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- [00:00]
Abu
Today on the show, we'd love to teach you podcasting skills, but first you have to go kill 10 slavers. Bring us some neurotransmitters. Don't forget to collect 250 copper or pieces. And, of course, watch that water. Discipline, folks. You don't want to be dehydrated out there on the sands of a ruckus.
- [00:20]
Leo
It's true. I would love to teach you. I just need those slavers dead.
- [00:24]
Abu
Right, do that. Do that for me first. There was another guy named Pigleton. 420. Who. Who did that for me. But I also need you to do.
- [00:33]
Leo
It two seconds ago, but there's 10 more slave. There's a lot of slavers, actually.
- [00:40]
Abu
They just keep coming back. It's weird.
- [00:52]
Leo
Welcome to Gom Jabbar, your guide to the iconic world of Dune. We'll be exploring the themes, philosophies and characters found in the sandy depths of this vast universe, from Frank Herbert's groundbreaking novels to the adaptations on film and tv. My name is Leo.
- [01:08]
Abu
And my name's Abu.
- [01:09]
Leo
Oh, and today on the show, we are playing Dune Awakening. Or we've played Dune Awakening, the MMO RPG from Funcom. It's a Dune video game.
- [01:20]
Abu
That's right.
- [01:20]
Leo
On Arrakis, we're doing the fetch quests. Oh. We are leveling up our experience just by gathering rocks. It's the best.
- [01:29]
Abu
It's fun. It's a blast. But before we get into it, folks, let's take care of some very quick housekeeping and then we're going to talk about this video game and how much fun we're having playing it.
- [01:40]
Leo
Indeed.
- [01:40]
Abu
So for today's show, the spoiler warning is kind of weird. For today's show, we're going to be talking about roughly, like, the first 10 to 15 hours of dune Awakening, which does include, like, minor plot details for the very early game and the introduction of the plot in the game. So I suppose if you're sensitive about that and you haven't played the game yet, there's your warning. As far as the books themselves go, I don't think we're going to be having conversations that go beyond basically the first book, given the context of the setting of the game itself.
- [02:15]
Leo
Yeah, it's sort of exploring a what if series of events, so we are safely diverted from, for instance, the plot of the later Dune books.
- [02:25]
Abu
Yeah.
- [02:26]
Leo
Well, as always, a huge shout out to our Guisat's Haderach level patrons, Daniel Dion and Seth Redding. Greer, fellas, you'd have been the first I added to the Guild, but unfortunately I need your Funcom IDs first, so we're still waiting on that. But sincerely, could not do what we do without you. And of course our thank you extends to all of our patrons at every level. Literally could not make this podcast the way we do without your support every month. And listen, if you're not in a place right now to be a monthly supporter on Patron, maybe you're saving up for Dune Awakening. Hello, Maybe you're saving up for that sweet PC rig. That's right, play it yourself. Don't forget you can still show your appreciation with a one time tip which we have a buy me a coffee link in the show notes.
- [03:12]
Abu
That's right. Okay, housekeeping out of the way. Here's the game plan for today's video game episode. We're going to start off today's conversation just sharing our thoughts about the game so far. We have played many, many hours of it in the past 10 or so days that we've had access to it and so we're going to share our experiences, our thoughts so far, and our impressions of the game. Then later in the episode, because this is GOM Jabbar and we can't help but nerd out about Lore, we're going to be taking a look at some of the deep cut references and tweaks to the universe and interesting creative choices that were made in the narrative and universe building of this game and compare it to the original source material. Yeah, and then finally we'll wrap up with a little kid Q and a rapid fire round just to answer some one off questions and talk about our hopes and dreams for the future of this game as we look ahead. And that's today's episode.
- [04:10]
Leo
I can't wait.
- [04:11]
Abu
All right, folks, it's going to take us a while to gather up all the necessary gear to build a dune buggy, so let's take a quick break. We're going to go gather the gear. When we come back, we're getting in that buggy and we're talking about Dune Awakening. We'll see you in a Summer's here and Nordstrom has everything you need for your best dress season ever. From beach days and weddings to weekend getaways in your everyday wardrobe. Discover stylish options under $100 from tons of your favorite brands like Mango Skims, Princess Polly and madewell. It's easy too, with free shipping and free returns in store order, pickup and more. Shop today in stores online@nordstrom.com or download the Nordstrom app. I think you're on mute.
- [04:58]
Leo
Workday is starting to sound the same.
- [05:01]
Abu
I think you're on mute. Find something that sounds better for your career on LinkedIn. With LinkedIn job collections, you can browse curated collections by relevant industries and benefits like Flexpto or Hybrid workplaces so you can find the right job for you.
- [05:18]
Leo
Get started@LinkedIn.com jobs finding where you fit. LinkedIn knows how. Welcome back everybody. Oh, I hope you have boosters attached to your Dune bug because there's shy halluchs right there. You got to get off the sand quickly. Let's talk about it. And before we get into our impressions of the game, I do want to just start off by saying listen, you there, out there.
- [05:46]
Abu
Yes, you.
- [05:47]
Leo
You with the headphones, you. Hi. Hi. If you want to play Dune Awakening with us and with other listeners of GOM Jabbar, you can. It's going to be on the server junction. So when you're creating a character and you're creating a world, choose the server junction and then within junction there's a list of sietches and we are in Sietch Jakarudu. So if you join that server junction and you join Sietch Jakaroodoo, that is where GOM Jabbar listeners mostly are playing. And if you you can either just find us out in the wild or our usernames are in the show notes. So if you send us a friend invite, we will add you to the Gom Jabbar Guild and then of course you can join us and we can go on adventures together. So just wanted to get that out of the way, please. If you are listening to us and you also play the game, let's play together. Let's have a good time.
- [06:45]
Abu
We would love to. And of course joining the Discord is the best way to like coordinate play sessions. We often in the past week or so we've been hopping in the voice chat on Discord, hanging out with some folks, doing some missions together, big shouts to Miles and Yaz, who have basically gotten on every time I've gotten on and it's been fun. We've done some missions together with them already. So Discord is a is a very easy place to coordinate and hang out and get on voice chat and do missions and stuff. So definitely consider joining the Discord as well if you want to play with us.
- [07:21]
Leo
Okay, well let's talk about our impressions of the game so far and although we can't necessarily call this a full review because there is like plot within the game and we haven't gotten to the end game yet. And of course there's also kind of like mid game, late game stuff. We haven't gotten a chance to get to that yet. But our thoughts so far as huge student fans and as people have been playing games our whole lives. Let's start with the good. And I'll kick it to you first, Abu. What are the sort of things that have really stood out to you as really worth celebrating, worth shouting out here?
- [07:59]
Abu
Yeah. Well, the number one thing for me that I'm really enjoying is actually just the premise. Notably, Dune Awakening has decided to go the alternate timeline route. We are not in the universe of the books. We are on Arrakis. Yes. And many of the characters are still there. Yes. But this is an alternate timeline and the very opening cutscene of the game tells you this, in which Jessica had a daughter, as she was commanded to do by the Bene Gesserit. So Paul Atreides does not exist in the video game timeline. And your instant reaction as a hardcore Dune fan might be to reject that immediately and be like, what? Paul Atreides is not in this game. But I actually think this is a very smart choice from the developers because it gives them a lot of narrative flexibility when it comes to creating a game of this nature, but it still allows them to honor the source material. Right. There are characters from the books that you will come across in this game. There are locations from the books that you will visit in this game. All of that is still true to the books. But as far as the narrative is concerned, Funcom can take that in any direction they want because it's a split timeline. And I think that was. That's very smart. They have avoided a lot of potential pitfalls. Were they to try to actually commit to the book universe, that would make things very difficult and restrictive for them. So I think this was ultimately a smart choice both for the player and for the developers in making this game.
- [09:35]
Leo
I will also say that I think it's balanced against their clear reverence for the material and for the book. Because again, if they just said we're going to do alternative timeline and we're going to get rid of the core narrative elements that make Dune Dune, and then they just also did away with all of the important nitty gritty details, it just wouldn't be Dune. Right. But I think to your point, the characters are right. A lot of the in game stuff is right. So even though we are not on the prime timeline that we talk about, when we talk about Frank Herbert's books. There's still a clear love of Frank Herbert's books and of the world that Frank Herbert created. There's still a lot of reverence there. And I think that that's an important thing to shout out.
- [10:15]
Abu
Definitely.
- [10:15]
Leo
When we talk about this alternative timeline.
- [10:17]
Abu
For sure, it's not so alternative that there's lightsabers and Godzilla is doing the Dougie on your corpse or something. You know, we haven't pivoted into Fortnite. Not yet.
- [10:26]
Leo
Not yet.
- [10:26]
Abu
That's coming in a future dlc.
- [10:28]
Leo
Godzilla, Dougie.
- [10:33]
Abu
And, you know, sticking with narrative, something else that I've ultimately been enjoying so far. I'm about 15ish hours into the game, which is, for a game of this size and scale, still pretty early. I'm still squarely in the early game, but the narrative has been interesting, the premise has certainly been interesting and caught my attention. I found the opening crash sequence a lot of fun. I really liked the character of Zentara, who were setting up as some sort of mysterious badass. Yeah, he's. He's the first one of the first people you meet on Arrakis after you crash. So I really enjoyed his character as well. And there were a few lines of dialogue here and there that hinted that Jessica's daughter, AKA the Paul replacement in this universe, might come back into play here in the story at some point. She was name dropped a couple of times in various lines of dialogue that I've experienced so far. So I'm excited to see how that pans out because I most definitely want to know what's going on with Jessica's daughter.
- [11:32]
Leo
Yeah, same.
