Greetings Sleepers,
Update 1.5 is now out on all platforms!
This update is a major step forward for the game. It introduces a full single-player mode, full gameplay customization, the conclusion to the Book One story, and much more.
And, starting today, Dune: Awakening is now also available on consoles, with head start available for Deluxe and Ultimate owners on console. Official console release is September 22nd.
But that’s just the latest. Today’s update is the culmination of over a year of hard work the Dune: Awakening development team has put into expanding, enhancing, and improving the game since launch last year. Combining that with today’s update, the game is bigger and better than ever.
While many will now be coming into Dune: Awakening for the first time, many old friends will be returning for the first time in several months. If that’s you, there is a lot to catch up on.
So, settle in, grab yourself a nice cup of Spice Coffee, and get ready for a comprehensive walkthrough of the new Dune: Awakening: everything new in this update, and everything that’s been added and improved over the past year.
If you want the tl;dr, there is also this Deep Dive video we released back in July:
Check the full patch notes here.
WELCOME BACK + LAUNCH REWARD PACKAGE
Anyone back after 28+ days away will receive a welcome back package sized to their research tier. This gives you a great opportunity to catch up and get into the swing of things again if you’ve been away for a while.
In addition, to celebrate the release of Dune: Awakening on console and this major update, everyone who plays the game between September 17th and October 22nd will receive a very special reward: Matron’s Decor!
INTRODUCING SINGLE-PLAYER
Dune: Awakening now includes a full single-player mode. This is the whole game, on every platform, solo. The entirety of Arrakis, every storyline, every challenge, and every reward. When starting out, you can choose between three difficulty presets or customize every gameplay setting in detail.
We’ve made a few changes to core mechanics in single-player, including:
The Exchange now acts as a vendor with a large selection of items you can purchase
The Landsraad simulates other guilds to ensure a dynamic and believable Landsraad competition that progresses even without player participation
The Coriolis storm is still a very dangerous storm, but it will no longer instantaneously kill the player and wipe the Deep Desert. Players can now keep their progress there.
The Cartographer skill now extends the player’s Fog of War reveal radius
YOUR GAME, YOUR RULES
At launch, even private servers offered only a handful of settings. Now, in single-player and on self-hosted servers, you control sandstorms, security zones (make Hagga Basin fully PvP or fully PvE), harvesting and XP multipliers, building piece limits, item durability, base decay, sandworm and Coriolis auto-spawn, what drops on death, and your maximum land claims. Play the game how you want, at your own pace.
On rented private servers, available customization options depend on your provider.
THE CONCLUSION OF BOOK ONE
The Great Convention Part III arrives today, and with it the final Chapter. For the first time, the entire story can be played from beginning to end in one run.
NEW REWARDS AND IMPROVED STORY MECHANICS
Every existing story mission now grants new rewards: swatches, weapon and armour variants and placeable decorations, from the Maw of the Worm Wall Relief to the Ascendant Throne of the Reverend Mother. Everything is earned retroactively.
Echoes of the Past, The Glutton, The Paranoid and The Jackal are now instanced levels, which means no more queuing to enter on very busy multiplayer servers. Several of the older bosses have moved onto our new boss system.
ONE CHARACTER, MANY WORLDS
Characters, not servers, are now the centre of the experience. Your last-played character greets you in a new main menu, and a Characters tab lets you flip through everyone you've made and drop straight back in, choosing where to play each session. Backed-up bases and vehicles travel with you.
Single-player characters remain exclusive to the single-player mode
Official server characters can be played on any official server and can even be moved to a private or self-hosted server (but not back again, to ensure the integrity of official servers)
Private server characters can be moved to self-hosted servers, but not back
A FASTER ARRAKIS
Building for console unlocked even more performance improvements, also for PC: world streaming, rendering, memory, collision and physics, from Nanite foliage to baked NPC meshes to far more performant sandstorms.
