Dune: Awakening Skips Early Access but Offers Paid Early Play Access

Dune: Awakening, Funcom’s upcoming survival MMO set in an alternate version of author Frank Herbert’s legendary sci-fi universe, will buck the trend of many survival games by not launching in an early-access state when it arrives for PC on May 20. Nor will it have any kind of subscription fee, as some MMOs do.

Creative director Joel Bylos delivered the news in a recent video, diving into Funcom’s post-launch plans for the sci-fi survival game.

“The key things that you need to know about Dune: Awakening’s launch are that it will not launch in early access and it will not have a monthly subscription,” Bylos said. “It will receive regular free updates, including new content, new features, and quality-of-life improvements.”

Bylos went on to say that the game would also sell optional DLC, which will accompany each major free update and will be able to be bought piecemeal. A season pass that will include four post-launch DLCs will also be available.

Dune: Awakening launching in 1.0 is somewhat of a rarity for the survival game genre, which more often than not sees games launch in an early-access state. Releasing in early access lets developers gather more player feedback and slowly add more content to the game over time before eventually launching in full, oftentimes with a price increase.

That won’t be the case with Dune: Awakening, which was first announced to be in the works six years ago and has had multiple closed beta periods over the last year. While Dune: Awakening will launch in a complete state for $50, those willing to pay more will be able to play early as part of what Steam calls “advanced access.” Players who buy the $70 or $90 editions of the game will be able to play Dune: Awakening starting five days early on May 15. Both of the game’s more expensive additions come with the aforementioned season pass, as well as additional cosmetics.

“Sure, this allows people to get into the game early,” Bylos said. “But it also helps us to make sure we can balance the server load as people come into the game through launch for the best possible experience. Players who want the fresh start experience will still be able to play on new servers that will launch when the game launches on the 20th of May.”

Dune: Awakening was actually designed with controllers in mind, but will launch on PC first. A Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 version will come at a later date, which has yet to be announced.