Dune: Awakening’s Endgame Is a Desert

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Funcom’s game, Dune: Awakening, successfully delivers on many fronts when it comes to survival MMOs. While primarily designed for multiplayer, even solo players can find the initial 100 hours engaging, immersive, and worthwhile, although challenging due to the game’s high demands and the risks involved in exploring the open desert. The game requires a significant grind for materials and resources, but this initial satisfaction can eventually lead to feelings of emptiness similar to the vast expanse of the game’s desert setting.

The ending of Dune: Awakening lacks the excitement and anticipation one might expect from such an intense, faction-based game where players battle for valuable resources. Instead, it feels more like a prolonged grind with no reward in sight, resembling an endless tunnel with no light or a barren desert with no signs of life or progress. Despite its promising start, the game’s endgame fails to deliver the sense of accomplishment players hope for after investing their time and effort.

Dune: Awakening’s Deep Desert Endgame Feels Empty

The Grind Loses Its Grip Once Core Goals Are Met

Awakening is designed to keep players engaged frequently, much like in other live-service games. This part offers an engaging grind, even addictive for some, where players vie for power over the Landsraad through political maneuvering within factions. Each week, guilds compete for votes to impact decrees. A significant portion of this gameplay takes place in the Deep Desert, a constantly changing PvPvE zone that requires players to construct bases, capture control points, and gather valuable resources each week.

Once players manage to acquire tier 6 equipment and enter the Deep Desert in Dune: Awakening, the game’s speed shifts significantly, but not always for the better, as it strays from its core identity. The survival elements that previously characterized the game are overshadowed, giving way to lengthy periods of repetitive resource gathering. In Dune: Awakening’s endgame, players find themselves repeating the same spice-harvesting routes many times over, rarely needing to innovate their strategies or respond to shifts in gameplay dynamics.

Updates Help, but Variety Remains the Missing Ingredient

In a fair effort to enhance the finale phase for players, the game Dune: Awakening has been seeing some updates recently, with even more on the horizon. One of the significant modifications made was splitting the Deep Desert region into two parts – one dedicated to Player vs Environment (PvE) and the other remaining as Player vs Player (PvP). This change came after a substantial appeal from individual players and those focused on resources within the community, who wanted Dune: Awakening to acknowledge their presence more. Other updates have tackled issues like ornithopter “goomba stomping” and griefing, while also introducing new rock island locations to enlarge the gameplay area.

Despite the significant advancements in enhancing the final gameplay experience for Dune: Awakening, it’s clear that diversity remains the primary challenge. Once the main gear is unlocked, there’s no substantial change in objectives, limited PvE challenges to prevent monotony, and few compelling story elements to engage players in the game’s intricate universe. Consequently, the endgame feels lacking, even though it has a solid framework, making it harder to find reasons for revisiting. However, Funcom is demonstrating clear progress in improving the player experience, and with Dune: Awakening being less than three months old, its future is promising, allowing ample time to rectify any issues and establish a lasting legacy.

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2025-08-11 23:04