Dune: Awakening dev says "when we do bring stuff like sandworm riding into the game, it'll feel like an epic moment like in the movies," but you can't "trivialize the sandworm" because that breaks Dune

The sandworm in Dune: Awakening — (Image credit: Funcom)

Developing a live-service game is tricky, especially when it's based on an already established universe. Funcom has the unenviable task of finding the balance between what we as players want and what the devs as artists envision for us in Dune: Awakening, but the team seems confident.

"You need to strike the balance of what's fun gameplay and what's correct in terms of the lore and the canon of the universe, and then at the same time, hit what players' expectations are," production director Ole Andreas Hayley tells GamesRadar+ at Gamescom. "It's a tricky balance to strike, but we have a great team I would trust fully to take all of those things into account."

"So when we do bring stuff like sandworm riding into the game, it'll feel like an epic moment like in the movies, still respecting how the lore described it and how complicated that is as a thing," Andreas Hayley explains. "You have to be trained in the Fremen ways to be able to even attempt such a thing. And then at the same time, it needs to be an interesting gameplay mechanic, and that's a tricky balance to strike, but I think the team can pull that off."

"But we're very firm in our belief that once you do that, you trivialize the sandworm as an entity, as one of the most dangerous things that you can experience or features you can find on the planet. And that is something we've stood by. And it's the same when we introduce sandworm riding, it needs to have that same sense of firm place in the world, and it needs to play a specific role that feels genuine in the setting of Dune. So I'm sure we'll find a good balance here."

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I'm Issy, a freelancer who you'll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I've always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you'll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I'm currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.

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