COMBAT HAS BEEN IMPROVED
Improvements on how fights feel, especially melee. We've increased the Parry window for more lenient parries, and we've done a pass on the animations of NPC combos to give a larger tell on their attacks. Enemy stamina has been rebalanced, and heavy attacks now do the same damage as slow blade attacks, which allows for more risk and reward in playstyles. Enemy AI has been improved to make better use of cover. We've also changed dash to allow passing through enemies which is more lenient for getting out of situations where you have been cornered.
Since launch we've added two new weapons: Dual Blades and Pyrocket. We've completely reworked the Rapier into a parrying weapon. Our new boss encounters now have an onscreen boss health UI, and the testing stations have a level scaling system that allows you to choose your level of difficulty. This difficulty scale changes dungeon loot drops and enemy encounters. It also takes into account group sizes.
PVP IS NOW SOMETHING YOU CHOOSE
Every aspect of the game can now be played entirely in PvE. You can completely avoid PvP if you want to, without losing out on any of the content, gameplay mechanics, or rewards the game has to offer.
The Deep Desert runs as both a PvE and a PvP instance on every official World. The PvP instance is back to launch conditions and pays 2.5x the yield on mining and harvesting to balance risk vs. reward.
Hagga Basin is fully PvE, shipwrecks included, so critical crafting resources are no longer gated behind PvP.
The Landsraad was rebuilt around missions, so the endgame can be competed in without fighting another player.
PvP hasn't gone anywhere – it's concentrated where the rewards are richest, and on your own server you can even turn Hagga Basin into a full PvP zone thanks to the new gameplay customization options.
YOU DON’T HAVE TO LOSE THINGS ANYMORE
When Dune: Awakening launched, there were too many ways to lose progression. That doesn’t have to happen anymore. Several quality-of-life improvements have been made to remove this kind of frustration from the game.
Base Reconstruction Tool: store up to three complete snapshots and rebuild them later, even on another world. Bound to your character; can't be lost on death.
Vehicle recovery: destroyed vehicles recoverable for up to 30 days via the Vehicle Backup Tool, for a Solari fee and a durability penalty, whatever destroyed them.
Base Recycling: dismantle a base outside the Deep Desert for 100% of its materials and stored items.
Taxes are gone: base upkeep taxation removed entirely, all overdue taxes forgiven. Bases still need power to resist weather damage.
Death penalty: the durability penalty upon death was lowered from 5% to 2%, equipment drain halved.
PvP loot: chests are now instanced, everyone gets their rewards
A BIGGER, BETTER, AND DEEPER ENDGAME
The Landsraad, Dune: Awakening’s faction vs. faction endgame, has been completely rebuilt into a mission‑driven framework that works equally well for multiplayer PvE and single-player.
Resource turn-ins have been replaced by repeatable missions across combat, crafting, gathering, exploration and sabotage, with party sharing and a missions overview. Progress through twenty ranks from outsider to Atreides Envoy or Harkonnen Enforcer and unlock powerful rewards.
This directly targets one of the biggest early criticisms: that the endgame felt thin or too tied to PvP to be enjoyable for most players who prefer PvE content.
MORE ARRAKIS TO EXPLORE
The planet of Arrakis has been expanded with more things to do and more things to see.
New locations: Smuggler's Run, Blushing Caverns, The Broodworks, Wreck of Tyche, The Old Quarry, Ruins of Tsimpo, and Wind Pass
Six new Imperial Testing Stations, each with a unique boss fight and escalating difficulty. Higher difficulty, richer loot. Five are repeatable runs reached from the overland map, solo or grouped, scaling to your party.
New weapons: the Pyrocket incendiary gel launcher and Dual Blades, plus a Rapier rework, and Plastanium-tier weapon and armour blueprints from the new Testing Stations
Dynamic encounters, new contracts, and a new in-game radio station
And don’t forget that, later this year, we’re releasing the Polar Cap as a free update. It will introduce an entirely new survival map full of new things to explore, discover, and craft!
