The new survival MMO Dune: Awakening will be released on May 20, 2025. In advance, Creative Director Joel Bylos explains what you need to know for the release – and what else is to come afterwards. His enthusiasm is clearly noticeable.
What kind of game is this?
- Dune: Awakening takes place on the desert planet Arrakis, known from books and films, but in an alternative timeline: Paul Atreides was never born, the Fremen have disappeared.
- You play as a prisoner who must survive on Arrakis. To do this, you build bases, explore the world, and form guilds with other players to determine the politics of the planet and harvest the coveted spice.
- The game mixes MMORPG elements such as guilds, dungeons, and skills with survival features like crafting, building, and surviving. Water is particularly important, to the extent that players even sip on sweet desert mice.
Bylos explains Awakening: In a new video, Creative Director Joel Bylos explains what you need to know for the release of Dune: Awakening. The game will be released directly as a complete version on May 20, without Early Access.
Additionally, you only have to pay once. Dune: Awakening will not have a subscription, and all DLCs will be optional. The creators, Funcom, have already used a similar system with Conan Exiles. DLCs here brought purely cosmetic changes to components.
What exactly will be included in the DLCs has not yet been revealed. Free updates for all will bring new content to the game and advance the story. With each update, a DLC will be released, and you can buy them bundled in a Season Pass.
Pre-orders for Dune: Awakening will start on March 24. Certain versions will receive an early start of 5 days, starting from May 15. However, new “Fresh Start” servers will be opened at the actual release to avoid unfair advantages. You can find the system requirements on the official website.
Dune: Awakening will first be released for PC on Steam and later on consoles. In our overview, you can find everything about the launch of Dune: Awakening.
Joel Bylos loves his game, and you can tell
In the two-minute announcement regarding the post-launch features, you can see Joel Bylos grinning and smiling with satisfaction repeatedly. This is not the first time his eyes light up when he talks about Dune: Awakening.
I have sat across from Bylos several times and discussed the survival MMO with him, and each time I noticed that he not only enjoys the conversations but is absolutely immersed in them.
In our first interview about Dune: Awakening at gamescom 2024, we geeked out like absolute basement nerds about the world of Dune, discussed the influence of Conan Exiles on the game, and how Awakening can learn from the survival game.
When Funcom invited me in 2025 to play Dune: Awakening in Oslo, Bylos seemed even more confident in what he was saying about the game. The most important sentence that was said there applies to the developers themselves: “Don’t adapt Dune to your ideas, but adapt your ideas to Dune.” One of his colleagues says about Bylos that the man is deeper into the lore than almost anyone else he knows.
I have already played Dune: Awakening and am sure it will be a game that excites its fans. At the same time, I am aware that the fan base will not be huge. The survival MMORPG appeals to a relatively small group of gamers due to its mix, but they will receive exactly what they want.
Conan Exiles already managed this well. Instead of trying to appeal to as many players as possible, Funcom focuses on the people who really love their games. And so far, this has proven successful. Even Dune: Awakening already has many fans before release: The new survival MMO Dune: Awakening already has thousands of players on Steam, even though it hasn’t been released yet
