In the story Dune, Arrakis is the most dangerous planet in the universe. It’s a vast desert world where the scorching sun’s intense heat is a major hazard. Water is nearly impossible to find, and dehydration will claim an unprotected person in a matter of hours. More frightening, though, are the sandworms–enormous, carnivorous creatures that move beneath the ground and hunt by detecting vibrations. The sandworms hear you when you walk in the open deserts of Arrakis, and they always come.

To capture the danger of Arrakis in Dune: Awakening, Funcom riffed on its earlier success with survival title Conan Exiles. Awakening is also a survival game, but the story of Dune is as much about the deadliness of Arrakis as it is about the potentially lethal scheming of the political powers who wish to control it.

During a recent hands-off preview event for Dune: Awakening, creative director Joel Bylos explained how Funcom is merging survival game elements, which will make staying alive on Arrakis your top priority, with more traditional MMO elements like social interactions with other players on big servers, as well as placing a big emphasis on player-vs.-player gameplay. However, making the disparate elements of survival games and MMO games work together hasn’t been easy, he said.

Continue Reading at GameSpot In the story Dune, Arrakis is the most dangerous planet in the universe. It’s a vast desert world where the scorching sun’s intense heat is a major hazard. Water is nearly impossible to find, and dehydration will claim an unprotected person in a matter of hours. More frightening, though, are the sandworms–enormous, carnivorous creatures that move beneath the ground and hunt by detecting vibrations. The sandworms hear you when you walk in the open deserts of Arrakis, and they always come.To capture the danger of Arrakis in Dune: Awakening, Funcom riffed on its earlier success with survival title Conan Exiles. Awakening is also a survival game, but the story of Dune is as much about the deadliness of Arrakis as it is about the potentially lethal scheming of the political powers who wish to control it.During a recent hands-off preview event for Dune: Awakening, creative director Joel Bylos explained how Funcom is merging survival game elements, which will make staying alive on Arrakis your top priority, with more traditional MMO elements like social interactions with other players on big servers, as well as placing a big emphasis on player-vs.-player gameplay. However, making the disparate elements of survival games and MMO games work together hasn’t been easy, he said.Continue Reading at GameSpot  GameSpot – All Content