Dune is a hallmark of classic science fiction. It's a powerful tale of environmentalism, religion, warring nobles and, of course, sandworms. While there have been Dune games in the past, no modern developer has attempted to adapt Frank Herbert's beloved sci-fi series into playable form.
Leave it to the ever-ambitious Star Citizen then to provide all the sandworm action Dune fans could possibly want. As revealed at CitizenCon 2016 during a new demo for the space sim, it appears that massive sandworms will be making their way into the game in spectacular fashion.
In the demo, the player character flies to a nearby planet to investigate a distress beacon. He's unable to land near the beacon because of unsafe landing conditions, so instead lands several miles away from the beacon and drives a rover over the planet's sand dune coverd surface. The player is ambushed by "sand nomads" along the way and a gunfight ensues.
Eventually the beacon is found, which then leads the player to another beacon and finally a massive crashed ship. The player is then tasked with finding the vessel's black box. Upon doing so, a group of sand nomads on speeder bikes are seen zooming across the desert, only to be interrupted by a gigantic sandworm that looks like it came straight out of Herbert's novel.
Unwisely, the player fires upon the worm with his rifle, attracting its attention. The person playing the demo quickly brings up the game's console command screen and stops the action just as it's getting exciting, but it's still a sight to behold regardless. Check it out below in all its glory.
The Dune-esque demo shows how Star Citizen will generate new quests and missions for players as they explore the game's universe. While there will be constructed, narrative-type missions for players to complete, players will also encounter generic, generated quests that may involve investigating a distress beacon or answering a call for supplies, like in the demo above.
To call it all impressive would be an understatement. In fact, all of Star Citizen sounds and looks impressive, though it remains to be seen if the finished product will live up to the lofty expectations placed upon it by both fans and the developers themselves.
The game raised more than $15 million in crowdfunding and will feature a number of different stand-alone components, including a single-player campaign called "Squadron 42," a first-person shooter simulation mode called "Star Marine" and the persistent, massively multiplayer online universe referred to as "Star Citizen."
The game currently has no release date, though is playable in an early form for those who choose to prepurchase. You can watch the entire CitizenCon 2016 presentation here.