- [11:32]
Abu
So certainly been enjoying the setup of the story and the narrative so far. That's been a highlight for me. Moving on from that, I will just say this is a very technically and visually impressive game from day one. And I think that's worth calling out because we do. If you're a gamer, you know this. We live in a world in which most games come out, like, half baked and broken, and it's actually in your best interest to wait a year for them to get patched and updated and fixed and overhauled and redone, and then play the game a year later, get it on like a Steam sale and actually play it how it was meant to be played, you know?
- [12:13]
Leo
Right.
- [12:14]
Abu
This is not that game. It is a finished product that's been delivered to the player here. And honestly, it's sad, but that does deserve an applause in the modern world of gaming.
- [12:27]
Leo
True. Yeah.
- [12:29]
Abu
For example, like, I haven't I don't know about you, but I have not run into a single game breaking a bug. I've run into, like, silly little things like, oh, I got stuck in a rock, but I was just able to hop my way out of there and it was fine. Whatever that happens in every game, but nothing that, like, there were no quests that were, like, unfinishable or broken. There were no crashes while I played, you know, like, the game totally freezing up and crashing all the, like, Bethesda stuff, you know?
- [12:53]
Leo
Yeah.
- [12:54]
Abu
Bethesda games notorious for launching, like, buggy messes. This is not that.
- [13:00]
Leo
Yeah. The number of times in Cyberpunk 2077 I just dropped through the ground.
- [13:06]
Abu
Exactly.
- [13:06]
Leo
And it was like, you suck at this game. I was like, shut up.
- [13:09]
Abu
Exactly, exactly. And for what it's worth, Cyberpunk 2077 is an incredible masterpiece. Now they have spent the last four years fixing that game and now it's amazing. But when it came out, it was a mess. This is not that. I also appreciate some of the quality of life features that are just already in this game. Right. Like, one of the biggest things I want to call out is this game. A huge part of the gameplay loop centers around crafting things. Right? You gather resources, you craft things. One huge quality of life feature is that all the, like, fabricators and machinery that builds things for you, anything you use to craft will automatically just dip into, like, any storage you have. So if you have a chest that's like, on the other side of your base, the fabricator will just like, pull whatever it needs to from that chest for you. You don't have to do this tedious thing of like, fuck, I need like 5 more ore. I gotta walk over there, get it from the chest, walk it back. Like, it doesn't have to be in your backpack. It can just be anywhere in your base, in any storage box, and it'll just automatically get used. Little efficient things like that that just make some of the hassle of other crafting games go away, you know, Some of that tedium go away.
- [14:20]
Leo
Yeah, same thing with, like, water. Like, if you're generating water with a blood distiller, you don't have to like. Like, I've played a lot of satisfactory and satisfactory is a lot of fun. But it's like, if you want this container to go into that container, you have to build the connecting conveyor belts and tubes and the pipes. And, like, you have to do all of that. And there's a certain joy in that. I think anybody who's done Cable management knows that there is a sort of joy to getting the, getting everything all lined up.
- [14:47]
Abu
Yeah.
- [14:47]
Leo
But realistically, is that the fantasy for someone wanting to play a Dune video game? No, no.
- [14:53]
Abu
Right. Laying piping down is not the fantasy.
- [14:56]
Leo
I'm not trying to cable manage in Dune, you know.
- [15:00]
Abu
Yeah.
- [15:00]
Leo
So the, the fact that you can just, oh, I have too much, I'm generating too much water. Let me just put down a new cistern anywhere, anywhere in my base. And now my circuit, like the, the capacity for water I have is, is greater. Amazing. 10 out of 10.
- [15:16]
Abu
Yeah, I agree. And I also want to applaud the development team for the support post launch that we've seen so far. There have already been numerous small patches. You know, bug fix here, bug fix there, quick thing here, quick thing there. There was a server maintenance thing, I think two nights ago because some of the servers were having issues. So they were quick on the draw to fix that. I really appreciate that. Right. Like they're coming out the gate being like, this has to be a smooth experience and we need to just be, you know, frankly like probably working overtime to make sure it is perfect in the first couple weeks of launch. We're recording this on the 15th, so it's been out for 10 days for early access folks and only for five days for public access folks. And I think it's been quite smooth sailing. And normally like big MMO style games that require online servers and things like that, those first two weeks of those kinds of games are just a fucking mess. And I think this has been very smooth sailing. So I'm confident that the team will continue to support it. I'm confident that they're listening to feedback as well. There have been some changes from the beta that are now implemented in the, in the full release of the game. So it's clear that they're listening to their players and they are quick on the draw when it comes to adding features or fixing bugs. And I hope we will continue to see that.
- [16:39]
Leo
Yeah.
- [16:39]
Abu
And the last thing I want to call out. You already sort of mentioned this earlier when we were talking about narrative, but I do want to applaud the game for making Dune one of its core tenets. It is a Dune game at its core, much like Joel Bylos was telling us in our interview with him last week. Yeah, there is just so much Dune in this game and as a fan, I appreciate that. Right.
- [17:03]
Leo
Yeah.
- [17:04]
Abu
Everything from the characters to the tiny little references to the actual gameplay mechanics of how you play the game, all honor the source material. And are all so Dune in the way they're built and the way they're written. Item descriptions making tiny, tiny, vague references to one off lines in the book. That is an attention of detail that I really appreciate. That is a level of reverence for the original source material that I also really appreciate. And honestly, it's just been incredibly fun to keep running into little Dune things that are so delightful, whether it's a certain item I discover or whether I go to Arakeen and I'm like, oh, my gosh, House. More atani. How cool is that? Yeah, every nook and cranny of this game. If you're a Dune fan and you know the lore very well, this game will reward you for knowing the lore very well. And every nook and cranny is full of little lore details like that. I mean, it's also. Even the big details like when I got the mission that told me to go to Arakeen for the first time, I was genuinely giddy. I was like, oh, my. Are we talking about. Are we talking about the same Arakeen?
- [18:13]
Leo
Arakeen. Oh, my God, I know her.
- [18:15]
Abu
Oh, my God, I'm nervous. And so, like, I, you know, I took the ornithopter to Arrakeen. I landed there, and honestly, I was in awe. I just like stood there and soaked it in for a minute because, one, it's gorgeous, but two, I've read so much about this fucking city and now I get to go to it and walk around in it.
- [18:35]
Leo
The residency approach. Where you see the palm trees.
- [18:38]
Abu
Where you see the palm trees.
- [18:39]
Leo
Oh, there's the fucking guy doing the water on the palm trees.
- [18:43]
Abu
So there's just a level of nerdiness in this game and Dune fandom in this game that I so appreciate. And I think anyone in our audience who has been with us for a while and loves Dune as much as we do, you will appreciate it as well. And that's not easy to do. That shows a level of love and attention that I think is special and is worth calling out. So I've been really enjoying that about the game too.
- [19:05]
Leo
Yeah, that's huge.
- [19:06]
Abu
All right. I've been talking for a while. What about you? What are some things that you want to call out that you have been having a good time with in Dune Awakening?
- [19:13]
Leo
Oh, gosh, yeah. I will say, this game, I've been having a blast. I really, I'm enjoying it and there's a lot of good to say. I will just caveat. We. If you play this game or if you watch people playing this game, there's a lot of crafting, a lot of survival hours just doing survival stuff. But legitimately, when it came time to like boil down the lore, things we wanted to call out, it was hard because there's so, so much too much I do want to balance. I know that for people watching on, like, you see people playing on TikTok or YouTube, it's going to be a lot of like, they could basically be playing like dry Subnautica. Right. But I think the reality is there is so much Dune in this game. It. It truly is so dense and in a way that is delightful. So I just wanted to put that out there. But going through. I made a little list. So going through story and narrative, I completely. Yeah, I agree. Alternative timeline, super savvy move. I like our what if episodes of just like Dune, what if? And this. Is that where we're going? Yeah. If Paul wasn't the one who was born, if instead it was Ariste, then Jamis wouldn't have died. And what is that? What are the cascading effects of that? What characters who died because of Paul are still alive. And now we get to explore that in a fun way. That's really cool. I really enjoy that. The voice acting is all very fun. A lot of gruff voiced fellas, which is great. And for the most part, the writing is really good. I've been enjoying lots and lots of Dune lore stuff involved in and motivating the writing. There's a lot of. Yeah, you're going to leverage this information against that guy. You're interrogating him. He's a Samuda addict. And I'm from Chusik. My character's from Chusika. So I'm able to bring up some dialogue things about how important music is when you're like, rolling on Samuda. And now he trusts. Yeah, yeah, because he. Because I get it, you know, and he's like, oh, this dude Samuda's. And then I'm like, fucking jokes on you. I work for Baron Harkin. And he's like, oh, no. And like, that's a really fun moment. And it's. Well, it's kind of tucked within these cool dialogue options. I also really like that the tutorialization is wrapped up in these trials of acl, right? Like these spice awareness trips. You inhale the spice, you go on this, like, journey to this alternative kind of tutorial world where they teach you about avoiding spotlights, they teach you about thumpers, they teach you about, you know, compactors and different types of things. But the whole time they're also telling you about the Zensuni wanderers and how the long migration.
- [22:00]
Abu
Yeah.
- [22:00]
Leo
Of the Zen Sunni people who don't.
- [22:02]
Abu
Don't just run past that woman talking. Stop and listen to everything she says. It's the history of the Fremen people. It's the Zen Sunni wanderers.
- [22:10]
Leo
It's so cool.
- [22:11]
Abu
It's very cool.
- [22:12]
Leo
And to see, like, to. To hear about poetry, to hear about Harmon, to hear about, you know, Rossic, to hear about these planets that we've talked about for literally since the beginning of our podcast.
- [22:23]
Abu
Yeah.
- [22:23]
Leo
Is. It's just so much fun.
- [22:25]
Abu
Yeah, it's a delight.
