What separates the fit from the extinct?

If you’rePalworld, the answer is gleefullyborrowingandtravestyingmonster concepts from a celebrated Nintendo series.

If you’reEnshrouded, it’s all about havinga really neat building system.

A Sandworm bursting through the desert in Dune: Awakening

And if you’reDune: Awakening, the next game fromConan Exilesdeveloper Funcom, the trick may lie with sandworms.

Let’s surgically/crudely divide this write-up into the stuff that feels more routine and the stuff that excites me.

(Unlike in Conan Exiles, you don’t get to customise your character’s genitals.

A character creation menu from Dune: Awakening, showing the player choosing a Harkkonen background

This is serious grown-up sci-fi, you know.)

Expose yourself for too long and you’ll incur a heatstroke debuff.

Funny stuff, potentially.

A character creation screen for Dune: Awakening, showing different hairstyles

It’ll cost you more than a portion of your resources.

it’s possible for you to place a Thumper to distract them, for example.

Spice is the most important resource in Dune Awakening, as you’d expect.

A player placing building templates in Dune: Awakening

you might gather spice on foot, but you won’t get filthy rich that way.

A player driving a sandbike through the desert in Dune: Awakening

A massive “spice blowout” on the horizon in Dune: Awakening, with the player flying an ornithopter in the nearground