Dune: Awakening was originally not a survival-MMO mash-up, just a survival sim "with a good endgame"

Dune: Awakening wasn't originally an MMO-survival game hybrid, but the genre blend came together because the developers at Funcom thought the series was "perfect" for both.

Speaking to Gamesradar+ at Gamescom, Funcom CCO and Dune: Awakening creative director Joel Bylos explained that the "original idea was a survival game with a good end game" since the team was well acquainted with the genre via Conan Exiles. "We know how to make them, and we can funnel people through the survival experience into a larger, political sort of survival experience" - the endgame hunt for spice across Arrakis - "like you'd expect in Dune."

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"What we see in the genre is that MMOs are quest-driven," Bylos continues. "What if the funnel was a survival goal, actually leading you into this kind of more multiplayer endgame? So I think that was the experiment, in a way, that's kind of the idea behind it."

Dune's hostile deserts and scrappy factions are probably what make the series "perfect for survival," in Bylos' words, while the larger "political survival level" and generational wars over spice makes it "great for an MMO." By mashing the two genres together, Bylos reckons the team have created a game where you can make "friends and enemies along the way" as you climb up the space hierarchy, "so that when you get to the endgame, you feel like a big part of the social culture."

We'll see how the two sides connect when Dune: Awakening comes to PC in early 2025, before an eventual PS5 and Xbox Series X|S release sometime after. 

Dune: Awakening’s survival game mechanics took inspiration from an unlikely source: EA’s PS1-era Harry Potter games from 20 years ago.