- [22:26]
Leo
I think it's cool that the tutorialization is also wrapped up in Lore stuff as well. Now, regarding the gameplay and the core loop, I will fully admit here, I love games like Subnautica. I love crafting adventure survival games. So I find the gameplay loop super addictive. Going out, gathering stuff, I'm so eager to always make just one more trip out into the sands. I'm having a blast. I'm really enjoying the combat. I've heard some mixed takes from people online about it, but I really enjoy it. I think it took me time to get used to it, but I've gotten to a point where I can very confidently stagger someone, slowly stab to get through their Holtzman shield, use the voice to debilitate them in the middle of combat, and then heal as they're just standing there in a daze. It all feels very neat. And I've gotten kind of. The more I've played, the more I've gotten to really enjoy that. I'll also say that regarding that battle, dying to mobs, dying to these, like, enemies, these, like, computer enemies, damages your equipment and you drop your loot, but you can still grab it again. And I think that this is broadly a positive. I've kind of waffled on this a little bit. There don't really seem to be crazy stakes to being killed by, like, some random enemies in a slaver camp, but I think that that's good because if you were to lose all of your shit, that would just add to the mundaneity, that would add to the grind. And I'm glad that that is not the case to wrap up. I think the graphics very much fall into the good camp for me.
- [24:00]
Abu
Agreed.
- [24:01]
Leo
Like, Arrakis is beautiful.
- [24:02]
Abu
Beautiful.
- [24:03]
Leo
And especially, oh, my God, dude, when you're out at night and there's like, the aurora borealis and it's like highliners.
- [24:11]
Abu
There, the Highliners off in the distance.
- [24:14]
Leo
A highlighter.
- [24:14]
Abu
It's so nighttime in this game is amazing. It's gorgeous.
- [24:19]
Leo
Yeah. And appropriately, daytime sucks. I'm like, hiding in shadows trying not to die of heat. So. Yeah, that's amazing. And even, like, the particle effects when there's a sandstorm and I'm in my base and the light filtering in from my windows is now clouded with these little dust specks. It's beautiful. I feel so immersed.
- [24:41]
Abu
It's a good looking game.
- [24:42]
Leo
It all feels very true to Dune. Yeah, it looks great. And then the last thing I'll say that I think is honestly, such a huge, incredible quality of life thing is there's an in game radio. And I didn't know about this until our conversation with Joel, but since talking to him, I've listened to it for hours. It is so much fun. You have to press N on the keyboard and then you choose which radio station you want to listen to. I almost exclusively listen to the Atreides radio station, but it has music from the 1992 video game.
- [25:14]
Abu
Yeah.
- [25:14]
Leo
It has in world reporting of, like, things that are happening. It has talk shows where they're, like, interviewing Atreides soldiers from the. From the front lines of battle. And they have, like, radio dramas, like, following Atreides characters who embolden and embody the, like, values of House Atreides.
- [25:33]
Abu
Yeah.
- [25:34]
Leo
It's all propaganda. It's all so fun. It's super unnecessary. And I love it. It's so good.
- [25:41]
Abu
Yeah.
- [25:41]
Leo
It's one of those, like, clearly this came up in some brainstorming whiteboard session where they go, what's a fun thing we could add to the. And then they just leaned into it.
- [25:49]
Abu
Yeah.
- [25:50]
Leo
Super, super hard.
- [25:51]
Abu
Yeah. And to repeat, the shortcut is N to make that happen. This radio thing is so buried in the menus that I feel like most people will never find it. And it's such a delightful part of the game. Yeah. N is the shortcut to bring up the radio menu.
- [26:06]
Leo
That's broadly the good. There's a lot of. There's actually more that I could just talk for hours about how much I've been enjoying the game. Let's talk now about the bad. Let's talk about what we think could be better. This is maybe asking for improvements in future DLC patches or whatever, but. Yeah. What is not landing for you in Dune Awakening so far?
- [26:30]
Abu
Yeah. I'll say this is my biggest critique, and it's not even a critique of the game itself. This is a me thing. I don't like survival games, crafting games, MMO games, base building games. So beyond the Dune of it all, the game was going to be a tough sell for me. And so I guess all I'm really saying here is, like, as a warning to folks who might be interested in Dune Awakening but aren't already into this genre of video game, the Dune of it all might not be enough to get you to fall in love with the actual gameplay itself. And that's kind of where I find myself. Like, I love the Dune stuff. I'm constantly delighted and surprised by the Dune stuff that I come across. And then I lose my fucking bike. And I have to spend the next three hours, like, gathering the resources to build my fucking bike again because I can't go anywhere, anywhere without the goddamn bike and I don't have enough.
- [27:28]
Leo
Or it was funny listening to you actively driving in the same quicksand. You went like, it's fucking quicksand again.
- [27:35]
Abu
No, there goes my bike in the quicksand, God damn it. You know, and then like, there go the next three hours as I run around gathering the all the necessary pieces and parts to build another bike again. Again. That might be part of the joy for you. For me, that's part of the tedium.
- [27:51]
Leo
Sure.
- [27:51]
Abu
And I think that kind of bleeds into actually the storytelling of the game as well. MMOs aren't particularly known for their, like, well paced, intricate, deep storytelling. And, you know, this game is no different. Like, the premise is super interesting. The characters that have been introduced have been fascinating and I want to see more of them. But the actual experience of going through the story is extremely uneven and patchy. Right. Like at any moment you might be sent off on like a random fetch quest to go get X amount of. Or then you'll get a bit of exposition. Maybe then you'll do a story quest and you'll be like, oh, that was dope. Cool character, something's happening. And then you'll do another fucking fetch quest. And then you have to craft a base for three hours and then you come back and do another story mission. That's the experience of this story. Right? There's no just like clean, single player, very tight focus, Last of Us style, experiencing the story. And that's just not the nature of this game. It was never going to be that. But for me, you know, personally, I'm the type of gamer who appreciates the Last of Us is of the world. There's also a fair warning. You mentioned this, like, the, the consequences aren't like massive. You can always recover from. Even like losing your bike, you can recover, you know, you just make another. This is not some sort of hardcore desert survival simulator. To be clear, for folks who might be coming into it expecting that, yes, you're going to be battling the elements. Yes, there are great mechanics like the water discipline and running away from the worms. But you know, even just 15 hours into the game, I'm finding that I have leveled up enough and that I have good enough gear now that many of those things are becoming sort of an afterthought. I don't really run out of water anymore at this point because I crafted myself a good stillsuit. Yeah, you can put like a booster on your bike and as long as you're careful about it and you don't push your luck, the worm is never really going to get you. The worm never got me, you know, my bike is fast enough for me to just avoid it. So this is not some sort of like hardcore survival game. To be clear. It is quite forgiving, which I agree with you actually is a good thing. If it was too hardcore, it would immediately turn off too many people. But I just wanted to throw that out there as well. Some folks might be coming into this thinking like this is really about survival in the desert and it's not so far in my experience, this game is actually like 80% about building bases and resource management and crafting new stuff and leveling up your gear so you can be better at making more and bigger bases and gathering even more and better resources and crafting even bigger and more expensive equipment that lets you do that. You know, that's the loop. That's the like the work reward, work reward loop as you work your way through the game. And again, if that to you is rewarding and fun and you've played other games, this is a very common gameplay loop. It exists in many other games. If that's your speed, this is actually a really well crafted game. It's in that regard, this is a very good base building, survival, adventure, resource grinding game. It has the quality of life features. Like I mentioned earlier, the actual mechanics of the crafting and the reward mechanisms are all pretty well paced out. Like you're never kind of too far away from the next shiny thing you can make, which is kind of the magic sauce of these types of games. You never want to be in a place where you're like, oh, the next thing I got to craft is like 2000 ore. That's going to take me nine days. Yeah, yeah, you know, you never want.
- [31:29]
Leo
It Satisfactory fails in that way, for sure.
- [31:32]
Abu
You never want the gap to the next thing to be too big. And so far in my experience, it never has been. The next thing always feels achievable. Ultimately though, like I mentioned, with the whole bike situation that I'm currently in, as of last night, I. I find that this gameplay loop to actually kind of be tedious rather than fun. It's not enjoyable for me to have to remake my goddamn damn bike because I lost it.
- [31:54]
Leo
Yeah, yeah.
- [31:55]
Abu
But again, other folks will enjoy going out and rebuilding it and gathering the resources again and upgrading their bike so that the next time they don't lose it like I lost it, that sort of thing. Personally, I just lean more narratively rich and immersive games. Like, yeah, Mass Effect, Red Dead Redemption. I most recently played. I finished playing Expedition 33 easily. Easily the best game of 2025 that I've played. Wow. So good. Just like, just beautiful. And like a nice tight 30 hours, you know, I'm a grown up. I don't have time to like put 100 hours into a thing. 30 hours. I beat the story. It was magical. It made me cry. That's my type of game. So again, this is a me problem. This is not a game problem. If the game I've described to you in the last few minutes is your type of game, you're gonna have an absolute fucking blast in Dune Awakening.
- [32:44]
Leo
Yeah. Yeah.
- [32:45]
Abu
If any part of what I described to you makes you go that's kind of tedious, I'd be annoyed by that. And I don't play games like this. The Dune of it all is not going to suddenly make you like games like this, I guess is my point.
- [32:58]
Leo
Right. I'll also say that like, and this is to support what you're saying as well, the mid to late game seems to be much more about that. Like you're going out to the deep desert, you're getting spice, you're bribing houses to win the Landsraad favor, which gives you these. There's all these things that you can do. Like the loop becomes much more about risking the deep desert. Desert and some other stuff within that.
- [33:22]
Abu
Yeah. Coordinating with your guild, that sort of thing.
- [33:24]
Leo
But to get there, it's like unless you're hardcore speedrunning the early parts of the game, you're. Yeah, to your point, Abu. It's like the first 20, 30 hours is going to be this stuff that like slow, incremental improvement of equipment.
- [33:39]
Abu
Yeah.
