'Don't leave trash on Arrakis'—Dune: Awakening creative director implores players to 'clean up your old bases'

Funcom's Dune: Awakening launches June 5, and in the runup to release has allowed some players to begin exploring Arrakis in beta. PCG's Chris Livingstone spent 25 hours there, and left impressed with what it offers as a survival game, but a little iffy on the MMO side of things.

One problem that jumped out to our man was the "ugly, boxy player-made bases" that covered the map when he was getting started. These were so notable that Chris ran most of the way across the map to find an uncluttered spot to build his own base: next time he logged in, "my little base was flanked by two huge ones other players had built maybe 20 feet from my front door."

That doesn't sound great, and over the beta's two weeks the problem got worse, with more and more bases appearing (as well as unfinished ones) and most just being "a boring box." As well as blotting the landscape, there's also the problem of how the game feels: part of the Dune fantasy, after all, is the nomadic feel of traversing these vast landscapes.

This very topic came up in a new livestream focusing on the building and crafting side of the game, and was addressed by Dune: Awakening's chief creative director Joel Bylos (timestamp).

"It's encouraged to get rid of old bases, because this is one of the problems that comes with the persistence of the game," says Bylos. "In a traditional MMO like World of Warcraft, it's not like you build a base in the starter zone and leave it there for a week, because imagine how many bases would be stacking up. [But] that's kind of how our game does work because you can end up with a lot of bases."

Moving onto the solution, it's the old "tidy up after yourself" mantra which, speaking as a parent, I can confidently say always works with 100% success.

"So the opening tutorial encourages you to get rid of your old base, your first base," says Bylos. "And then you move further and further out into the world and we're asking you to create bigger bases. So I will say just, y'know, do your fellow starters a favour when the game launches: clean up your old bases people. Don't leave trash on Arrakis!"

Hmm. You get the sense that this may turn out to be a part of the Dune: Awakening experience for everyone, especially in those first few weeks when a lot of players will be trying it out: I certainly know that, if I'm not enjoying a particular game, I just shut it down rather than tidying up my mess and then shutting it down.

As PCG's Chris Livingstone put it: "I know I'm being picky, but if I got tired of seeing these ugly bases (including my own) in just a few hours of a press beta, how bad is it going to be after launch when the servers fill up with regular players?"

It would be nice if people cleaned up their old bases but, without some positive incentive to do so, I'm not sure many will: soon enough, we'll see it in action. And I'm still stoked to try out Dune: Awakening anyway, because I just think getting eaten by a sandworm will be worth it.