My relationship with Funcom goes all the way back to the year 2000, when I was given alpha access to Anarchy Online. I remember the website, sitting there staring at the CRT monitor of my 486 (at the time), plastered in granite brown and future fonts: ANARCHY ONLINE.
I didn't really understand the concept, though. I have to pay to play? Like, continuously?
Suffice to say, the 486 Gateway PC I was on during this period wasn't powerful enough to run Anarchy Online. So, despite having an alpha key, I didn't end up jumping into the game until about 2003.
That anyone is still playing Anarchy Online today is extremely wild to me, but I keep it on my PC, and I log on every so often to do some dailies, mostly for the nostalgia ... and, to maybe eventually hit the max player level (which has always been way too damn high).
And then Age of Conan came around, and I bought that game, too. And I was part of a really large raiding guild, and had all kinds of fun ... until the playerbase had a mass exodus. The reason for this, I feel, was largely because only the beginning chapters of the game were fully fleshed out, while the rest of the game was missing lore, voice acting, etc.
It was unfinished, pushed out the door too soon.
But so was Anarchy Online, if you're old enough to remember.
Then I was part of The Secret World, and also whatever the relaunch was. This is the one Funcom foray I've always had a hard time getting into, because I'm not really all about the conspiracy theory life, and it's always felt like, "This is Anarchy Online, but modern day, and on Earth, and also it's clunkier, and you have to aim your guns, but the hitboxes are weird, and also we've got lackluster character creation."
This draws the line in the sand where Funcom made a heel turn. A turn I don't really think they should've made, but I also think I understand why they did it.
So, Funcom decided to put out another Conan game, but this time, it was a survival game. A survival game where you can be naked! Uh, hell yeah?
I want to note, that their survival games keep being called MMOs, when they are not. This is not what an MMO is.
But, basically, you make a character for whatever server you're joining. Like, from a server browser. And then you're dropped in, ass cheeks flapping in the sand, and your mission is to, well, pick up rocks, build, and not die.
For me, survival games are something I really have to be in the mood for, because, there's always this point where it's like, "Okay, I have all this stuff, I can feasibly survive, but ... now what?"
And I hit that wall in Conan Exiles ... hard.
Which brings us to Dune Awakening, and why I'm writing this.
A game I was expecting to be a traditional MMO. Since this is Funcom, and they did Anarchy Online. And also, they didn't make it entirely 100% clear that this is what Dune Awakening was going to be. Or, maybe they did, and I saw something different from everything they presented.
But like, I mean, with Dune, you could just take Anarchy Online, modernize the engine, and slap some more sand on it.
That's not what they did though.
They made Conan Exiles, Dune Edition.
I really tried to get into it. And I feel bad, because I have a friend who wants to play alongside me. But, I log into a survival game, with a million servers, and I play for two hours and I just get frustrated. I get frustrated, because foraging for materials so that I can actually play the game is not entirely fun to me.
Searching for a place to build a base, and having to feed resources into it that I have to also grind for, just so that it continues operating, and I can continue manufacturing water, so that I don't die, is just ... I don't like it so much.
I wanna level up my character, do quests, maybe keep track of my water consumption and heat levels, and establish a permanent space in the Dune universe. Which, is sort of antithetical to the point of a survival game.
The setting is cool! The game runs great. Everything looks awesome. And there are quests you can do.
But the fundamentals of the game, it's just ... ugh. Why have you done this, Funcom?
I don't want to drink water every fifteen minutes. I don't want to struggle to build a base that can totally be destroyed, lose all my resources, and have to start all over again, just so that I can get back to where I was, and suddenly realize there's nothing to do.
Sure, you can do all these little side missions available at the trading posts, and hop across the desert hoping not to get eaten by sandworms. But like, that's it? Am I missing something?
Why wasn't this just a normal MMO? Why'd they make this decision, again?
You see, with a survival game like this, you don't have to host a couple of servers capable of holding thousands of people. You can host hundreds of servers capable of holding, like, thirty people. And you can outsource server costs and ownership to your playerbase.
Not something that's really all that simple to do with something more traditionally, an MMO.
I believe this is why they made the genre switch, despite the fact that survival games were popular in 2019, and it's 2025 now.
I want to like Dune Awakening. I want to play Dune Awakening. But me being in the mood for survival foraging and struggling is too once-in-a-blue-moon for me to consistently log on. So, I ask: Can we do this over, like, can we get a do-over? Can we just make this Anarchy Online 2025?
That's what I wanted.
I'd play the shit out of a Dune themed, actual MMO, and I might even stop playing World of Warcraft for it.
Sci-fi as a theme, in-general, is something that's just constantly neglected, because everyone wants elves and orcs. Which, you know, are fine. I like elves. But I also like space, and laser weapons, and harsh technological themes. Like Dune.
And I feel like Funcom had the chance to be like, "Check it out, we're bringing sci-fi back to MMORPGS."
But they didn't.
They made Conan Exiles in space.
And I'm mostly underwhelmed by the whole experience.
Source: https://mkultra.monster/gaming/2025/07/ ... awakening/
