Dune: Awakening’s desert is abundant with natural resources such as crystals, metals, ore, stone, and even corpses, all of which are vital for crafting essential survival tools and equipment. Among these, Iron stands out as a crucial material. It’s a primary resource located in two significant zones outside the starting area, and you’ll need a substantial amount for constructing bases, crafting clothing, and building weapons and vehicles. It’s advisable to assign one member of your team to gather raw resources, compensating them modestly with both a small payment and some words of encouragement to keep them motivated.

While you can search Hagga Basin extensively, you won’t locate any Iron Ore Nodes there. For that, you must venture to either Eastern Vermilius Gap or Western Vermilius Gap, both situated directly to the north, across a vast desert expanse from Hagga Basin South. I discovered this through trial and error, but a sandbike is essential for traversing the sand in this region. Even moving cautiously on foot will alert the sandworms, which will devour you completely before you can reach the opposite side. If a sandworm consumes you, all your gear and items in your inventory will be lost. Avoid this fate at all costs!

Upon reaching either of the Vermilius Gap areas, bring out your Cutteray Mk1, an essential tool for harvesting Iron. This tool requires 6x Copper Ingots and 4x EMF Generators, which you can find in moisture caves.

Once there, seek out the Southeast Ironworks or Southwest Ironworks. The Iron Ore Nodes resemble the Copper Ore Nodes but have metallic veins instead of the blue spots found on Copper.

Essential items to craft with Iron

Before you can start crafting genuine tools, equipment, and vehicles, you’ll need to convert your Iron Ore into Iron Ingots, which requires gathering ample ore for a refinery. As you progress further into the game, unlocking additional workbenches through the research tree, you’ll gain access to three types of refineries: Small Ore Refinery, Medium Ore Refinery, and Large Ore Refinery. A Large Refinery is the most efficient, using 25mL Water and 3x Iron Ore to produce a single Iron Ingot.

Once you have Iron Ingots, you can craft the following:

Kirab Stillsuit (Body, Boots, Gloves, Mask)

Blood Extractor Mk2

Dew Reaper Mk2

Medium Blood Sack

Kirab Heavy Armor (Jerkin, Pants, Headwrap, Gauntlet, Boots)

Kirab Scout Armor (Jacket, Pants, Helmet, Boots, Gloves)

Holtzman Shield Mk2

Standard Weaponry (Disruptor M11, GRDA 44, Karpov 38, Kindjal, Maula Pistol, Sword)

Repair Station

Cutteray Mk2

Power Pack Mk2

Static Compactor

Handheld Resource Scanner

Leap Suspensor Belt

Sandbike Mk 2 Components (Hull, Chassis, PSU, Engine, Tread, Booster, Inventory, Scanner)

Uniques (Mendia’s Boots, Meol’s Stillsuit Mask, Oathbreaker Chestpiece)

Dune: Awakening is now available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows PCs.