts from Outposts and Imperial Testing Stations (especially Imperial Testing Station 2) to build your first sandbike.
Protecting Your Vehicle
- Always keep your sandbike inside your base or use the Vehicle Backup Tool to safely store it.
- Sandstorms can destroy parked bikes left outside.
- Carry Fuel Cells, Repair Wire, and the Backup Tool with you for maintenance and emergencies.
- Use your bike to transport loot from distant locations back to your base quickly, but be wary of sandworms.
Combat, PvP, and Handling Enemies
Dune: Awakening blends PvE and PvP elements. Enemy AI includes scavengers and bandits, while other players can be hostile or cooperative.
Combat Tips
- Early on, focus on melee weapons rather than pistols; knives and swords are faster and safer for small groups.
- Invest skill points in movement and evasion to avoid damage.
- Use your class abilities tactically; for example, Mentat’s turret can turn the tide in group fights.
- Harvest blood from defeated scavengers to sustain your water supplies.
PvP Considerations
- Keep your valuables stored securely inside your base.
- Expect and prepare for raids, especially near popular zones.
- Coordinate with guildmates or friends for defense and offense.
- Use terrain and movement skills to your advantage during skirmishes.
Essential Survival Tips to Remember
- Don’t build your base where you spawn. The spawn area is far from valuable points of interest. Build closer to the Trading Post for easy resource farming and trading.
- Manage hydration carefully. Avoid sun exposure, use shade, and craft Stillsuits to retain water.
- Collect everything useful. Granite, metal, micro-sandwich fabric, and EMF generators are needed for advanced crafting.
- Loot points of interest regularly. These respawn over time and are good farming spots.
- Don’t hoard early schematics. Use them as they come; they get outdated quickly.
- Avoid open sand whenever possible. Stick to rocks to avoid sandworms.
- Follow the main quest. It teaches mechanics and rewards useful items.
- Keep a stock of purified water at your base. The Stillsuit won’t replace regular hydration.
- Dying is not the end. You keep your equipment and can retrieve dropped loot, except when killed by a sandworm, which causes total loss.
- Play with friends when possible. Cooperation greatly eases progression.
Understanding the HUD and Gameplay Mechanics
The game’s heads-up display gives you vital information:
- Compass: Shows directions and objectives.
- Sun Gauge: Monitors sun exposure.
- Hydration Bar: Tracks water levels.
- Stamina and Health Indicators: Show current status.
- Sandworm Gauge: Alerts proximity to sandworms.
- Abilities and Hotbar: Quick access to skills and items.
Understanding these elements helps you make informed decisions and survive longer.
Final Words
This Dune: Awakening beginner’s guide aims to give you a strong foundation to conquer the deserts of Arrakis. The game’s combination of survival, crafting, exploration, and player interaction makes for a rich and challenging experience. Start with the right class, manage your water carefully, build a smart base, and always stay alert for sandworms and other players. With patience and strategy, you’ll carve your own legend in this harsh but rewarding world.
Read the on-demand Gaming Guides via Gamerative.
FAQs
Can I play Dune: Awakening solo, or is it better to join a group?
You can absolutely play Dune: Awakening solo, and many players enjoy the challenge of surviving alone on Arrakis. However, teaming up with friends or joining a guild can significantly ease progression, especially during base defense, large-scale PvP encounters, and resource farming. Group play also unlocks cooperative strategies that make managing sandworms and hostile players less risky.
Are there any penalties for dying in Dune: Awakening?
Unlike some survival games, dying in Dune: Awakening doesn’t cause you to lose your character or all your equipment. You respawn with your gear and can retrieve any dropped loot. The notable exception is death by sandworm attacks, which results in the loss of all carried items. This risk makes sandworm encounters especially dangerous and encourages cautious exploration.
How does the weather affect gameplay in Dune: Awakening?
Weather plays a significant role in survival on Arrakis. Sandstorms reduce visibility and can damage exposed structures and vehicles. They also influence sandworm behavior, making certain areas more dangerous during storms. Players must adapt by seeking shelter, powering down vulnerable equipment, and timing their travel carefully to avoid being caught in harsh weather conditions.
