Dune Awakening

A survival game through and through, and one of the better ones at that! Honestly wasn't expecting much, but it came out really strong, especially the first 10-20 hours. Water management, hiding from the sun, watching for the worm all felt thrilling. The grindy gathering was never actually all that grindy, and that familiar "just one more thing before bed" feeling was strong.

A major milestone to reach for is the ornithopter, and it feels great flying high above the map that once felt so huge for the first time. But it also robs the game of all the ground mechanics-the things that added texture are no longer obstacles. Flying from point to point is far quicker than ground transport, but makes the game far less interesting. PoIs are largely copy and pasted, differentiated only by audio logs (which admittedly are well written!). When I was on the ground, stopping by these points along the way somewhere else was reasonable. But once in the sky? Easy enough to just skip on to the next thing.

Combat never really evolves any further after you meet your first shielded enemies. Its serviceable but repetitive, and feels more like a gear check than a skill check.

Story was interesting, but ends just as the intrigue builds to a peak with several very interesting reveals. Learning that was the end of the story for now essentially killed any interest in further play for the time being. Faction quests are very fetchy, and the deep dessert pvp area seems to only exist as a way to grind to get better in the deep dessert. With how hooked I was at the start, I expected to get more than the 60 hours I ended with, but im not at all disappointed with the time I had. If it crosses my radar again with further story updates, id be happy to drop back in.