Dune Awakening devs don't expect to "keep launch player numbers" after Steam player count hit 189,000 then ran off a cliff, but they're trying: "We do hope to get players returning"

Dune: Awakening had a more devastating downfall than a Russian tsar, with the MMO reaching an incredible 189,333 peak player count on Steam back in 2025 and spending the cold months since then collecting only a fraction of that – about 10,000 players a day. But developer Funcom is sort of at peace with it.

Lead producer Ole Andreas and senior content manager Tor Egil discuss this with FRVR in a new interview about Dune: Awakening. "It is a live game, and it's a natural thing to see the cycles." Egil explains, "It's overall hard to expect to keep launch player numbers for a super long time, that's always going to be hard." That said, Dune's fresh Chapter 3 is oriented around clawing players back.

"With Chapter 3, we do encourage, with the returning player pack and removing some of the friction points, we do hope to get players returning and testing out new things," Andreas says. He continues, "Our goal is always to look at where the game has any weaknesses or any area of the game where players are asking for something that the game doesn't have that fits with our vision, and then flesh that out."

On Steam, there's been some evidence that the huge Chapter 3 – which throws the MMO's loathed tax system out the window and fattens up the endgame, among other improvements – has enticed players. According to SteamDB, Dune: Awakening has reached a 24-hour peak of 13,565, a little improvement from its stable 9,000 count prior to Chapter 3 releasing this week.

"We're always going to be adding cool things [...] to hopefully see people return and some new players come in," Egil says. Hopefully!

Dune: Awakening Chapter 3 is "not going to please everyone," but it's only the start of many changes for the survival MMO – including melee tweaks, an endgame PvE overhaul, and private servers.