Dune: Awakening Update Adjusts Balance Between PvE and PvP

Dune: Awakening received the first iteration of changes to the PvE and PvP balance in update 1.1.0.17, released on June 26, 2025.

As outlined three days earlier in an official message from the game’s creative director, the PvE area in Dune: Awakening has been adjusted to encompass the entire southern half of the endgame zone known as the Deep Desert.

From now on, PvE players can reach locations such as Imperial Testing Stations, caves and so forth in the southern section of the Deep Desert map without engaging in PvP.

Nevertheless, the PvE section will still have localized pockets of PvP, as control points and shipwrecks will remain PvP throughout the entire Deep Desert, just like shipwrecks are PvP in Hagga Basin.

Update 1.1.0.17 also maintained the game’s risk vs. reward dynamic by increasing the density of resources as players travel further north. This includes clusters of highly valuable resources concentrated in that area. Additionally, the largest spice fields will now tend to spawn in the northern region. Most of the control points are now also located in the northern part of the desert.

With these changes, Dune: Awakening’s developer and publisher, Funcom, has made several balancing adjustments in the Deep Desert. In the lower half, which focuses on PvE, players receive their own loot and can expect to find one schematic each. Meanwhile, the PvP area further north offers better loot overall but uses a “first come, first served” system, with larger quantities of resources and two to six schematics available.

Plasteel plates are now exclusive to PvP zones. The number of active medium spice fields has been reduced from eight to five, while small spice fields have increased from 20 to 22. The spawn rates of Titanium and Stravidium have been lowered in PvE areas, so large quantities of these resources now appear mainly in the distant PvP zones. On top of that, the number of resource hotspots in the PvE section of the map has been reduced, and the respawn time for Titanium and Stravidium has been extended from 30 to 45 minutes.

Dune: Awakening was launched for Windows PC on June 10, 2025, with release plans for Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 set for 2026.

The story is set in an alternate timeline in which Paul Atreides, a key character in the Dune universe created by Frank Herbert, was never born. This led to the desert planet Arrakis struggling with a civil war between House Atreides and House Harkonnen, while the Fremen nation mysteriously vanished. In Dune: Awakening, players assume control of an undercover agent working for the Bene Gesserit who must find the Fremen and “wake the Sleeper.”

As of the time of writing, the game has an all-time peak of 189,333 concurrent players and a “Very Positive” rating on Steam with 35,236 reviews. Within two weeks after launch, the game reached the milestone of 1 million copies sold.