Funcom is ready for a massive Dune: Awakening launch

Dune: Awakening beta kicks off today, and the expectation is quite high. Thousands of players have registered for the event and are ready to travel to Arrakis to discover all that the upcoming open-world survival crafting game has to offer. Developer Funcom has decided to clarify a few points ahead of the beta for those who have doubts about Dune: Awakening. The studio has released a lengthy post on Steam, where it also reveals many details about the multiplayer structure of the upcoming game.

Not an MMORPG

Funcon doesn't want to define Dune: Awakening as an MMORPG, even though the game shares plenty of similarities with the games in the genre. Instead, the studio emphasizes open-world survival and crafting as the main aspects of an evolving experience. The unforgiving weather conditions of Arrakis' surface make it a place where staying alive is very hard, and the game makes sure that you don't forget it. As a sandbox experience, there are no fixed paths to be followed and Dune: Awakening won't take you by the hand on your journey. However, that freedom is part of the beauty of the experience.

With a persistent world that is massive and that you share with a significant number of players, Dune: Awakening is not a small-scale experience by any means. That is something that the people participating in the upcoming beta will realize very soon. In order to deliver a proper experience to players, the servers also need to be prepared to keep gameplay fluid, and Funcom is quite confident about being ready in that specific field.

"We certainly expect heavy loads at launch, and that is why we are preparing accordingly. Servers that fill up are impossible to completely avoid, same as with all games that operate with the populations Dune: Awakening does. But, rest assured, there will be thousands of servers grouped together in hundreds of Worlds available at launch."

"If we see that we’re nearing capacity, we will be able to spin up more. This is not our first rodeo, we’ve launched several MMOs and survival games over the past 25 years, and we have a robust set of tools and processes in place, managed by an experienced live operations team."

The upcoming beta will be the definitive test for Dune: Awakening ahead of its launch. Everything seems to be ready, and even if there are some problems, Funcom needs to aim for the best possible result. With no single-player or offline modes available, the game is all about multiplayer, and everything needs to work like a well-oiled machine in order to deliver a unique experience to the fans.

With the release of the game scheduled for June 10, there is not much time to make significant fixes before a massive number of players dive into the world of Dune: Awakening on day one. If you want to be one of those, make sure to use our comparator to get a Dune: Awakening at the lowest price.