- [33:39]
Leo
And like, you're exactly right. If that's not something that you're excited about that might be difficult. And then the benefit is find a friend who likes that stuff, have them make two of everything and now you've got everything. It's great. Yeah, but still, I think for someone wanting to jump in, get straight to that mid to late game stuff, it is an investment and that's very much worth pointing out.
- [34:02]
Abu
Totally, Totally. Okay. Two other minorities critiques that I have, one of which I think is once again just a me problem. I am finding the gunplay and the unique class powers part of the combat interesting. And I know you said that you like the combat and it's clicking for you. I on the other hand, could not be more annoyed with the melee combat. I feel like I am just fucking waving a knife around and nothing is happening and I'm constantly dying and everyone can get through my shield, but I can't get through their fucking shield for some reason. There isn't like a responsiveness to it. I'm just like waving my arms around and sometimes hitting and sometimes not. The melee, the gunplay I think is fine and serviceable for this type of game. It's no Destiny or Halo or anything like that, but it works, it's good. The melee has been frustrating me. Maybe I just need to like craft a better sword and level up some skills or something and suddenly something will click. But right now I'm, to be honest, I'm dying a lot out there in the desert when people start throwing hands. This is a tough conundrum, I will say, because to honor the original lore, Frank set up like one of the most interesting use cases for shields. The slow blade penetrates the shield. Right? Yeah, I don't really know how to solve that. Rubik's cube of turning that into a gameplay mechanic beyond what they've done here in Dune Awakening, which I think is serviceable. It just feels, still feels clunky. You'd have to break the lore I think to make it a smoother shield knife combat situation. So I don't know, I don't even know what the solution here is. I, I am still just finding it stiff and clunky and non responsive, especially in group settings. Like I got in, I did this one mission where it ended in a mini boss where you're in a one on one knife fight with a guy in the end. And that was super fun. I was like, it was cool. I'm like, we're like tap dancing around each other, parrying, trying to find the right opening to get in there. To be clear, I still died A lot, but it's fine. I figured it out. The one on one was actually really fun. It works in that instance. But you're never fighting anyone one on one. You're always getting like bum rushed by like two or three guys. One of them has a gun, the other throws a grenade at you. Two of them are knifing you and, and you're just like flailing in a panic. At least I'm flailing in a panic, like what is happening? And just dying over and over again. So for me, the combat I feel like still needs like a bit more massaging, especially when it comes to melee. But maybe as I, as I progress, I will improve.
- [36:39]
Leo
Well, I'll also say that I think for sure, even at like a fairly high level, in a low level area, if there are two or three people with knives around me and people shooting me and then someone throws out one of those fucking purple grenades.
- [36:53]
Abu
Fuck those.
- [36:54]
Leo
I don't even know what he really what it does, but it like freezes me and then two people are shooting me while I'm just in stasis. Yeah, like you will die. So I think a lot of the, for me, the, especially as I've been like solo adventuring, a lot of the combat has been how do I lure people out alone, how do I delay the group so that it's always one on one? And then how do I expediently like kill the one guy who's next to me so that I can focus on the other people? And so I think interestingly, hearing you kind of break down the like, oh yeah, the group stuff, I'm like, oh yeah. But also maybe that's the lesson.
- [37:31]
Abu
Don't, don't, don't get into a dog fight.
- [37:34]
Leo
We're not out here killing 18 Sardaukar virus.
- [37:37]
Abu
Yeah, it's like, yeah, for sure. I, I, I'm also curious if it comes down to class because I, I went mentat and I will say the mentat abilities all kind of suck, or at least I'm not using them right. One of them drops like a little shield, but it doesn't matter because every, like the knife, people just bum rush you and run right past the shield anyway, so, and you, I think rolled Benny Jesuit. And I, I'm kind of wondering if I should have rolled Trooper because I've, I've seen some troopers gameplay and their abilities seem quite useful in combat. My mentat abilities seem like utterly pointless. I throw this like poison grenade and nothing happens. And I'm like, okay, so I think your Class greatly affects how much you enjoy or not enjoy the combat as well.
- [38:22]
Leo
There are some overpowered abilities for sure. If for combat, there's the knee strike, which is pretty popular, and people use it for movement a lot, but it does damage through shields, for instance, so you can sometimes just one shot someone with the knee strike.
- [38:38]
Abu
The slow knee penetrates the shield.
- [38:40]
Leo
The slow knee penetrates the shield. I mean, we saw Duncan Eidol do it, so we know it works. Some of this might just come down to the way that the game does or doesn't tutorialize you around these things. Right. Like, if Zhantara was like, do not get caught in a fight with five people, you idiot. You know, and then you get caught in a fight with five people and you die, it'd be like, well, yeah, right.
- [39:01]
Abu
Told you so. Right.
- [39:02]
Leo
But they didn't really have that moment in this game. They kind of just let you figure.
- [39:06]
Abu
It out on your own. Yeah. And to be clear, you're not locked into. Into your class. Like, I can. I can just go find a trainer that teaches troops trooper skills and learn some trooper skills. And, like, I don't have to stick to this mentat that I selected at the start, which I think is nice. That flexibility is nice.
- [39:23]
Leo
Yeah.
- [39:24]
Abu
Okay. One. One last thing, and then I'll shut up. We hinted at this earlier. Here is perhaps my most scathing critique of this game. The user interface is God awful. Oh, my God.
- [39:42]
Leo
Yeah. Huh.
- [39:44]
Abu
Every inter. Every window in this game is so cluttered and so, so disorganized. And there's no hierarchy of information, there's no clear color coding. I dread having to ever open a menu that isn't just the map screen. And even the map screen is like, very cluttered. Like, that could be cleaner, but at least the map is functional. Many of the screens, like, straight up don't feel functional to me. In particular, the inventory management is like, insanely, insanely clunky. And that is only exacerbated by the very nature of this game. This is a survival crafting base building mmo. Right. Which means there are a ton of resources, many different types of resources, all of which have different levels within each resource. There are many different ways to craft things from those resources. Sometimes a fabricator, sometimes you just do it in your backpack, sometimes you need a special building, sometimes you can only do it, blah, blah, blah. Given the complexity of the crafting, the UI and the overall UX needed to be so much better than what it is now in order to properly convey and communicate the. The elements of this game. A lot of times I feel like I'm opening a fucking menu and scrolling through a long list looking for something, and then I don't find it. And then I just give up. I'm like, I don't know where the fuck that was and where I was supposed to find it. Which menu. Which goddamn menu was. When am I. Am I looking for to make a med kit? I'm dying out here. You know, like, that's. That experience has happened to me multiple times. That squarely, in my opinion, is like the fault of the interface. A clearer interface that communicates things better and there's clear information hierarchy avoids the like clicking around being like, where was that thing again?
- [41:38]
Leo
Right.
- [41:38]
Abu
I'm confident this is something that can be fixed. Many games have had UI overhauls. Witcher 3, for example, launched with a horrible inventory interface and was eventually patched into a very functional, very clean, much better one. I really hope it happens here as well. In particular, I will say, like, one quality of life thing that I hope happens is don't make tools take up inventory space. Give me a tool belt, like a separate inventory space that I can load tools into. Not my backpack, a toolkit, and then make it so I don't have to constantly equip those tools to do basic things like extract blood from the enemies I kill. Because the interface is like, so clunky, it's extra annoying when I kill somebody. I don't have my goddamn blood extractor equipped. So then I have to open the bad inventory interface, equip the blood extractor, then go extract the blood, then go like that. All of that is unnecessary, like wasted time and makes me interact with a menu that's already bad just like that. That's my like, free pro tip, is like, make it make a utility belt feature where I can just equip things and then I can just go around and with the quick button press, I can do anything that's equipped on my belt. I don't have to keep equipping different tools to do different things. That to me is like part of the tedium of trying to get stuff done, like rebuilding my bike that got stuck in the quicksand. So UI UX overall is like a big thing that's hampering my enjoyment of the game. And I'm hoping that it'll be overhauled and revisited and cleaned up. And that is something that is not like, game breaking and unfixable. This is a thing that can very easily be iterated on and tweaked and fixed in coming patches and in the coming months and years. And. And I hope it is.
- [43:31]
Leo
Yeah, ultimately, I. I think I. I'm in alignment with you on some of that. Like, I know that on the back end they have to have certain types of item types, things that are droppable, things that are. You know, we've talked about this. Like, when you die, you drop certain types of things. Those things are so hard to pick out from the collection of tools. It's like, I will go to a chest and be like, I want to deposit all of the materials that I use for crafting objects. Let me look for them manually.
- [44:03]
Abu
Let me filter them, let me search, like, type in and search for them.
- [44:06]
Leo
35 things, you know, and if. And if it were just like, they are. They have a blue outline. And I'm like, okay, let me just put all the blue outline stuff in this chest. This chest is the blue outline stuff.
- [44:17]
Abu
Something, right? Visual language, visual hierarchy, something like that. Yeah.
- [44:21]
Leo
Because for sure, the number of times I've opened up a chest and been like, I'm going to put all of my EMF capacitors in here. And then I go, oh, I can't see any. I guess I don't have any. And then I go out into the sands and I realize I am carrying like 48. They're just next to something that's visually similar. And I'm like, yeah, I didn't mean to bring this with me. Yeah, you know. Yeah, yeah, that does happen, for sure. I have found that, like, over many hours, I've. These are the tools that I have on my one through eight, I guess.
- [44:49]
Abu
Yeah. Like, you have your equippable, like, hot keys. Yeah, equippable.
- [44:52]
Leo
But then it's only those eight and it's like you might find that nine or ten are necessary for a full adventure. So then you, to your point, have to open that up and go, well, now I have to repair my sand bike, so let me inventory. Okay, welding torch. Let's put that on four. Now I do this. Oh, I'm being attacked. I hope I don't need number four right now because it's gone. It's. Until I can, like, find it again.
