After 5 years worth of teases, Dune Awakening finally drops the veil with proper gameplay footage ahead of the survival MMO's early 2025 launch

Dune Awakening
(Image credit: Funcom)

A half-decade after we first learned that Funcom was working on a Dune survival game, we've finally got a proper look at gameplay in Dune Awakening courtesy of Gamescom Opening Night Live - and now we also know that the game is set to launch on PC in early 2025.

Unfortunately, we've got no more specific release window than 'early 2025,' but that's at least an idea of when we can expect the game. Dune Awakening is still due to hit PlayStation and Xbox platforms, as well, but there's no announcement on when to expect them just yet.

The news came alongside our first meaty look at gameplay footage. If you've been closely following Dune Awakening details, you won't find too much revelatory in the video below, but it does cleanly lay out what all the features the devs have been talking about for months will look like in action. And yes, that includes sandworms.

Dune: Awakening – Exclusive Gameplay Reveal - YouTube Dune: Awakening – Exclusive Gameplay Reveal - YouTube
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It all looks like the fulfillment of what the devs showed me behind closed doors at Summer Game Fest earlier this year, and I was extremely impressed with the scale of the survival MMO's open world, but today's footage looks far more polished than what I saw just a few months ago. Here's hoping improvements continue to come leading into that early 2025 launch, because given the studio's pedigree in the space, this could be something special. 

If it all pans out, Dune Awakening looks like it could contend among both the best survival games and the best MMORPGs.

Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.