Dune Awakening developer Funcom has outlined some major changes coming to the game soon. First and foremost, there's the fact that the game is essentially pivoting to be PvE-first. Funcom said that over 80% of the game's players engaged only with Player-versus-Environment content, forcing the studio to rethink the existing convergence of PvE and PvP towards optional PvP.
Starting in Patch 1.3.20.0, the following changes will be introduced to Dune Awakening:
- All PvP zones in Hagga Basin will be disabled across all official Worlds.
- All official Worlds will have separate Deep Desert instances you can choose from:
- A PvE instance for pure survival and exploration experience with no player combat. There is no PvP in this instance across any of the rows, including Shipwrecks.
- A PvP instance with the classic high-stakes environment and open-world conflict across rows B through I. To make sure the rewards match the risk, the yield from mining and spice harvesting will be multiplied by 2.5 in PvP areas.
Another big news is that the long-requested self-hosted servers are finally on the way. The initial iteration, which will soon be available for testing, will require a few extra setup steps and feature a limited range of customization settings (though more will be added later). These settings will include resource harvesting rates, adjustable limits on base-building pieces and item durability, and base decay options.
Full instructions for setting up and customizing self-hosted servers will be included in the patch notes when the feature becomes available. However, Funcom notes that setting up this first version of the feature is more technical than setting up most other games and requires a computer running Microsoft Windows Pro with Hyper-V to run the servers in a Linux virtual machine (VM).
Lastly, the studio confirmed that Dune Awakening is still coming to consoles, albeit later than planned. Funcom originally thought it could launch the game this June, one year after the PC debut, but the console versions are now expected to release in late 2026.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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