Developer Update – April 2026

It is time for our next look behind the curtain. We have a few major updates to discuss today regarding our development, self-hosted servers with a customizable full gameplay experience and a rework of how PvP and PvE interact in Dune: Awakening.

Balancing Priorities

From our very first Closed Beta Weekend, player feedback has been instrumental in shaping the game. We strive to iterate quickly, but game development is rarely linear, and our resources must constantly be balanced between polishing existing content, responding to live situations, preparing the console launch, and developing new features or content. Adjusting the scope and timing of content releases to match what our team can realistically deliver is an important part of that process.

This year, you’ll see a series of features aimed at giving you more ways to customize your experience on Arrakis. Some of these will arrive early on the Public Test Client, giving us room to refine them based on your feedback. A few of these changes are planned to land with Patch 1.3.20.0, starting with a major shift in how conflict in the Deep Desert is handled.

PVE-first Open World Survival

We’ve always envisioned Arrakis as a tense place where players must master the desert to survive the scorching sun, lack of water, ever-present Shai-Hulud, and other hazards. We also want Dune: Awakening to feel like a triumph of your own making. Players should have the agency to tailor their experience and gravitate toward others with similar motivations, coexisting within the community.

Dune: Awakening offers a variety of playstyles. However, with over 80% of our lifetime players exclusively engaging with PvE content, the convergence of PvE and PvP, particularly in the Deep Desert, didn’t align with our objectives and remained a significant topic of discussion.

Combining our goals, the in-game data, and the results of player surveys, made it clear that we needed to rethink our approach and underline the PvE-first nature of the game. While PvP conflict is an important aspect of Dune: Awakening for some, it must be optional and incentivized rather than required for progression.

New repeatable gameplay loops in Chapter 3 have alleviated some of these concerns. These new features include Specializations, reworked Landsraad Missions and Faction Rank progression, and new scalable Testing Stations.

To further emphasize the PvE-first approach, we are making the following changes in Patch 1.3.20.0:

• All PvP zones in Hagga Basin will be disabled across all official Worlds.

• All official Worlds will have separate Deep Desert instances you can choose from:

  • A PvE instance for pure survival and exploration experience with no player combat. There is no PvP in this instance across any of the rows, including Shipwrecks.

  • A PvP instance with the classic high-stakes environment and open-world conflict across rows B through I. To make sure the rewards match the risk, the yield from mining and spice harvesting will be multiplied by 2.5 in PvP areas.

By separating these experiences, we allow players to hunt for spice or explore Imperial Testing Stations without the constant threat of a blade in the dark, while ensuring those who live for the thrill of the hunt have a dedicated arena to prove their mettle and the rewards to make it worthwhile.

Self-hosted Servers Are Coming!

We are thrilled to announce that Self-Hosting is coming to Dune: Awakening. Whether you want to host a private server for friends or foster a community with unique rules, the power is moving into your hands.

The initial iteration, which will be available for testing soon, will require a few extra