Dune: Awakening's previously announced large-scale beta weekend is now live for players to jump in and try Dune: Awakening themselves, as Funcom continues to test its servers leading up to its new June 10, 2025, launch date.
Originally, Dune: Awakening was set to arrive in a little more than a week from the time of writing, on May 20. At the ides of April, Funcom announced that it had pushed the release date back three weeks, saying that the team needed "a bit more time to cook" in order to implement some changes and fixes it wanted to make based on feedback the team had received from players already in the closed beta.
Funcom has been beta testing Dune: Awakening for months now, with those lucky enough to get a beta invite being part of Funcom increasingly pushing the limit of its servers. But even with all the testing in the world, fans of the genre know that the biggest MMO's can still suffer from gameplay issues due to overcrowded servers.
Earlier this week, ahead of the beta test kicking off, Funcom directly addressed those concerns, telling players that "this is not our first rodeo," and that the team has expects, and has been preparing, for the "heavy loads" of players that'll hit its servers at launch.
The beta weekend will run from today, May 9, to Monday, May 12, and if you've yet to receive a beta invite from Funcom, you can still register for this weekend's beta on the game's Steam page. Funcom adds that if you wishlist the game and sign up to receive emails from the team about Dune: Awakening, that can increase your chances of getting a code. There will also be a Twitch broadcast hosted on May 10, 2025, from Funcom's official channel, where you'll have a chance to grab one of the "tens of thousands" of codes that will be made available to those who tune in.
You'll be able to play up to the first 25 hours of Dune: Awakening in this weekend's beta, if you decide to do nothing else but play it the whole weekend, which Funcom says is most of Act 1. A key difference for this beta is that there's no NDA required to join. After playing as much as you like this weekend, you'll be able to talk about what you played and what you think. You'll also be able to stream the game, if you like, while playing.
If you want to find out a little more about what you'll play in this weekend's beta, Wccftech's Alessio Palumbo already spent a chunk of time with Dune: Awakening playing the same content in this weekend's beta. Check out his thoughts on it in the preview.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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