- [45:18]
Abu
Yeah. So there's. There's like, small quality of life things that I think can really smooth over the experience. You know, get rid of some of those bumps in the road. Okay. Those are my complaints. What, what about you? What are some things that you want to see improved in the game?
- [45:32]
Leo
Yeah, I think so far I would say that I have Kind of three categories. The first category is narrative. I think, when I think about what has not exactly landed for me is in a lot of the dialogue with NPCs, there just isn't a lot of choice. And this might come down to the fact that I've played more of the games that you're talking about, Abu with Red Dead Redemption and these sort of narrative rich one player games where you can have narrative consequences. You said that to that person. Well, now you're stuck with this consequence. And I often find that in a lot of NPC conversations I can be like, what the fuck were you going to do to me? And they'll be like, blah, blah, blah. And then I talk to them again and I can just choose the other dialogue option. And I'm like, oh, this In a universe in Dune where everyone's having to choose their words carefully, everyone's having to like plans within plans. That feels distinctly lacking. That kind of linear conversation that doesn't really have a lot of choices is particularly noticeable. And I don't know that that's. Again, this might just be par for the course and massive one multiplayer online RPGs. Like, I don't know how much, if you're playing World of Warcraft, I don't know how much narrative rich choice making you're getting to make. Yeah, especially when compared to a game like Baldur's Gate 3.
- [46:57]
Abu
Jesus Christ. Right, Right.
- [46:59]
Leo
At the end of the day, this might just be an issue that I have with MMOs. But in particular, because Dune is so much about choosing your words carefully, the ability to just say anything feels a little bit lackluster on the gameplay front. I completely agree. The combat is super punishing on your own. And I would occasionally get caught on environmental stuff. Like I can't go backwards because there's a little cable that doesn't look like it should have collision, but it does. And now I'm in the middle of a flamethrower and that's annoying. I've also been caught by flamethrowers quite a bit where I'm not in the stream of fire, but I still catch on fire and then that kills me. And I can understand it if you're saying, okay, the air around the flamethrower is superheated, so you're catching flame because you're in the superheated air. Okay. I do feel like I need that to be explained to me because right now it just seems like a bad hitbox. So I'm like Dark Souls mode fighting going well if I'M not being touched. I shouldn't be in any trouble. And then suddenly I'm on fire and I'm like, well, fuck me. I guess. Yeah, so that's, that's something that has been a little frustrating at times.
- [48:12]
Abu
Yeah.
- [48:12]
Leo
I mentioned already that this first part of the gameplay loop is a lot about crafting and about like efficiency of harvesting materials. I'm still not 100% sure what the super late game gameplay loop is, is.
- [48:26]
Abu
Yeah, me neither.
- [48:26]
Leo
I mean, I know that like in MMOs like World of Warcraft, it's about like raids and you do raids to get like special stuff. But I think as a narrative game, someone who plays a lot of narrative games, I don't know if that's enough for me to like invest the 80 hours I'm going to need to be able to go out into the sand with my carry all and my buddies. Like, I, I will work to get there because I love, I actually do love this game, but I think there's still some big questions to answer for the layperson who isn't already at that stage discovering those new mechanics. I want to see the carrot dangled in front of me and right now I feel like the carrot's being is a secret. It's a secret carrot. It's there, but you're not going to know about it until you see it hanging from the end of the stick. So, yeah, I'm enjoying it. I'm going to keep playing. But when people go, hey, is it always this loop? I'm like, no, I think it's a different loop later on, but I'm not exactly sure what that loop is. I guess I should watch more streamers play. Maybe it might be useful to at some point hear what that late game stuff is in game as a part of the tutorialization of like, one day you'll be able to do this and then I can be excited.
- [49:37]
Abu
Right.
- [49:38]
Leo
The last point I'll make is just that. Again, this might be very par for the course for MMOs, but the graphics look so good all over the place. There is a little bit of the Uncanny Valley when it comes to the people and the character models. Yeah, it's hard because this is an MMO and you want to have everything be at a very high level of fidelity, but also work for like live streaming. All of this information between all these different people's setups. Yeah, it still did kind of rub me the wrong way. There were some moments in like quests where my character's face is like very front and center during a cutscene and I'm like, oh no, I should have.
- [50:18]
Abu
Spent more time in the character creator. What the fuck?
- [50:20]
Leo
Yeah. And I did my best. I really tried. So that's just something that comes up. But again, seeing as I have like three things to complain about and they're all basically minor is huge. And I think transitioning now I'll just cover my overall impressions of the game and we can kind of wrap up on this before we talk about Lore stuff. I am loving the game and I am so excited to play more today. My fiance was like, oh, I've got this stuff to work on, so you'll have a couple hours to entertain yourself. And I was like, fuck, yeah. A couple hours to collect more resources and I'm going to get towards building an ornithopter. Woo. You know, I am so excited to get back out there for more adventures. I'm excited to play more with our listeners. I am going to play the fucking hell out of this game for a while. Although I do need to play Expedition 33. And especially after our chat with Joel, I already know that there are depths of Dune lore whole character arcs I haven't encountered yet. Oh yeah, I met the Tuek character in Harko City, but I haven't really like even gone down that path yet. So I. That's like a whole thing I haven't discovered yet. So I'm excited to see more of that. I know that if DLC is coming out, that even more cool Dune stuff is going to be brought to the game, which is super exciting. And you know, if I were to give this score an out of 10 score, I genuinely think I. I'd give it like a 9 out of 10. Maybe 8.8.5 out of 10. Docking it for occasional frustrations during some fights, maybe some clunky ui. And yeah, the skill assignments. Yeah, I'm really, really loving this game and having a blast. So I'd say probably like, yeah, 8.5 out of 10. What about you? Looking at it. Bird's eye. 35,000 foot view.
- [52:21]
Abu
Yeah.
- [52:21]
Leo
What do you think? What do you think of Dune Awaken?
- [52:23]
Abu
I'm also really having a blast with this game. Like you said, there's still many, many, many surprises left to discover. And as a Dune fan, I can't wait to discover those. I can't wait. I haven't met the TUA character yet, by the way. I'm excited to do that. You know, like, she calls you kitten. Hello.
- [52:39]
Leo
It hits different.
- [52:41]
Abu
So I'm excited. I'm looking forward to seeing what other Dune stuff there is left to uncover in this game. Which it clearly there's a lot and I can't wait to do that. And honestly, like maybe I, maybe I need to take a break from grinding on the resources and trying to build my base and just go do some quests, ignore the rest of the for a while and just go do some quests and soak myself in the Dune universe. That being said, I think this is a really, really good game visually. Technically a solid game that stays true to its heart and soul is a Dune game. First. It's got very strong survival and crafting mechanics. So if that is the type of game you enjoy, this will be one of the better ones of those you will play for sure. And so for me like taking all of that into account, I guess my sort of like review in progress as I'm still making my way through this game. I'm sitting at like a very respectable 7 out of 10 for this game, which is a good game, not a great game that will like win you over if you weren't already invested in some way. That's sort of. My sales pitch is like if you're invested in some way already, you're gonna have a blast with this game. If you're looking at it in passing and kind of like maybe I don't know that any one thing in this game will like totally win you over and convert you into a true believer. Like I mentioned earlier, I think there's still room for improvement, certainly room for a bit of extra polish. But this is a very strong showing out the gate. This is a, this is an excellent game. Very smooth launch, technically proficient, like it just. It's a solid foundation for the team to build out their ambitions on. And we know they have. Joel said they have a 10 year loose 10 year plan laid out. If the game is successful, continues to be supported, if market forces continue to be good and the world doesn't end or etc, etc, then hopefully we will see 10, 10 very fruitful years of Dune Awakening as it continues to expand and evolve. And I for one am certainly looking forward to that. Will this be a game that I will play for the next 10 years consistently or even for the next like 10 months consistently? Probably not. I'm gonna, I'm enjoying it for now. I'm playing it a lot now. I can see myself bouncing off of it and taking a break. But the things that will continue to. I certainly won't uninstall it right. Like things will continue to Draw me back in. Certainly any big updates in DLC that drops, that'll bring me back in. And when our guild, like, when folks in our guild get to a point where we're doing, like, endgame stuff together, big missions together, coordinating big things together, I think the social aspect of the game is a big draw for me as well. And so that'll keep me coming back as well.
- [55:24]
Leo
Yeah. Huge.
- [55:25]
Abu
But a great game. I'm having a fun time.
- [55:27]
Leo
Yeah. I also. I think. I still think there's so much room for helping players understand what is and isn't important in the game. Like, I just was going to fully skip over the buggy because I was like, why would I do that? But when I tell you that it changes the nature of the resource gathering to the point where now I have like 600 iron, I never. I don't have to go get that anymore.
- [55:52]
Abu
Yeah. For context, I have like five iron.
- [55:55]
Leo
And again, so if you asked me right now to craft a bike, I could be like, yeah, you want three bikes? I'll make you four bikes. Like, that's fine because I have all of this.
- [56:03]
Abu
That's the nature of the leveling up. Yeah.
- [56:05]
Leo
Because I have a buggy. But I didn't. I was going to skip over the buggy because I didn't understand how much of a game changer it would be. So I think that there's still. Maybe this is like, also the social aspect of it. There's going to be conversations like this one where I go, oh, Abu, you're getting caught up on the mundaneity of that stuff. Here's the tech to invest in because you are going to harvest that much faster. And then you're only spending a tenth the time on your resource gathering and doing a lot more of the quests and a lot more of the xyz.
- [56:36]
Abu
All right, folks, those are our pretty comprehensive and intense thoughts about the game so far. But again, a reminder, neither of us is quite at that endgame, deep desert, doing ornithopter runs and battling other guild stage of this game yet. So I'm sure our feelings will evolve as we continue to play in advance. But I'm having a great time and I can't wait to keep going and see where the journey takes us.
