Funcom’s Dune Awakening released to massive, unexpected player counts with hundreds of thousands of concurrent players on Steam. Today, that player count is less substantial, although the game has an audience of thousands of core players that jump into the survival game every day.
Speaking to FRVR, creative director Joel Bylos explained that player counts do not tell the whole story regarding the online survival game’s health. Recently, frequent tracking of Steam Charts player counts have dominated media and social media alike, especially surrounding new games like Bungie’s Marathon, but intense retention isn’t always the goal for every release.
When it comes to the frequent discussions surrounding the game’s player count, Bylos explains that “people will always want evidence to back up their arguments” with Steam Charts’ player tracker being one of the most commonly available. While high retention isn’t always the goal, it does admittedly play a role in the game with multiple updates focused on servicing long-term players.
“It’s either, like, this is dying because player numbers are low, this is healthy because player numbers are high,” he said. “So people like to look at that data and make comparisons, and I think it’s fine. Like, we do make choices based on these kinds of numbers, we have retention statistics that we’re looking for in the game.”
While Dune Awakening has made some fantastic changes to encourage retention, such as the removal of taxation and the new PvP/PvE split for the game’s endgame, the goal is simply to continue selling. Bylos explains that “our profit is made through sales of the game” adding that the “game relies on new players coming in, not necessarily monetising long-term players”.
“We definitely care about retention,” he says, explaining that plans for the game were shifted around to make endgame content better for long-term players. “But it doesn’t change the business model we have right now, which is that the profit comes from new players, right? So, I think player numbers are an interesting story, but what that story means at the end of the day is always very up in the air, right?
“Like, we were in the top 12 best-selling games on Steam last year. We were the platinum [selling] game on Steam which puts up above, you know, some of the gold games [which] are people that have huge amounts of profit and huge amounts of conversation about them.”
While Bylos and others enjoy that fans play their game every single day, they explain that they “feel like it’s very unhealthy for people to play the same game” all the time. For Dune Awakening, the hope is that players return when new content launches and they go on to play other games in the months between, giving players a healthier relationship with the survival game.
“The player retention numbers, at least for me, I look at it and I go, ‘yeah, sure, that’s like, you know, people leave. People can come back. When we do a big update, I would hope that people play the game like this. Where they leave, then we do a big update, and they come back to play the update. And then they play for a while, feel like I’ve had enough Dune for now, and they go off and play something else, and then they come back the next time. And I feel that’s a very healthy way for games to be, and I think you see that pattern in lots of games”.
Bylos explains that Conan Exiles, which recent saw a major Unreal Engine 5 overhaul on PC, went through very similar peaks and troughs during its lifecycle, but still receives updates almost ten years later. Right now, that game has seen an explosion in player counts fuelled by this update, and Bylos anticipates a number of spikes in player count this year.
“I feel a little bit that way about Dune Awakening console [which is scheduled for this year], because we’re putting a lot of effort into the game experience,” he explained. “I can’t talk too much about that at the moment, there’s other reveals and other things to come, but I can say that I consider that to be a key milestone. I think the movie hype [for Dune: Messiah] these things will help in the same way that you see player numbers increase on The Witcher when The Witcher TV series drops and Cyberpunk when their animated series drops.”
Bylos teases that the game’s console release will coincide with some major “experience changes” that should please the existing community. While the game director didn’t claim the console launch will be a major 2.0 moment for the game, it seems that Funcom are working on a lot behind the scenes to make Dune Awakening as shiny as possible for its Xbox and PlayStation launch, whenever that occurs.
Dune Awakening’s console launch doesn’t have a specific release date quite yet, although it is scheduled to launch in 2026. Online speculation has led some to believe the game will launch around the time of Dune: Part 3, which releases in December, but Funcom has not revealed anything at the time of publication.
Furthermore, Funcom has just released the game’s new 1.4.0 update for PTC players, adding new overland map locations and more to the game. The update launches for everyone on March 14, 2026. Additionally, the developer has confirmed that “more story content, more locations, new features, and even a whole new map” is coming in the future.
