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Arrakeen in Dune Awakening is famous for being the effective Imperium capital of the planet, but in the game it serves as a combat-free hub zone and essential location for meeting many of the game's key factions and trainers. Arrakeen can be accessed fairly early on if you know how, though you probably won't need to visit until the mid and late game. Still, whenever you want to get there, here's how to find Arrakeen and all the methods to get there in Dune Awakening.

How to travel to Arrakeen in Dune Awakening

(Image credit: Funcom) To get to Arrakeen in Dune Awakening, you have two options:

Use the Ornithopter Taxi service. This is accessible from any tradepost for 2,500 Solaris per outwards trip, including from the Dune Awakening Griffin's Reach Tradepost . Inside, talk to the NPC standing next to the hologram of the Ornithopter in the corner, and they'll offer to take you to certain hub zones and key areas. Pick Arrakeen, then pay the fee, and you'll fast travel to Arrakeen accordingly.

Fly your own Ornithopter. Once you've unlocked your own Ornithopter as part of the progression path of Dune Awakening Vehicles , simply fly it to the limit of the Hagga Basin map zone, and you'll be given the option to fly to Arrakeen for free.

Once at Arrakeen, you'll be able to either speak to the Taxi service or interact with your Ornithopter (both on the Eastern-most corner of the hub zone) to return to the main map. If you take the taxi service, returning back to the Hagga Basin does not cost you anything, it's only the journey out that has a price attached.

Arrakeen map

(Image credit: Funcom) Above is the full map of Arrakeen in Dune Awakening. It's not especially large - effectively being one decent-sized building - but it's a compact area with plenty of useful characters, including traders, faction representatives, and many of the Advanced Dune Awakening trainers .

If it's your first time in Arakeen, speak to the House Athar Majordomo on the upper level, and Dr. Shaffat in the South section. These both give you quests that can be fulfilled simply by running around Arrakeen and talking to the marked NPCs without ever having to leave, and both grant you enough Solaris to easily make up for the cost of travelling there.

Back in the deserts, for those thinking about creating a new character, find out if you picked the best class in Dune Awakening ! Or avoid the perils of Shai-Hulud and find out everything you need to know about the Dune Awakening Sandworms !

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On July 17, Xbox-owned Bethesda announced a whole bunch of stuff about the future of Fallout and, more distantly, The Elder Scrolls and Starfield. That same day, studio union OneBGS says devs hit by recent layoffs at Bethesda's Montreal branch were told that their severance pay would be as low as legally possible despite the billions in profit recorded by parent Microsoft and investment in the IP they helped build.

In a post on Bluesky , OneBGS - Bethesda Game Studios Union claims, "Montreal workers are being treated especially poorly by XBOX and we won’t stand for it."

The union says that, when the layoffs were announced on July 6, employees "across the US and Canada were told via video call" that they would "remain employed until September while the company negotiated severance with our union."

The union says the "breathing room" these terms provided evaporated on July 17. Behind the Fallout info explosion, the union says Xbox "told their laid-off Bethesda Montreal employees that they would receive the smallest severance legally possible without bargaining with the union."

This news reportedly came via "termination letters" delivered via email. The union says this left affected employees with "the bare legal minimum in terms of severance: eight weeks of pay in lieu of the minimum legal notice, any outstanding vacation pay, etc."

Additionally, the union says impacted staff "were to also immediately lose their group benefits health insurance."

(Image credit: Bethesda Softworks) In response, the union has filed "yet another legal complaint against Bethesda," alleging it continues to "violate labor laws in Canada."

"Bethesda and XBOX leadership depend on our labour to make them millions, and yet when we do, we are disposed of," the union concludes. "The cycle of workers paying for the mistakes of management ends here."

This news was shared on Bluesky by Bethesda lead character artist Ben Carnow, who adds, "Microsoft did not negotiate with the Union over layoffs in Montreal as they are legally required to do. Folks lost their healthcare with zero notice. Unconscionable."

The union's post also links to feedback listed under Xbox's new "Player Voice" forum. The post collectively calls out the thousands of Xbox staff and developers that Microsoft has laid off in just a few years, demands executive penalties and accountability (like "no executive bonuses when there is a layoff"), asks for an end to layoffs, and requests "transparency for players."

The United Videogame Workers CWA union, an industry-wide organization, previously argued that the Fallout 5 and Elder Scrolls 6 news was meant to distract from the blows dealt to Bethesda employees in the background.

"The timing of this kind of press is intentional," the UVW-CWA said. "How are they going to make these games when Bethesda and Obsidian collectively laid off hundreds? Don’t fall for it."

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A learner driver was allegedly clocked at 104 mph (168 km/h) in a 75 mph (120 km/h) zone.

Five family passengers were legal under a British Columbia licensing exemption.

The excessive speed stop resulted in a seven-day vehicle impound and multiple fines.

