Funcom’s Dune Awakening has been given a new jolt of life with its massive Chapter 3 update, the biggest update the survival-focused MMORPG has seen “yet”, according to the team. Eliminating taxation, giving returning players a heap of new resources, adding a new specialisation system, and offering a dollop of new content with a revised endgame, Dune Awakening feels like it’s back.
Prior to the update’s release, we sat down with the team to look at the new update with a clear picture of what Funcom is attempting to do with the future of Dune Awakening. However, as many have discussed since the title’s release, we also broached the topic of the game’s player count.
Currently only available on PC, Dune Awakening has seen a major player count drop from its miraculously high launch number of 180,000+ peak concurrent players on Steam. With Chapter 3, a large number of players are returning to the game, but the numbers aren’t as high as the game’s juggernaut launch.
Speaking to FRVR in a roundtable discussion, production director Ole Andreas and senior content manager Tor Egil explained that the drop in player numbers isn’t as big a deal as some might claim it is. While Dune Awakening has seen periods of significantly lower player counts than launch, it isn’t a cause for concern, at least yet.
Of course, Funcom isn’t sitting on its thumbs and watching players depart. One of the main pushes for removing taxation and allowing players to save their bases is to give returning players a chance to jump back in without losing too much. While hardcore fans fell in love with some of the game’s hard edges, these “friction points” did need to be sanded down to encourage the wider player base to return.
“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,” Andreas explained. “Yes, 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.”
“It’s overall hard to expect to keep launch player numbers for a super long time, that’s always going to be hard.”
Dune Awakening senior content manager Tor Egil
Nevertheless, the team isn’t worried about the game’s substantially lower player count since launch. All in all, the game’s concurrent player count has been remarkably stable since around November, and it seems that this current number is the new normal for a game that launched to an unexpected level of success.
“It is a live game, and it’s a natural thing to see the cycles as you release a patch or a chapter like this,” they continued. “Then there will be a time where people play it and then that’ll go into a curve again, and then you’ll release new updates. That’s a natural part of it. Yes, it was a massive success on launch and people played it a tonne, and that was really fun to see. So now the goal is to flesh out the areas where the game maybe needs a bit more meat on the bones.”
As the team mentioned, the goal with continued updates is always to please newcomers and longtime players alike, and that’s exactly why Dune Awakening Chapter 3 has lifted so many restrictions. The game still has the same survival feeling as it did on launch, but now it is more lenient for a playerbase that will come and go over the years.
“It’s also the reason why we improved the quality-of-life, letting people move their bases, letting people more easily play the game, basically, which we hope means more people will find it enjoyable,” Egil said. “But it’s overall hard to expect to keep launch number of players for super long times, that’s always going to be hard, but we’re always going to be adding cool things that the player want to hopefully see people return and some new players come in.”
Andreas explained that the team wants players to be able to feel like they “can take a break, feeling good about it when they do take a break, and then come back again when they feel like playing it”. Nevertheless, the loss of player count is seen as the “natural cycle” by the team.
Dune Awakening Chapter 3 is a free update available right now. The new update has also launched alongside the Raiders of the Broken Lands paid DLC which adds new creative options to the game with additional cosmetic content.
