Dune: Awakening Lost 95% Of Its Playerbase And It Makes Sense

Adapting Frank Herbert's sci-fi epic "Dune" into a video game was never going to be an easy proposition, but the MMO "Dune: Awakening" featured a unique premise. The game is set in a version of the story where Paul Atreides was never born, altering the events of the classic narrative. With its sweeping scope, "Dune: Awakening" blew gamers away in 2025. However, in the months since its launch and impressive peak, the game's concurrent playerbase has noticeably plummeted.

"Dune: Awakening" debuted on PCs in June 2025, long after beta testing for the game opened in 2022. Set on the desert planet of Arrakis, players control an operative of the Bene Gesserit searching for the planet's native population, the Fremen, who have gone missing. A third-person action RPG, players build their own guild while either opposing or allying with Houses Atreides and Harkonnen as they establish themselves on Arrakis. Upon its launch, "Dune: Awakening" received largely positive reviews and currently has a 78% Metacritic score for its initial PC version.

However, the problem facing "Dune: Awakening" isn't its critical reception or initial commercial performance, but rather its player retention.

"Dune: Awakening" became the fastest-selling title developed and published by Funcom, selling over one million copies within two weeks. On its launch day, the game surpassed over 140,000 concurrent players and that figure only grew in the weeks that followed. At its peak, the game surpassed 189,000 concurrent players online. However, at the start of 2026, the concurrent playerbase plummeted to around 10,000 before bouncing back to 18,000 concurrent players by February 2026.

Even if not as severe as other 2025 games that lost their entire playerbase, the situation nevertheless warrants attention. In a conversation with FRFV, "Dune: Awakening" creative director Joel Bylos attributed the decline in playerbase to simple attrition. Bylos observes that "it's very unhealthy for people to play the same game" constantly, feeling it was natural for players to take a break from "Dune: Awakening." While Bylos makes it clear that player retention is something that Funcom takes very seriously, they are also seeking newer players. With its strong launch, Funcom isn't necessarily trying to focus on monetizing long-term from existing players so much as add to its overall sales numbers.

However, Funcom has employed strategies to encourage player retention in "Dune: Awakening," with even more on the way.

Without going into specifics, Bylos noted that Funcom is working on additional content and quality-of-life improvements for "Dune: Awakening." This includes the addition of a single-player mode, one of the game's most requested features since its launch. This will also come with the conclusion of the first season of story content, described in-game as books, bringing the first post-launch cycle of "Dune: Awakening" to a triumphant climax. Among the quality-of-life changes Funcom has implemented since the game's debut is removing its taxation system and shifting to PvE experiences over PvP during the main campaign's endgame.

Another important factor is that "Dune: Awakening" technically hasn't launched for consoles yet, with its current playerbase still derived from PCs. The game is set to arrive on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on September 22, 2026, adding to the amount of potential players. That said, the only crossplay opportunities expected once the title goes multiplatform is between Xbox Series X|S users and those playing the PC version through the Windows Store. Funcom has stated this is because it is focused on optimizing the console ports' performance rather than compromising quality to accommodate divergent platforms.

However, crossplay or not, the addition of console ports is set to take the playerbase for "Dune: Awakening" to another level.

With its wealth of upcoming content and the impending console ports, "Dune: Awakening" is in a much better position than other live-service games on the market these days. Several high-profile live-service video games have died in 2026, a sign of the times and struggles of keeping an online game running. Even enormously successful titles out the gate have trouble maintaining peak player counts, such as "ARC Raiders" seeing an 80% drop in its playerbase. It's tricky to convince thousands of players to stick around, especially as newer, shinier games flood the market.

The most telling sign for "Dune: Awakening" is the game pivoting to a substantial single-player experience. True to Bylos' observations about attracting fresh players rather than retaining existing ones, Funcom recognizes that it's more cost-effective to encourage new unit sales. The company isn't necessarily chasing for high concurrent player numbers so much as to get players to check out their title and come back for major content updates. Live-service games would do well to take lessons from this approach, rather than relying on in-game microtransactions and battle passes to generate revenue.