DuneCrawl Review — Crab Combat

I love mechs and mech stories. I appreciate the mech genre in whatever flavor it comes in, whether it is the incredibly fast, humanoid robots of Gundam fame, the more realistic war machines of MechWarrior, or the dieselpunk titans and rolling fortress cities of Scythe and Mortal Engines. I am also a huge fan of fantasy, and when you take the mech genre and give it a fantastical flair, you are bound to end up with something like DuneCrawl.

DuneCrawl is a short, co-op open-world game where you pilot a giant, walking crab turned war rig against an invading army of clay worshipping fiends, engaging in epic crab versus crab violence with the assistance of cannons and swords as you take down fortresses across the map until the land is completely freed of the kiln menace.

Right off the bat, I love the stylized world that DuneCrawl creates. Beyond the obviously cool inclusion of towering, Wild West-style walkers, the desert setting of DuneCrawl really caught my interest. I am a huge fan of desert environments and am often disappointed to see that very few do much to capture the rich tapestry of aesthetics you can pull from these settings. DuneCrawl is not one of those disappointments and instead creates a vibrant desert environment focused on the beautiful, colorful aesthetics of African and Middle Eastern fantasy rather than simply providing a hot, dry, empty looking expanse.

Sandstone fortresses, colorful pottery and tile work, thriving desert fauna, and the ever-beloved curved sword all come together to create a desert world that feels alive and thriving rather than the typical, unimaginative wasteland.

Combine this with DuneCrawl’s use of giant crabs and rideable beetles, and you have the imaginative injection of “crawl” alongside the game’s incredible dunes to create a truly refreshing fantasy world to play in.

Mechanically speaking, DuneCrawl is built around a large open world map that splits itself between two types of gameplay. The first involves your crawler, a giant customizable crab rig armed with cannons and other upgrades, which you use to both travel and fight other crawlers and evil kiln fortifications. This side of the game plays almost like a top-down Sea of Thieves, where players control the crab, man and reload cannons, heal damaged parts of the mech, and even fight off boarding parties in a truly epic take on crab combat.

It is in this area of the game where it is most abundantly clear that DuneCrawl is best played with friends. There are simply too many aspects of your crawl that demand manual input and attention in order to win a fight, especially against other crawlers that will use their mobility and unique setups against you. While there is an AI assistant to help with this process, it pales in comparison to having an actual person there to help manage the various duties needed to successfully operate your crab.

When not duking it out crab style, the game has you delving into small, dungeon-like areas on foot with your arsenal of collected weapons. These areas play somewhat like a bullet hell beat ’em up, and while not incredibly difficult even on harder settings, I still struggled in these sections while playing solo and would have greatly appreciated the help of a co-op partner. I often found myself overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies on screen, due in no small part to the bullet hell nature of the game’s combat. There are frequently a lot of fast-moving projectiles to dodge, each one hitting fairly hard, and your stamina bar is not especially high, meaning you have to be very deliberate with your dodge rolls.

I feel as though the combat in DuneCrawl suffers from a lack of meaningful progression. While you can unlock some abilities, most of the game’s progression comes in the form of upgrading your crawler and finding new weapons. While enjoyable, the former is largely irrelevant in the on foot sections, and the collected weapons are limited-use, pros and cons style gadgets that change your playstyle more than they give you a direct advantage in combat. There is never really a point where the player feels noticeably stronger than the enemies. Your arsenal simply expands.

While I personally found this to put a damper on the combat, for many players, this will likely be more than enough in terms of progression, especially considering that the game is not particularly long. I also played the game solo, and I cannot stress enough that it truly feels designed to be played with a friend in co-op.

Perhaps the addition of roles, each one with a small skill tree that increased a player’s health, stamina, or affinity with certain weapons, could be an interesting way to add some progression to the game while also playing into the idea of being a multi-function crew on your crawler. However, some may argue that with the scope of the game, this would not really be necessary, but it is a thought nonetheless.

Overall, DuneCrawl is a fun, albeit somewhat short, experience that is best enjoyed with friends. Its premise and unique fantasy world are incredible, and it is easy to become immersed without the need for extensive storytelling or exposition. Piloting, fighting, and upgrading your crawler is a great time, and while I personally found the on-foot, bullet hell combat to be weaker than the crawler mechanics, I can still easily see an audience enjoying this side of the game as well. DuneCrawl is a solid title that does not fail in any major regard and provides an overall enjoyable experience, even if it feels somewhat lacking in progression and is harder to fully appreciate in single player.

Try Hard Guides reviewed DuneCrawl on the PC. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! DuneCrawl is available on Steam.