The Overland had been a place I rarely went into. For the longest time, I did not even know it was a thing. Most of my time had only been spent in Hagga Basin. That was, however, about to change.

Before I'd be entraining the Overland, I had some main storyline missions to advance along. One of them involved dealing with different deadly sins. Some of them were easy to deal with, while others were a bit more annoying.

The place with the glutton itself was quite disgusting. Corpses everywhere, and I was not the cause of them either. I can only guess this person was some kind of zombie that fed on corpses.

For whatever reason, there seems to be a bit of a flair for using poison. I’d rather have sliced off parts of the offender and forced him to eat himself slowly over time. I guess poisoning his food works as well. I doubt he learned much of anything before a quick death.

I also had to deal with an individual who was extremely paranoid. This required getting a bunch of keys to take down far too many pentashields. While you would think this was way overkill.

I guess in the end, they had every reason to be paranoid. After all, I was sent in as an assassin to take the person out. Perhaps they should have had other security measures in place. As there were not enough to keep me out.

It was then time to go to the Overland after having a spice trip out of this world. There was a donkey I had to follow. Sands and areas kept shifting. The whole thing was quite strange.

The Overland itself is a great thing to use as a shortcut to get around Hagga Basin. You can pop out one side and quickly fly to a different sector for Hagga Basion. That is, however, not the only place you can end up using it to go to.

You can use it to fly to the two factions' main cities. This is, however, a feature I rarely use. Unless I'm on some mission that sends me into the Overland, and then I just end up flying back to that city for the mission turn-in.

The Overland also has fuel and water deposits. At first, I thought they were a requirement to use to just survive getting around. After using the Overland a few times, I realized they were not needed at all. Unless I'm in quite an emergency of being almost out of fuel or water. I just skip right around them now unless they are in a direct line to where I'm going on the map.

My main purpose over the long run was to use the Overland map to get into the deep desert. This would end up being a place where I'd spend hundreds of hours farming, afking, and trying not to die.

On my first couple of trips into the deep desert, I was quite shy of the place. It looks mostly empty as it is. I also am not into PvP that can be found in the deep desert. As such, my first couple of trips here were rather short.

I mostly did just a couple of scouting trips into the deep desert at first. That was it. I did not kill any NPCs. I did not find anything to farm. I was mostly just hoping to not get ganked by people who enjoy the PvP this place has.

I did end up having some storyline missions that sent me into the Overland to go to new locations that would become unlocked. One of them was the wreck of the Hephaestus. Where I'd find myself somewhat trapped, having to work with quite a devil of a person.

That person was in search of a high-ranking individual who had a transponder for help to go off when the Hephaestus. I had alternative motives for such a task, but it just seemed best to go along with his insanity.

I found myself having quite the time getting through the wreck. I needed to cut through the doorways. Get past the shields that were blocking doorways. Moving objects with a crane. I even had to ask for help from the person I was in a short-term alliance with.

This ship was also filled with some nasty creatures. They were not easy to take out. At one point, I was even trapped in a room with a bunch of them. I barely survived, if you could call it that. Things would go from being so quiet you could hear your own heart beating to chaos that seemed to erupt out of nowhere.

Some places had radiation. Even more so after a bit of exposition occurs. The deeper I went into the wreck. The less sure I was going to make it out alive.

Somehow, I managed to make it to the main computer and turn on the power to the ship. That is also when things went so sideways that I had to make a ship for my ornithopter. Almost not making it before the whole wreck exploded.

A little time passed before I stepped into the Overland map again. This time, I'd rather regret the mission I had taken on. I had to poison the personal water supply of a person living in a mansion in the Imperial Basin.

The big catch was I had to be sneaky about it. If anyone knows me, I'm a set off every single alarm within 10k miles of any objective. Going in silent has never been my kind of play style.

The place was filled with moving lights from watch towers. Along with guards on the ground as well. I found myself having to crawl along ridges and jump down into shadows being cast by objects to avoid detection.

Needless to say, this took me ages and a few attempts. I swear I went around the entire compound at least twice before working out a path I could take to sneak in undetected. I was less than thrilled about the situation.

I even managed to poison the water supply as well. I then got caught. It turns out I was somewhat expected. What was unknown was the exact mission I was given to carry out. Thankfully for me, he did not know I had already poisoned his water. Thirst got him in the end, right in front of my own eyes. Almost as quickly as my dagger could have done the job.

After that, I no longer needed to worry about keeping my cover and being quiet. I might have gone on quite the killing spree. After all, my dagger required blood, and I had been held from performing my desired way of assassinating long enough.

Final Thoughts

With how open and empty the Overland map is. I can only guess this will receive quite a few updates and be the gateway into further content in the future. For the most part, for now, it’s just this space I have to fly through when I'm going to the deep desert and back again.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Dune: Awakening.