As I leave my little granite box of power generators, fabricators, refineries, and a bookcase – my humble, frequently extended base-for-one in Dune: Awakening – I reflect on the ritual I perform. Check that my equipment has enough durability left, fill a literjon with water, pack a stilltent. I clamber up a sheer rock face, staying within the moving shadow of the cliff to avoid heat stroke and sipping on the water collected in the catchpockets of my stillsuit, a piece of desert bondage that traps and recycles my moisture.
It may not be as strict as the Fremen water discipline described in Frank Herbert’s novels, but Awakening’s punishing conditions lead me to internalise its systems – not simply to roleplay like a Fremen, but to inherit their traditions in order to get the most from my time in the desert. This is the game’s greatest strength. Dune II remains my favourite Dune adaptation, but Awakening is, by far and away, the most faithful. Yes, there are concessions to gameplay – the Imperium didn’t have a special device to tuck vehicles away in a pocket, for instance – but it is a remarkably lore-first approach.
But just how faithful is it, I wonder? Dune is a notoriously difficult series to adapt, not least because there is no consensus regarding what the Dune canon consists of. Some fans swear by the original book only; others acknowledge the first three; some (including me) worship at the altar of the God Emperor; a certain kind of masochistic heretic even manages to glean enjoyment from Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert’s monstrously expanded universe.
It is difficult, too, because of the series’ knotty plotlines and strange world-building. This is a universe where human minds can be trained to perform complex calculations at the speed of an advanced machine, where foetuses can awaken in the womb and speak to their mothers, and where tank-swimming drug addicts use precognition to navigate space instantaneously.