Survival MMO Dune: Awakening announces early 2025 release

A desert planet with people on vehicles
(Image credit: Funcom)

I've been eager to play survival MMO Dune: Awakening since I first saw it back in March. It all looks pretty great so far: the crafting, building, exploring, even the mundane stuff like water gathering and rock breaking looks fun

It's even converted a few of us who aren't normally into this kind of thing. Wes doesn't like survival and Josh doesn't like MMOs, but even they're keen to play it. And now we know roughly when we'll get the chance—on PC, at least. 

"Funcom are thrilled to announce that Dune: Awakening, the Open World Survival MMO, will release in early 2025, with the console release planned for a later date," Funcom said today at Gamescom. That's probably not as specific as we'd like, but it's something. The announcement came along with five minutes of new gameplay footage, which you can see below.

Dune: Awakening – Exclusive Gameplay Reveal - YouTube Dune: Awakening – Exclusive Gameplay Reveal - YouTube
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The gameplay trailer shows how a rando dumped on Arrakis can become a spice tycoon, building a base, crafting gear and vehicles, and battling other players over spice blows deep in the desert. 

One thing we haven't seen much of yet are knives and swords, something that the Dune fiction is kinda known for. The little we have seen looks mostly like people just whacking each other over the head, rather than the elaborate martial arts we're accustomed to. An MMO probably isn't the environment for a complicated melee system, but I am expecting a little something extra considering the source material.

We'll see more from Dune: Awakening soon: more footage is set to be revealed during Gamescom this week, plus a new Dune: Awakening Direct will take place on August 29.

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

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