As an open-world game set in the Dune universe, Dune: Awakening looks like the next best thing to living inside of Frank Herbert’s novels. Because Awakening exists in an alternate timeline in which Paul Atreides does not exist, there’s a general Dune-ish status quo that pervades the entire presentation of Awakening. One can align themselves with different Great Houses of the Landsraad, join the Fremen, or perhaps, become a smuggler — kinda like Gurney Halleck did in his spare time.
All in all, Dune: Awakening is shaping up to be an amazing open-world experience. However, fans will have to wait a little bit longer than expected to dive into the sands of Arrakis and ride those worms for themselves. Developer Funcom has just announced that “Dune: Awakening will come to PC Early 2025,” and that “console dates will be announced at a later date.”
So when will you be able to actually play Dune: Awakening and what will it be like?
Dune: Awakening release date: March 2025?
Because Funcom says the game is arriving on PC in “early 2025,” assuming the game will fully be released by March 2025 seems like a safe-ish bet. However, because the release date window for consoles hasn’t been confirmed at all, it feels very possible that it could come much later. Still based on very recent gameplay reveals, Dune: Awakening must be very close to being ready. But when can we actually expect it to drop?
Dune: Awakening hints at a true open world — with a catch
Because Awakening is primarily a massively multiplayer online game, the biggest appeal will seemingly be the idea that you can explore the various different aspects of the larger Dune world. Unlike the first few novels and films, this means you can join other houses outside of just House Atreides.
That said, the open world of Dune: Awakening doesn’t appear to be so massive that you can also just set up shop on a different planet and just chill out there. While it seems like you can probably ally yourself with House Corrino or House Harkonnen, it doesn’t seem that the actual gameplay will extend beyond the planet Arrakis itself. As the latest official description for the game reads: “This is your Dune. The most dangerous planet in the universe. A Dune where Paul Atreides was never born and a War of Assassins rages between Atreides and Harkonnen.”
Clearly, this means that unlike the recent tabletop game Dune: Imperium — which includes factions and worlds as distant and specific as the Bene Tleilax — Dune: Awakening — the ability to align yourself with different Great Houses in Dune: Awakening will only be limited to what you can do on Arrakis. This clearly isn’t a bug of the game, but rather a feature, in which one version of Arrakis will be explored fully in a way that hasn’t really been achieved since the engrossing 1992 point-and-click game Dune, which, mostly used the aesthetics of the 1984 David Lynch movie for its world-building. That said, if you’re looking for more of a strategy game and less of a survival game, the 2022 game Dune: Spice Wars is very much out there, and still playable.
Ultimately, Dune: Awakening seems to be providing longtime Dune fans with an impossible dream: exist in a totally believable and utterly realistic version of Arrakis. Even if the game is coming later than fans would prefer, this still seems to be the next best thing to actually moving to Arrakis and accidentally becoming an extremist cult leader.
