Dune: Awakening gets pushed back to June

Dune: Awakening, the open-world MMO inspired by Frank Herbert's novels and Denis Villeneuve's films, has been delayed. Developer Funcom said on Tuesday that it needs "a bit more time to cook." Previously slated for May 20, the game has a new release date of June 10 on Steam.

Funcom says the three-week delay will allow it to "act on a lot more of the feedback we know is important to our beta testers." The game is in a closed one now, but the developer says it will roll out a larger-scale beta test in May. Further details on that are coming "soon."

Although June 10 is the new launch date for those who buy the $50 standard version, Funcom is launching a head-start incentive for those who plunk down $70 or $90 on the Deluxe or Ultimate edition. Those versions will unlock on June 5. (Gotta love paywalling an earlier release date.)

Funcom

Although Dune: Awakening is set in the familiar Duniverse on Arrakis, it uses an alternate timeline. In this "what if?" version, the Fremen have disappeared, Paul Atreides was never born (sorry, Chalamaniacs) and Lady Jessica gave birth to a girl. You start as a prisoner taken to the planet but soon "learn the true meaning of desert power," rising to become an agent of the Atreides or the Harkonnen.

You can get a jump on things today with a character creator, launched in February, that lets you build your hero and take the Gom Jabbar test. (For more casual Dune fans, that's the hand-in-a-box torture test.) You can use your character when the game launches.

Dune: Awakening will only be available on Steam when it arrives on June 10. You can pre-order it now. It's also coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, but those versions don't yet have a release date.

$50 $50 at Steam

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