We all make mistakes behind the wheel, sometimes more often when we’re just learning. One young driver is now finding out about consequences the hard way, and her family is sharing in the pain. Police in Canada say they clocked her at 104 mph (168 km/h) in a 75 mph (120 km/h) zone, and the stunt ended with her father’s new 2026 Honda Pilot hauled off to an impound lot.

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According to the BC Highway Patrol , the incident happened on July 11 along the Coquihalla Highway (Highway 5) south of Merritt. The driver, a 20-year-old woman from Williams Lake, was operating the SUV with a learner’s licence. Normally, British Columbia learner drivers are limited to carrying a single passenger, but the province makes an exception for immediate family members. Because all five passengers were relatives, police said the vehicle was legally occupied despite carrying six people.

More: She Took A Cayman GT4 Out For Her Birthday, Police Took It From There

Officers didn’t say whether or not any of those family members were parents. That didn’t stop officers from questioning the judgment behind the trip.

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“This is a reminder to everyone that just because something is technically legal, that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea,” said Corporal Michael McLaughlin of BC Highway Patrol. “Learner drivers do not have the demonstrated skills to safely drive a large number of passengers—which is something this driver exemplified when she chose to speed.”

The Price Of A Heavy Foot

2026 Honda Pilot

Police issued the driver a C$368 ($267) excessive speeding ticket for traveling between 41 and 60 km/h over the posted limit. The new 2026 Honda Pilot was also impounded for seven days, with towing and storage costs added to the bill. Authorities say the driver will also face at least three years of high-risk insurance premiums, bringing the estimated total financial impact to nearly C$2,500 ($1,815).

While the penalties fall on the driver, the impound fee typically becomes the responsibility of the vehicle’s registered owner. In this case, that’s the driver’s father, leaving the family to decide who ultimately pays for the week-long loss of their nearly new SUV . It’s probably not the kind of family discussion anyone wanted to have at the side of Highway 5.

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Photo RCMP

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Astronauts have grown a common crystal in space — but this extraterrestrial version is exhibiting a very uncommon behavior. Under a microscope, the crystal looks more like a tiny futuristic sculpture than something that formed naturally. The pyramid-like assembly curls in on itself in stair-stepped layers, seeming almost too orderly to be real. But according to scientists, the striking shape is what happens when gravity stops calling the shots.

The image , shared on July 18 by NASA astronaut Don Pettit , and accompanying video were captured aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and show potassium chloride crystals growing in microgravity — the near-weightless environment experienced in orbit.

Microgravity isn't quite zero gravity; astronauts experience a gravitational pull roughly a million times weaker than on Earth's surface, Anne Wilson , a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Butler University, told Live Science. That reduction in gravity's tug has profound impacts on the human body , and, as the new image shows, completely changes how liquids and crystals behave as well.

"[Other] forces start to become far more pronounced than gravity forces," Wilson said, pointing to molecular attraction and polarity as two influences that suddenly take over once gravity fades into the background.

Those conditions enable potassium chloride — a common salt used as a sodium substitute in foods and sports drinks — to crystallize in ways that are nearly impossible to reproduce in a terrestrial lab.

On Earth, growing crystals eventually get heavy enough to sag, break or settle at the bottom of their container. But in microgravity, they keep growing outward from wherever they started.

Potassium chloride naturally forms cube-shaped crystals, Wilson said. In microgravity, those crystals grow mainly from their edges and corners instead of across their faces, leaving the center hollow and creating the striking pyramid-like structures seen in the image.

In microgravity, crystals experience "hopper growth," where the outer edges and corners grow at faster rates than the flat faces, creating a step-like appearance. This timelapse records their growth inside a thin water film. Look closely, and you will see the patterns emerge! pic.twitter.com/iSlqJvke1G June 6, 2026

Scientists call this pattern hopper growth , and it isn't unique to potassium chloride (ordinary table salt forms the same way). As new corners emerge during growth, the crystal can change direction entirely, producing the elegant scrolling pattern visible in the new image.

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While the crystal is visually stunning, the science behind it could prove just as valuable. Materials grown without gravity's interference often form with fewer defects, giving researchers a rare look at what a truly "ideal" structure looks like. This insight could help refine manufacturing processes for semiconductors and other advanced materials back on Earth.

For Wilson, images like this serve another purpose: inspiring curiosity.

"I love seeing videos of how things behave in space," she said. "Who would think that something as simple as potassium chloride could still be super cool?"

ISS astronauts spend a significant amount of their time conducting science experiments that would be near-impossible on Earth. Recently, astronauts used the space station’s newly upgraded Cold Atom Laboratory to create and study an elusive fifth state of matter called the Bose-Einstein condensate. And last year, researchers demonstrated how moss spores exposed to space for nine months on the outside of the ISS continued to grow after being returned to Earth.