Even the beginner zone in Dune: Awakening isn't safe from sandworm-manipulating griefers anymore
Players new to Dune: Awakening should watch their backs in the Hagga Basin starting area—or risk getting swallowed by a sandworm thanks to griefers.
After the Dune: Awakening devs significantly increased the PVE area in the Deep Desert region last month, rowdy players looking for more unsuspecting targets have relocated to the PVE, beginner-friendly Hagga Basin region, where they've begun abusing game mechanics to kill other players, getting around its PVP prohibition.
A player on the Dune: Awakening subreddit posted about the issue last week, saying, "All the griefers are now coming into Hagga to farm spice. They're doing the same thumper and land on thopter technique they perfected in [Deep Desert]. But now they're using it to farm all the minor nodes in Hagga. This game has some massive issues ahead. Griefers are in an all-out war against everyone else on their server, and yet there's zero way for solos to band together to stop it."
"And as a Dune fan, I don't think planting a thumper and then having four thopters land on you is part of the mythology."
Griefing is now in Hagga from r/duneawakening
If you haven't encountered the tactic this player is referring to, it involves a player landing their ornithopter (or "thopter") on top of another player's and planting a device called a thumper, which is used to summon (or distract) the desert's giant sandworms. The sandworm then swallows up the victim along with their vehicle and inventory. Since it doesn't require directly attacking another player, but rather has a sandworm do the dirty work for you, this trick works even in PVE zones.
These 'thopter-thumper raiders seem to especially like targeting solo players, so if you're new to Dune: Awakening, it might be a good idea to get some friends to play with you or consider joining a guild to get more safety in numbers, especially while mining spice. The official Dune: Awakening Discord server may be a good place to start if you're looking for a group to join.
Unfortunately, even playing Dune: Awakening in a group might not save you from griefers and toxicity in general. While the game has been popular, already pulling in over 1 million players, the community has struggled with persistent toxicity in in-game chat and PVP rule-bending throughout the map. One popular tactic already had to be patched out of the game (which is why you can no longer kill other players by landing a vehicle on them).
Other players responded to the Reddit thread concerning griefing in the Hagga Basin to share more horror stories. For instance, one user reported that, "We had a guy on the server flying up to people on Juneteenth and calling them the N word in voicechat. Multiple people reported him doing it, and funcom's official response was 'just block them'."
They weren't the only person frustrated with Funcom's response (or lack thereof) to issues with toxic players, with another commenter saying, "From every official Funcom response people have shared here and the one I received myself... it's pretty clear their policy is "deal with it yourself." Which, honestly is exactly how they (mis)handled their previous games. I had just hoped they had learned something from the past. But... nope."
2025 games: This year's upcoming releases
Best PC games: Our all-time favorites
Free PC games: Freebie fest
Best FPS games: Finest gunplay
Best RPGs: Grand adventures
Best co-op games: Better together