- [57:05]
Leo
I will say I hit a milestone recently from one of these, like, little mini spice blooms. I have enough spice for one bribe. Hello, I can do one bribe, which feels so fun. But then I'm like a toddler in the Dune universe, where I'm like, I can only afford one blind. Like, who am I going to be?
- [57:25]
Abu
Anybody want to be bribed? I have one.
- [57:30]
Leo
I have one wife, one vibes where it's so. And then I'm like, I don't want to bribe anyone because then I don't have any spice left.
- [57:39]
Abu
Oh, right, right, right.
- [57:41]
Leo
It'll be interesting to see. It'll be fun to come back to this conversation in other forms.
- [57:46]
Abu
Yes, I agree. Yeah. And certainly it might be worth revisiting, you know, maybe when the first big DLC drops or something. It'll certainly be worth revisiting on the podcast and checking in with our feelings about awakening. Yeah, six months from now, eight months from now, whatever.
- [58:00]
Leo
Totally. I mean, they've teased the third faction, and I still don't know who the third faction is.
- [58:04]
Abu
Yeah, exactly.
- [58:06]
Leo
All right, we are going to take a quick break, but when we're back, we're going to talk about our lore, call out some of the deep, gritty, nerdy stuff that we've found. We're going to celebrate that, and then we've got some quick questions, and then we'll wrap up the episode. Don't go anywhere. Dear listener, when we're back, we're talking lore. That's why you listen to us, presumably. Stick around. We'll be right back.
- [58:31]
Abu
Savor every last drop of summer with Starbucks. From bold refreshers to rich cold brews, the sunniest season only gets better with a handcrafted ice beverage in your hand, available for a limited time. Your summer favorites are ready at Starbucks.
- [58:46]
Leo
With a Venmo debit card.
- [58:47]
Abu
You can Venmo more than just your friends.
- [58:49]
Leo
You can use your balance in so many ways. You can Venmo everything.
- [58:53]
Abu
Need gas?
- [58:53]
Leo
You can Venmo this. How about snacks? You can Venmo that.
- [58:57]
Abu
Your favorite band's merch.
- [58:58]
Leo
You can Venmo this or their next show. You can Venmo that.
- [59:01]
Abu
Visit Venmo me Debit to learn more.
- [59:04]
Leo
You can Venmo this or you can Venmo that.
- [59:06]
Abu
You can Venmo this or you can Venmo that.
- [59:09]
Leo
You can Venmo.
- [59:09]
Abu
The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp bank and a pursuant to license. My MasterCard International Incorporated card may be used everywhere.
- [59:14]
Leo
MasterCard is accepted. Venmo purchase restrictions apply.
- [59:17]
Abu
All right, folks, welcome back.
- [59:19]
Leo
Yeah.
- [59:20]
Abu
Let's continue our discussion today about Dune awakening by getting nerdy and digging into the nooks and crannies of this video game to talk about the deep cuts, the lore that's seeped deep in the in the DNA of this game, obviously there are. There's so much. This game is overflowing with Dune. And so really today we're giving you a sampling. These are the things that we've come across, some of the highlights that we've noticed in our early experiences and early hours with the game. Definitely reach out to us, email Discord, let us know some of your favorites and some of the deep cut lore things that you've experienced as you journey through awakening. Okay, so going through our list, these are just some highlights and some favorites from us. This first one is actually one that Joel told us in our interview. The creative director of this game.
- [60:11]
Leo
Yeah.
- [60:12]
Abu
Pretty early in the game you have the opportunity to create a unique short blade which is called Caliph's Drinker. And here's the item description for that blade. Quote. Cornered in a cave by Sardaukar forces, Caliph managed to stay alive for weeks without a water source, only emerging to draw blood from his enemies when he was finally killed. And the Sardaukar discovered this unique Kinjal modified to include an exsanguination apparatus. End quote.
- [60:45]
Leo
Dang. That takes blood.
- [60:47]
Abu
It takes blood, yeah. The in game effect basically is when you kill somebody with this knife, you automatically draw blood. You don't have to go through the whole rigmarole, which is cool. It's great. It's a very useful knife actually. It's the one that I'm using the most. But already a couple of cool lore call outs here. Right. The word Kinjal has been dropped. Kinjols actually exist in the game as well. You can craft them. A prominent weapon in the Dune universe. Iconic. And as Joel pointed out to us in our interview with him, Caliph is actually the name of Jamis eldest son. This is a direct addition to the book.
- [61:23]
Leo
Insane.
- [61:24]
Abu
Yeah, very cool. If you'll recall, and in fact you might not recall because Frank Herbert himself forgot about these boys. But Paul did, when he killed Jamis, inherit two sons.
- [61:36]
Leo
Yeah.
- [61:36]
Abu
And Caliph is one of them, the elder one. Very cool. And in this alternate universe where Paul didn't kill Jamis, Caliph clearly kind of grew up, became a Fremen, became a warrior, became a part of the tribe, and then tragically perished in a standoff against the Sardaukar.
- [61:56]
Leo
Incredible. Oh, so good. I like literally word searching Dune and seeing Caliph come up, it was like, oh my God, he outdooned me. Joel outdooned me. That's so offensive. Right. As a quick rattling off, there are other notable types of weapons and tech in the game. And again, this just Scratches the surface. But there are mala pistols like the one that Chani, you know, takes from Paul, that, you know, he gets from Jamis, actually, in their initial confrontation, she wire claws, Shigawire reels, penta shields, glow globes, Hunter seekers. It's insane. Like, if something is mentioned in Dune, you can probably find it tucked away somewhere in this game. Yeah, the number of Cheops game boards that I found in just like random, you know, places. They've got, like, all of the pieces scattered. Clearly someone was cheating and someone knifed the board and got frustrated. It's so fun to see the world painting with all of this Dune stuff. Only God knows how long it's going to take Joel to introduce Laza Tigers to the game. And I cannot wait.
- [63:05]
Abu
I can't wait. I can't wait. Here's another quick one. We were talking about those radio channels earlier. Remember, the hotkey is n everyone on the Atreides propaganda channel. In one of the shows, one of the Atreides aspirants mentions slig chatter. Like they got sick from eating slig chatter or something in like a throwaway line, which of course our ears pricked up. Oh, my goodness, a slig reference in this game.
- [63:35]
Leo
Sligs.
- [63:35]
Abu
You love to see it.
- [63:36]
Leo
Sligs love it, love to see it. It's the sweetest meat this side of heaven for sure. Now, throughout the Haga Basin, which is again, the place that you're doing all the crafting and the adventuring and the questing, there are Imperial testing stations that you are often sent to to get samples or to get intel or to kill a certain person who's holed up there or whatever. And at the entrance of each is a little solido projection going, welcome to Imperial Testing Station 147. Explaining kind of the function this one is for. You know, it's like a tour guide. And the specific experiments that each station is dedicated to performing is always very steeped in Dune lore stuff. But in particular one I was in the other day was all about trying to grow plants from other planets on Arrakis, which is like such a Dune concept, right?
- [64:32]
Abu
Oh, yeah.
- [64:33]
Leo
Arrakis is a desert inhospitable place. Can we grow other plants here so we don't have to import them? Huge. And early on, there's a recording bemoaning the difficulty of the task. Now, this is something that I don't have the direct quote for, but it is something along the lines of quote, fogwood, alaka or sappho root. Impossible. But maybe plants from Giddy Prime, Anything from that hellish planet may have a chance. Something along those lines.
- [65:03]
Abu
Yeah.
- [65:04]
Leo
Yeah. And throughout that station, you learn that they've been experimenting with crimscale fiber and Inkvine whips. Two huge plant based products in the Dune universe. And using them for various things, but mostly torture. Mostly like this is why Ink Fine whips are so useful as a torture device. But this is why you can't use them. Too much crimscale fiber, which we've, we see is the fiber, for instance, that Jessica is bound with when the Harkonnens capture them during the assault on Arcane.
- [65:37]
Abu
Right.
- [65:37]
Leo
Crimscale fiber tightens as you fight against it. It's all very cool. And there's additional people going, oh yeah, like you can put crimscale fiber around someone's neck and as they talk, it constricts. And I'm like, holy shit, that's cool. I hadn't thought about that. And then it's like, but be careful. If you do that, it is lethal if you're combining it with incline whips. Because they'll be screaming and the screaming will kill them. It'll actually, like, it's a positive feedback and they'll, they'll die. And it's like, holy shit. Wow, that's super fucked up. But what a cool fucked up thing. Using Dune lore. Using Dune plant stuff. There's also mention in that, in, in that Imperial testing station, there's mention of the Huffuff Vines, which I made a big deal of in our ECAS episode. I really like the sound. Huffuff, huff.
- [66:29]
Abu
Yeah.
- [66:29]
Leo
And it's like the first time that I've been so excited to just like, read item descriptions and listen to the like, yeah, you know, you're in Fallout and they're like, welcome to this place. And I'm like, oh, whatever, shut up. You know skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip, Bioshock, where they're like, well, come to the Rapture.
- [66:49]
Abu
Sk. Shut the fuck up, Ryan. Skib.
- [66:52]
Leo
Whatever. This is the first time I'm like, oh my God, it's all Dune. It's all Dune. I love this.
- [67:01]
Abu
Yeah. Okay, before, before we really get lost in the weeds here, here's just one more to satiate your Lord desires. Dear listener, there are a number of like, fun abilities and consumables that are obviously lore accurate. For example, the Mentat has the tooth. Basically, like one of the poison capsules I can release is because, like, it's the same mechanism as Yui's tooth from the book at least that's what the description says. You know, it's basically just a poison grenade in practice, but in Lore, it's a release mechanism for the tooth. So things like that, they're littered all over like the character creators and the items you can consume and that sort of thing. For example, one such item is Sappho juice. Ever heard of it?
- [67:52]
Leo
Hey, very cool.
