Strolling round on the planet Arrakis, often known as Dune, is a dicey proposition. Gargantuan sandworms are attracted by the rhythmic tremors brought on by footsteps and shortly arrive to gulp down whoever is stomping round on the sandy dunes.
That is the place the sandwalk is available in, a way of dune touring practiced by Arrakis natives often called 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 not too long ago interviewed Funcom’s Joel Bylos, artistic director of upcoming survival MMO Dune: Awakening, and requested if sandwalking could be part of the sport, as it’s within the movies that Awakening takes heavy visible inspiration from.
“We had it,” Bylos mentioned. But it surely was finally reduce: “It regarded 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, during which it is proven for all of three seconds. “We’ll need to 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 toes weirdly and awkwardly round within the sand. And that is it. The digital camera shortly cuts away to spare us having to observe any extra of it.
Dune: Half One”
Trying foolish and being gradual is not the one motive sandwalking has been yoinked. Bylos additionally mentioned Dune: Awakening was initially supposed to launch earlier than Dune: Half One did. To keep away from film spoilers, “They instructed us to not present any Fremen stuff within the recreation,” Bylos mentioned. “So we stored 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 recreation at launch, both. “They don’t seem to be the primary focus of the sport,” Bylos mentioned. “As a result of they don’t seem to be there at the start. It is once you get to the deep desert and later areas you begin to work together with them. So the Fremen talents, they’re probably not out there to gamers proper from the beginning.”
For gamers who actually needed to see a sandwalking system in motion, there’s nonetheless some hope: Bylos went on to make clear that Funcom hasn’t completely given up on the concept of letting gamers do some sandwalking. “Is there one other solution to do it? We’ve not really determined but, to be trustworthy,” he mentioned. “We made an try that did not fly, so we threw it out. We’d come again to it.”
Sandwalking is not the one change Funcom has made in relation to 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 may stop gamers from continually nuking one another.