In an “Ask me Anything” round on Reddit, the developers of Dune: Awakening revealed all sorts of details about the new survival MMO. MeinMMO summarizes the most important points for you.
What was this “Ask me Anything” round like? To ensure that all interested parties can start the stress test of Dune: Awakening on Steam from May 9 to 12 with as much knowledge as possible, there was another extensive Q&A session on Reddit with the following Funcom developers:
- Creative Director Joel Bylos
- Executive Producer Scott Junior
- Senior Game Director Viljar Sommerbakk
In the end, over 1,100 comments came together from the countless questions from the community and the many answers from the devs. Below, MeinMMO summarizes the key insights from the “Ask me Anything” round.
The story trailer for Dune Awakening:
Playing together with friends – what do I need to consider?
The most important thing is that you choose a world with your friends and create characters on the various servers of that world. If your friends are on your server, there are no restrictions on playing together. You can experience the story, explore the world, form groups, join the same guild, and so on.
If your friends are on other servers in your world, you use the aforementioned in-game teleportation feature to get to the trading post that is closest to your buddies. Once that happens, you can experience almost all content of Dune: Awakening together as a group or as part of a joint guild.
The only exception: You can only claim land for yourself on your own server. However, if you set the rights for your property accordingly, your guest may at least help you build your base.
Keep in mind:
- While there is no upper limit for creating characters on all servers, a maximum of 40 players can be online on each server at the same time. If more survivors want to log in, they will be placed in a queue. This can sabotage playing together with friends.
- If you visit a friend on another server, you can take your sandbike – if the vehicle is connected to the “Vehicle Backup Tool”. However, since you cannot store vehicles containing items there, you cannot trick the system and bring more items to other servers in this way. Only what is in your inventory comes along.
- You can bring everything that fits in your inventory from your visit to another server. There is no way to increase your inventory over time.
- After the launch, there should be the option for permanent server transfers.
Differences: Stress Test and Final Release Version
During the stress test weekend, you can expect about 20 to 25 hours of gameplay, during which you can experience the first act of the story and explore three regions of the game. There will be a travel feature to guide you, which players from Conan Exiles will likely already know, through which you will gradually learn new recipes and tools.
Those who follow this journey will build an initial base, weapons, armor, and a sandbike. You can expect research stations, camps, sandworm attacks, and patrolling ships in the sky. You will fight against thirst and heat, unlocking more and more means to simplify your survival struggle.
What will be added at launch? The version of Dune: Awakening that will be released on June 10, 2025, will offer the complete story, a total of 12 regions, the social hubs Arrakeen and Harko Village, the overland map, the construction of ornithopters and buggies, and much more.
In the course of the AMA round, the developers also spoke about other details that will differ. One detail concerns how you can visit friends on other servers in your world:
- During the stress test: You can visit characters from your world that are on other servers through an in-game teleportation feature.
- At launch or shortly after launch: In addition to the in-game teleportation feature, there should be the option to visit other servers directly from the server selection.
- Medium-term addition sometime after launch: It should be possible to switch directly to regions of other servers within the game world.
You can find basic information about the setup of servers and worlds here: Atreides versus Harkonnen – how Landsraad, factions, and guilds work in Dune: Awakening.
About Cosmetics, Full-PvP-Loot, and Spice
Many other topics around Dune: Awakening were discussed. Here are the most exciting insights:
- At the beginning of your adventure, you strap a Fremen kit on your back, which is later replaced by a cloak. This has technical reasons… the developers had to choose one of the two options, both cannot be displayed together.
- There will be a transmog system, where the type of equipment determines which templates you can use. So, you can only apply a heavy armor skin over heavy armor. There are rare exceptions. Helmets can be hidden, cloaks cannot.
- The taxes for large bases are supposed to be set high/low enough that even active solo players can afford the fee. The taxes must always be paid in one of the two main cities.
- About 10 percent of the deep desert is not PvP territory.
- If the decree for full-PvP-loot is not active for the deep desert, you can destroy the containers of defeated players to obtain loot.
- It will not be possible to unlock all skills with a single character. However, specific skills from other classes can be learned through quest lines.
- The spice will play an important role in your special skills, high-tier crafting, and the weekly tasks from the Landsraad.
- The plan is for tens of thousands of players to have the opportunity to storm the servers of Dune: Awakening on the weekend.
- Before the final launch of Dune: Awakening, there will be a pre-download phase.
Dune: Awakening will be released on June 10, 2025, with a Buy2Play model. There will be no prior early-access phase; instead, you buy the finished full version. The survival MMO will be without a subscription and aims to offer new updates and content for free. What else is important can be found here: Everything about the release, prices, features, and editions of Dune: Awakening