- [67:54]
Abu
The juice of Sappho baby. Yeah, and this one does a very lore accurate thing actually. When you drink Sappho juice, it reduces the cooldown of your mentat abilities, the mentat powers that you can be firing off in the game, which of course makes sense. Sappho juice, something that mentats use to enhance their mental capabilities.
- [68:14]
Leo
Yeah, the ruby stained lips of Sappho, indeed.
- [68:18]
Abu
Yeah, indeed.
- [68:19]
Leo
So cool.
- [68:19]
Abu
A lot of fun things like that for those with lore eyes to see this game. This game is full to the brim of little lore, details like that. So if you're diving into the game and you're playing and you're finding yourself skipping a lot, don't. Yeah, really read the item descriptions. Listen to stuff. Stop and listen to the radio. Listen to the characters even in passing who are just saying something, just eavesdrop on their conversation because guaranteed you're gonna get like a fun little Easter egg in there.
- [68:50]
Leo
Yeah. The like green. When you're in testing stations and stuff, there will be little like voice recordings left behind. Yeah, play those. Those are all very fun.
- [69:00]
Abu
First one about like a tilay laxu biological experiment that basically made everyone go crazy. I did that one early on. Yeah.
- [69:08]
Leo
Yeah. And it's just so cool. It's like you're. Yeah, it's an opportunity to really enjoy that writing. It's a lot of voice acting as well, which I'm always a huge fan of.
- [69:19]
Abu
It's great.
- [69:20]
Leo
Anyway, let's wrap up. And to wrap up, we have. Our producer. Luna gave us some questions to answer, so I will kick this off. Abu, any thoughts on the beta pre purchase rollout kind of strategy that Funcom took for this game?
- [69:39]
Abu
No thoughts, only vibes over here. It seems. Honestly, it seems like fairly standard stuff, right. Pre order stuff. A couple of bonuses here and there and I'm particularly glad that it was. It's all just like cosmetic. You're not missing out on anything if you didn't get in on the pre order or the deluxe edition stuff really. And none of it's like scummy, pay to win or pay to get ahead of everyone else sort of stuff. So I appreciated that.
- [70:02]
Leo
Agreed. I'M glad they handled it how they did ultimately. The reality is that's part of why I think the game is as stable as it is and we haven't had all those game breaking things is because they had a long continuous closed beta, then they had a large scale beta weaken and then they had more closed beta and then they had the early release which was the finished game, quote unquote, for five days. For all of the pre order people, for all of the, you know, advanced level people, it's like what a great way to make sure their servers were as prepared as possible. Yeah, broadly. It's been very smooth, a very smooth rollout and a groove. The perks that are basically all cosmetic. Love it because now you just get to feel extra cool as you're going about stuff and you're not like sweeping through the game because it's super easy because you have a lase gun or something, you know.
- [70:56]
Abu
Exactly, exactly. All right. We joked about the character creator earlier. What did you think of the character creator, Leo?
- [71:04]
Leo
I enjoyed it. I think, you know, in adjusting how my character looked, I made my guy look like me pretty well. If I could grow a proper beard, if I could grow like a nice full kind of Abu style beard of like really being nice and full. I think some of the option lists, some of the cosmetic option lists of hairstyles and maybe even piercings and things like that were not super robust. I recently played Hogwarts Legacy game and there's so, I mean there's like a hundred different hairstyles and it's almost like overwhelming. I recently did the Monster Hunter Wilds game as well. A little bit. Played a little bit of it. And that character creation is also insane. Like you can just go to town making the most insane looking people. I do like having too many options and I felt like this was a good number of options but not too many. But that's kind of where my, you know, I'm glad I got to make a character that I think looks cool and I like seeing him. I actually turned off in gameplay settings you can turn off the helmet visibility so you get to just enjoy your characters face and head.
- [72:12]
Abu
Oh, I need to do that. Okay. Yeah.
- [72:14]
Leo
So that's when you see when we've been playing together and my character's like head is out and you can see I have a helmet equipped.
- [72:20]
Abu
Okay, okay, I need to do that.
- [72:21]
Leo
But I've chosen not to show it. But that's in game settings in like a fully different menu than anything else. Yeah.
- [72:27]
Abu
Which menu do I need which sub subfolder do I need to find that setting in?
- [72:31]
Leo
Look through all of them. That's 10 hours of gameplay right there. What about you? What did you think about the characters creation?
- [72:38]
Abu
Gosh, I feel like I'm really disappointing Luna and her excellent questions here. I didn't even spend like five minutes in the character creator. My guy is just one of the defaults. I was just like, click, click, click, click, click. That default looks good. I don't like his beard. I switched his beard and then I said go and now I'm playing as him. Yeah, I don't know. I appreciate that. Some folks spend like 20 hours in a character creator perfecting every inch of their character. It couldn't be me though. Mass Effect, I literally played as the default shepherd character. That's not the part of the role play in the story that hooks me. So for me that's usually just like a quick five minutes and then I move on.
- [73:18]
Leo
That's so funny. You're like, I didn't even name my character. They're like, hello player, welcome to the world. You're like skip.
- [73:28]
Abu
Yeah, yeah. Also, you know, I was just really excited to get into the game. So I was like, I can't be spending time here. I want to just play.
- [73:35]
Leo
Well, now that you're playing, have you had any fun spontaneous interactions or proximity chat or meeting other players? Anything that felt true to universe?
- [73:44]
Abu
No. And you know what? I again we were no. The answer for me is no. I haven't had any interesting interactions with random players. But I think some of that is due to like the game is like barely out. You know, we, we got it on June 5th with the early access pre order folks. So there were five days where it was just like very quiet because it's really just a small subset of super fans playing. And then June 10th when it finally went wide is when folks really started to show up on the servers. But there's a lot of servers so there's a lot of spread as well. No one. At least the server that we're in, it's not like overflowing with people. So you're not like running into people all the time. But I haven't had any interesting interactions and I don't know even if I did, I would, I think I would like avoid much like real life. I would just like avoid other people that, that aren't just like the pre vetted folks in our guild, in the Gam Jabar guild. So yeah, no interactions yet. I will say speaking of guild though, I did clear out a testing station mission with Miles and Yaz the other night last week, and that was so fun. And honestly, that. That maybe is like, my hack for the combat, because I got to just, like, mentat ability from behind and shoot some people while Miles and Yaz, like, went in and did the melee. I didn't have to, like, do melee. And so for me, that was fun. I got to, like, support them. And so I think group combat, grouping up with our guild members, doing missions together, that's where I'll really get enjoyment out of it. And that was a blast. So I'm excited to continue doing more and more of that.
- [75:21]
Leo
Yeah, that's huge.
- [75:22]
Abu
What about you? Any fun times with strangers on the Internet?
- [75:26]
Leo
Well, you know me. I love talking to strangers on the Internet. I haven't really had a lot of chatting with people. Like, the. I always. When I see people nearby, I'll be like, yo, what up? You know, you walking without rhythm or whatever, but don't get a lot of responses.
- [75:40]
Abu
They're just like, shut up, nerd. Give me your 600 iron.
- [75:45]
Leo
Give your 600 iron. I'm like, it's. Listen, honestly, take it. I've done so much at home. No, there was a. There was pretty early on. There was, like, a bot somehow in the, like, early release, selling cheap Solaris in global chat. It's like, go to this link and whatever. And three random people were like, in global chat being like, fucking thinking machines. Like, we need a butlerian jihad to get rid of these fucking thinking machines. And I was like, oh, my God, I am among friends. That's so cute.
- [76:14]
Abu
That's amazing.
- [76:14]
Leo
Fun to hear that. Otherwise, it's basically been mute. I was in a testing station and was literally, like, in my inventory, and I just heard the sound of being shot. And I. But I wasn't taking any damage or anything, which is fine. Like, I have my Holtzman shields up and everything. So I dropped my menus, and it was another player who thought, I guess I was a boss or something and was just, like, unloading a clip into.
- [76:38]
Abu
Me and nothing was happening, but I.
- [76:41]
Leo
Felt like a bad thing. Badass. I was like, yeah, you did. You. I didn't even.
- [76:45]
Abu
That's funny.
- [76:45]
Leo
Feel all of those darts. And then he ran off, and I was like, okay. Sweet.
- [76:49]
Abu
Hilarious.
- [76:50]
Leo
So. So, yeah, it's been pretty. Pretty chill.
- [76:53]
Abu
Yeah. I think as guilds and the community become more sophisticated, we're still so early in the life of an mmo. Right? Think of the most successful MMO games. They've been running for like, decade plus.
- [77:06]
Leo
Yeah, true.
- [77:07]
Abu
And so, like, we have yet to have the Leeroy Jenkins of Dune Awakening happen. Right? Like, that required. That requires like a maturing of the community and the game, which will take months and years. So we're still so early and I think people are still like, just finding their feet in this game, figuring it out as they go. But I'm excited to see what shape things will take as, like, guilds solidify, as groups solidify, as, like, like people start learning the ins and outs of the game and how that will shape the servers and the communities.
- [77:43]
Leo
And I wonder how much of that's going to be relegated to the deep desert stuff. Like, how much of the guild culture is going to come to life in that late game area compared to. For those people who are like, solo adventuring, Are we going to have sort of like, yeah, it is customary to say hey to people when you're in the same area, or do you just ignore? And I think that that culture might evolve or it might just stay the way it is right now, where if I see someone on a bike going by, it's like, okay, I don't really engage with them. Is that going to be the case forever? Is that going to change? Do we change it? Do we decide what that is? There's a lot of unanswered questions there and I know that in the deep desert it is kind of PvP. So how much is it like you say, hey, you get your spice, I'll get mine. Let's not fuck with each other. And then will people have codes of honor? I've heard tale of people like chasing down people in, you know, attack ornithopters, like big guilds being powerful. And is there a way to balance that? I think there's a lot of questions to answer.
- [78:46]
Abu
Yeah.
