Strolling round on the planet Arrakis, also referred to as Dune, is a dicey proposition. Gargantuan sandworms are attracted by the rhythmic tremors attributable to footsteps and rapidly arrive to gulp down whoever is stomping round on the sandy dunes.
That is the place the sandwalk is available in, a technique of dune touring practiced by Arrakis natives referred to as Fremen. In his novel Dune, Frank Herbert describes the sand stroll as making your footsteps “sound just like the pure shifting of sand” to keep away from alerting the sandworms. “Step… drag… drag… step… step… wait… drag… step…”
PC Gamer editor Wes Fenlon lately interviewed Funcom’s Joel Bylos, inventive director of upcoming survival MMO Dune: Awakening, and requested if sandwalking can be part of the sport, as it’s within the movies that Awakening takes heavy visible inspiration from.
“We had it,” Bylos mentioned. However it was finally minimize: “It appeared ridiculous, and it made you stroll actually slowly.”
Sandwalking being dropped from the sport in all probability is not an enormous shock for anybody who watched 2021’s Dune: Half One, through which it is proven for all of three seconds. “We’ll should stroll just like the Fremen do,” Paul mumbles sullenly to his mom. “Comply with me. Do the identical strikes.” Then they take just a few steps, dragging their ft weirdly and awkwardly round within the sand. And that is it. The digital camera rapidly cuts away to spare us having to observe any extra of it.
Dune: Half One”
Trying foolish and being sluggish is not the one motive sandwalking has been yoinked. Bylos additionally mentioned Dune: Awakening was initially meant to launch earlier than Dune: Half One did. To keep away from film spoilers, “They advised us to not present any Fremen stuff within the sport,” Bylos mentioned. “So we saved Fremen out of the event cycle for a very long time.”
This delay on constructing the Fremen into Dune: Awakening means they will not seem within the sport at launch, both. “They don’t seem to be the principle focus of the sport,” Bylos mentioned. “As a result of they don’t seem to be there initially. It is whenever you get to the deep desert and later areas you begin to work together with them. So the Fremen talents, they’re probably not obtainable to gamers proper from the beginning.”
For gamers who actually wished to see a sandwalking system in motion, there’s nonetheless some hope: Bylos went on to make clear that Funcom hasn’t totally given up on the thought of letting gamers do some sandwalking. “Is there one other method to do it? We have not really determined but, to be sincere,” he mentioned. “We made an try that did not fly, so we threw it out. We would come again to it.”
Sandwalking is not the one change Funcom has made on the subject of Dune, however they appear extremely dedicated to both abiding by the lore, or discovering lore-appropriate justifications for the place they deviate from Frank Herbert’s books. Bylos mentioned they bought permission from the Herbert property to vary how Dune’s lasguns work, in order that they might stop gamers from consistently nuking one another.