RUN YOUR OWN DESERT
PC players can host a free self-hosted server for friends or a community with full control over the rules. Up to 40 concurrent players per server, no ongoing fees, you supply the machine. Note that this feature is still experimental and still improving.
SPECIALIZE YOUR CHARACTER
Specializations is a new progression system that lets you invest points across crafting, gathering, exploration, combat, and sabotage, unlocking traits that boost damage, durability, inventory space, mission rewards, and even entire technologies like Augmentation.
AUGMENT YOUR GEAR
We’ve added Augmentations, powerful modifiers you can add to unique Tier 6 weapons and armor. These are found as schematics in Testing Stations and crafted using resources earned through Landsraad missions. They let you push your favourite gear further, tailoring stats and trade‑offs to your build, and once applied, augments are permanent, turning each piece into something more personal and hard‑won.
AN ENDGAME THAT DOESN'T DEMAND A GUILD
Spice Melange is gone from the build cost of the Advanced Garment, Survival, Vehicle and Weapons Fabricators, the Medium Chemical Refinery and the Augmentation Station, specifically to put the endgame within reach of solo and single-player players. Augment crafting moves onto a bell curve, so good rolls land far more often.
MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME
Full character re-customization available in Arrakeen and Harko Village, new hairstyles and tattoos, and an expanded swatch system for Atreides, Harkonnen and minor Landsraad house colours on outfits, vehicles, weapons and buildings. Each School of the Imperium has its own armour set. Vehicles, containers and placeables can be renamed, and native controller support arrived on PC.
A CLEANER PLAYING FIELD
We’ve waged a sustained campaign against duping and exploits. We’ve addressed item duplication, Solari duping in social hubs, durability restore exploits, schematic duping, out-of-bounds and undermeshing routes. We’ve also strengthened anti-cheat enforcement, player reporting tools, and added clearer communication when moderation action is taken. Server stability has improved dramatically since launch.
EXPLORE ARRAKIS ON A WIDE RANGE OF DEVICES
Dune: Awakening has arrived on PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro, XBOX Series X|S and the Microsoft Store with the complete experience and console-tailored UI and controls. Two graphics modes: Performance (60fps, Dynamic 4K) and Quality (30fps, Dynamic 4K). PlayStation 5 Pro and XBOX Series X renders at higher native resolution in both modes and add enhanced visuals in Quality.
The Head Start begins today, September 17th, for Deluxe and Ultimate pre-orders; the full console launch, physical editions included, is September 22nd. XBOX brings Game Pass, Play Anywhere with shared progression, Cloud Gaming, and ROG Xbox Ally.
On PC we're Steam Deck verified and GeForce Now supported.
Cross-play between platforms isn't in at launch but rest assured it is coming post-launch.
FILMIC ARCHIVE DLC: OPTIONAL AT $9.99
Looks from Dune: Part One and Part Two, arriving September 22nd: the Aegis of an Unwalked Path armor, the Caladan Stormcoat, Harkonnen Cataphract and Atreides Hoplite armor, the Longhaul Stillsuit, three Sardaukar armor sets, Sardaukar weapons and emotes, and a 73-piece Sardaukar building set with 17 matching decorations.
QUALITY OF LIFE AND OTHER IMPROVEMENTS
Beyond the highlights, there are a lot more enhancements we’ve released over the past year. For a complete overview of everything that has been added and improved upon on PC since launch, make sure to check out the Updates Page.
WHAT’S COMING NEXT
The Polar Cap arrives later this year as a free update: a new survival map and icy biome with new survival mechanics, resources, loot, craftables and its own standalone storyline. We also have more tie-in cosmetics planned for when the third instalment of Denis Villeneuve's epic Dune saga reaches theatres on December 18th.
Full cross-play is confirmed for after the console launch, and we’ll share more information about that when we’re ready.
There is much more we want to do with Dune: Awakening and we can’t wait to talk about it.
For now, we hope you enjoy the new update and hope to see you out there on the sands, Sleeper.
- The Funcom Team