- [78:47]
Leo
And I don't know what those answers are, but I think those answers will come in time and then the devs will probably have to get involved for certain things and we'll see. We'll just see what happens.
- [78:58]
Abu
Yeah, yeah. It'll be interesting to just keep a eye on the pulse of the community and see where it goes. All right, last question here from Luna. Looking ahead, tapping into a bit of our prescience, what would you like to see in future expansions and updates to the game?
- [79:17]
Leo
I want the Arakeen. I want the ornithopter pilot to be able to take us to Gamont for NC17. Adults only. Again, a sex planet.
- [79:29]
Abu
Whoa.
- [79:30]
Leo
I mean, this game's already missing Its orgies. Let's get the orgies back into.
- [79:34]
Abu
Let's do it. Orgy update. Drop it, Joel. Do it.
- [79:39]
Leo
Dlc. That's the third faction orgies. No, I. I do, though. I think that the way that you get to arcane, the way you get to Harko City, it's through this ornithopter pilot, or you fly yourself. But you could very easily say, hey, the ornithopter pilot now has ordinance to take you to this other place. And now you have whole new areas. And I would love to go to other planets or other cities.
- [80:05]
Abu
Yes.
- [80:05]
Leo
You know, maybe even like the poles. Like that'd be cool to go down to the icy poles of Arrakis. Like, maybe that could be a whole new biome and a whole new thing. That would be really neat. And also with already the precedent of these prescient visions taking you to other places. Hear me out. Maybe you have a vision of the God Emperor's palace and you're actually in the main timeline in some future vision of 3,000 years down the road with God Emperor himself.
- [80:39]
Abu
Crazy that.
- [80:40]
Leo
And you get to, like, meet him. Yeah, that would be so sick. Maybe even a prescient true trance jump down to, like, the timeline of the fifth book and the sixth book. What if we could meet. Oh, trade. What if we could meet Taraza? You know, like, why not? There's so much room to play. And because we have these mechanics of not only different planets in different locations, you can add those things on without fundamentally changing the game. You can add in prescient vision, you know, servers where you're on some future place, and then when you leave that server, you're back in the kind of now that's totally doable. So I'm very excited. I also think I'm still a little unclear about what motivates the late game stuff. And again, maybe this is because of how early I am, but I do think that some grand motivating elements could be a good addition to the game, for sure. Like some late game DLC carrots to hang on the end of the stick to get me excited about getting there. Something to work toward as a group. Might already be in the game. I don't know. But that's a thought that comes to mind. And the last thing that I would like to see in future expansions is a Gom Jabbar podcast Easter egg. Joel, let's do it. Bring us up.
- [81:54]
Abu
We're sitting in front of microphones right now.
- [81:57]
Leo
I could hit record in logic and have you a file by 2pm Eastern Standard Time. I am so down. I'm so excited. And I think there's a lot of room for that as well. Because again, DLCs, new characters, new recordings, new things, whatever. There's room. Get us in there, coach. We will help build out this world. I'm so serious. That would be so much fun.
- [82:19]
Abu
That would be very cute.
- [82:20]
Leo
What about you? What would you like to see? Future expansions.
- [82:24]
Abu
Two things come to mind. The first shouldn't really surprise anyone. I would love for there to be a deeply story focused dlc. Like maybe a one off adventure that takes me to a new region of the map. You know, maybe it's a narrative that takes place in some sort of like intricate sietch network in the Hidden Desert. Or maybe we go to that highliner up above Arrakis and it's a. It's an adventure that takes place in the High Skyliner or something. I would love to go to a new location and I would love it to be like I would pay 15 bucks, 20 bucks for like a little 15 hour narrative focused adventure that's like less about like more base buildings, things you can do, more resource things you can do. And it's just like here's a tight focused narrative adventure with fun loot and fun missions and fun dungeons along the way that you could group up in and you're gonna get. And the world is gonna expand, you're gonna meet some dope characters and some Dune shit's gonna happen. I would love that.
- [83:30]
Leo
Yeah. Oh my God.
- [83:31]
Abu
That would be a really fun dlc and I would, without a moment's pause, I would pay for it and, and play through that shit. My other thought is less like DLC and more something I'd like to see as like an update to the game. I guess it's more than just a tweak. It's pretty substantial. But I would love to see expanded enemy types as in expanded factions on the planet. Right now it's really just like smugglers and slavers so far that I've experienced. I don't know if the if in the mid and late game different types of enemies show up. But so far I haven't run across like Tleilax who face dancers that I have to fight who have like unique Tleilaxu abilities or face dancer abilities for me to overcome. I haven't run across any like Ixian technocrat bases that I have to like go through that are like very technological. You know, like there are testing the classic like ecological testing Stations that act kind of as mini dungeons in the game. But I would love that look for there to be more themed enemies and dungeons and bases to like overcome and, and run through.
- [84:43]
Leo
Also for you as a mentat player, maybe an Ixian dungeon involves opportunities to like kill people remotely. Like suck all the oxygen out of that room. All of the enemies die in that room. But you have to hack the system using mentat abilities. Like.
- [84:57]
Abu
Yeah, that's.
- [84:58]
Leo
That. That could be a good way to.
- [85:00]
Abu
Something that shakes up what is right now just like go to smuggler camp A, kill the smugglers, go to slavery camp B, kill the slavers. Right now it's just like there's always.
- [85:10]
Leo
Like melee guys, rifle guys, machine gun guys, sniper guys.
- [85:16]
Abu
Yeah. But it's all just like the same guy with a different weapon. And like they're all interchangeable. Interchangeable, right. There's nothing memorable about them. So like that. I think I would love to see an expansion of the enemy types and the expansion of the types of dungeons that you can group up with friends or run through some solo together that get you good, good, interesting, unique loot and on like a fun, a mini boss fight. You know, maybe there's a rogue two excibling out there that runs like a band of smugglers and you get to battle a two week at the end of that and end of that dungeon, that sort of thing. You know, something that's a bit more beyond the nameless enemies that. That I'm currently fighting in the game right now. I would love to see that added.
- [85:59]
Leo
Yeah, that's true. I mean I joked about Laza tigers earlier, but like there are some like fauna, some, some you know, big old animals in Dune. I'm trying to think of like when you play like Fallout, which has similar like exploration vibes, kind of, you know, dusty post apocalyptic. They have the deathclaws and they've got some like big things. Yeah, like getting some variety to the enemies would be. Would be nice.
- [86:24]
Abu
That's true. Yeah.
- [86:29]
Leo
Well, that's Dune Awakening.
- [86:31]
Abu
That's Dune Awakening for now, folks.
- [86:34]
Leo
For now indeed. Yeah, we'll. We'll come back to it, we'll talk about it and again we're going to continue playing. So if you're on our Discord, feel free. Make sure you drop your username in that username thread and then we'll get you added to the guild Again. We'll. We'll be playing when we have time, but we're both adults with adult jobs and we have to keep making this show so you know we're on when we can be. But before we let you go, dear listener, we want to tell you about some ways to help us keep this show going.
- [87:03]
Abu
That's right. And look, the two best ways to ensure that Gom Jabbar continues is to become a patron. Become a monthly supporter on patreon.com Gom Jabbar. You get some nice benefits, plus you get to access that discord where we'll be grouping up and hopping in voice chat and playing this game together with people. You can also, in addition to that, check out our merch store, comjabbarpodcastmail.com all of those links are in the show notes below, so check those out and help support the show.
- [87:31]
Leo
Indeed. And we love to hear from you. So email us gamjabarpodcastmail.com, send us your thoughts, your questions, your cute pets, especially right now. My God, if you're playing Dune Awakening, if you're watching someone play it on Twitch, if you're whatever. If you're engaging in this game at all and you see a lore thing.
- [87:49]
Abu
That you love, email us about it.
- [87:52]
Leo
Let us know what you've spotted. We will for sure cover this game some more in the future on this podcast. And naturally, if we have a sort of like, short list of the things that people have seen that we haven't had a chance to see ourselves, that makes our coverage that much better. Help us cover this game as best we can. Gomjabarpodcastmail.com Email us. We'd love to hear from you.
- [88:15]
Abu
That's right.
- [88:15]
Leo
Also in game, tell everyone about when you're playing Dune Awakening, promote on global chat. Just be like, oh man, isn't everyone at everyone Gamjabar Podcast? Literally, if you're playing this game, you'd like our show.
- [88:33]
Abu
Don't spam the chat and get banned or anything, but when the opportunity comes up, mention it to folks in the.
- [88:39]
Leo
Game, you know, you know, just accidentally wrong channel. Like, hey man, I love the podcast Gabar. Oh, sorry, meant this to be proximity. Oops.
- [88:47]
Abu
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you know what? If, if there's enough Gom Jabbar fans in the game, we'll do a Fortnite. You know, like, we'll do a live. We'll do a live podcast recording in game. We'll build it. We'll build a base that's just like a podcast stage.
- [89:07]
Leo
With a stage.
- [89:07]
Abu
With a stage.
- [89:08]
Leo
I already have the northern base. I can put it, you know. Yeah.
- [89:11]
Abu
So anyway, dreams. Dreams and hopes.
- [89:16]
Leo
Full fortnite yeah, it'll be just in time for the Godzilla teaching me how to Doug eat DLC lightsabers and.
- [89:37]
Abu
Well, friends, there is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the recording. But this podcast is always one step beyond logic. So help spread the word of Muadib and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And be sure to check out the other shows on the Loreparty podcast at work on loreparty.com you can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Lore Underscore Party. And of course, we are also on YouTube. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, whoever controls the podcast controls the universe. We'll see you in the deep desert.
- [90:12]
Leo
Nice. Wow. Custom outro.
- [90:15]
Abu
Custom outro for the kids.
- [90:16]
Leo
You know, it's better than we'll see you in Eastern Vermilion.
- [90:22]
Abu
We'll see you at testing station number one nine seven.