Dune Awakening Is Better With Friends — And I Wasn't Ready for That

I went ahead and bought Dune Awakening. Not because the game is setting Steam on fire or because influencers are fawning over it. Truth is, I play-tested Dune Awakening for a good stretch over the past year, and I walked away feeling… lukewarm. The survival systems felt grindy, solo play was a slog, and the world—while beautiful—felt empty.

Then my friends jumped in.
And with nothing better to do, I reinstalled the game, hopped on my sandbike, and joined them. What I discovered surprised me: Dune Awakening is way better with friends.

Yet another heartlessgamer awakens

The Test Phase vs. The Real Thing

During testing, I mostly played solo. Any player interactions I had were random: impromptu squads tackling a challenge or strangers passing by. It was functional, but forgettable. The core systems—crafting, grinding, building—quickly became repetitive.

This time was different. 

My friends had already left the newbie zone behind and were holed up in a base far from the starting area. I zipped across the dunes to catch up, and what followed felt like an entirely new game.
 

Zipping to my friends base... and I better zip faster

Skip the Grind, Embrace the Game

When I arrived at their base, I was immediately drenched in generosity—literally showered (pun intended) with water, tools, weapons, and armor. Suddenly, I wasn’t scraping by for resources. I wasn’t stuck in the slog of early survival. I was on pace with my group, and for once, I could let them make the rookie mistakes and discoveries I had already been through in the tests.

It was… relaxing.
Dare I say, fun.

Movement Is King

If there’s one thing Dune Awakening nails, it’s freedom of movement. You can climb nearly any surface. Suspensor belts let you float. Grappling hooks (from the Trooper tree) open up vertical play. There are speed boosts, dashes, leaps—you name it.

If a direction exists, you can probably travel that way.

These traversal tools are normally locked behind hours of progression, but because I had friends, I skipped straight to the good stuff. 

Watching your friend almost get eaten by Shai-Hulud (he just made it to safety)

 

The Ornithopter Express

Then came the ornithopter.

My group had already unlocked one (while I was still several hours away from myself), and they graciously let me borrow it. I even got to share how to carry a passenger by having them hop on top. Of course, that also meant I had the honor of teaching them the hard way what happens when your pilot sucks.

Dune made the smart choice to not gate being able to use vehicles behind your own progression. If it exists in the world you can most likely use it even if you can't craft it yourself.

The game changes entirely once you have access to an ornithopter

Why It Works Now

With three of us working together, life on Arrakis is smooth sailing. There's always water at the base. Always a vehicle available. Always enough solari (the in-game gold) to get by. The punishing grind that wore me down before? Gone. Replaced by collaboration, shared goals, and just enough chaos to keep it fun.

The Final Word

Dune Awakening hasn’t suddenly become a perfect game. I still have my complaints. But I’m having actual fun, and that matters more than any patch note or feature list. It’s proof that even a game I once shelved can come roaring back to life—all it took was the right people beside me.

Lesson learned: survival is better with friends. Especially on Arrakis.

TL;DR:

If you're playing Dune Awakening solo and bouncing off it, try it with a crew. It just might change everything.

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (ChatGPT). The thoughts and specifically in this post, the snarkiness, are my own.  The grammatical correctness is the AI.