By Dune Awakening is one of my favorite games that I got addicted to this year.
Admittedly, it’s full of flaws and a massive grind, and worst of all, the player base was very small. The servers were always empty and I rarely saw another player out in the open world.
Even though the developers wanted it to be an MMORPG, this game felt more like a single player game. And I actually liked it.
I enjoyed exploring the massive open world on my dune buggy, gathering resources, and farming materials. The grind was brutal, but I was enjoying it.
Looks like the developers are finally realizing that this is what this game is supposed to be: A single player game. So they are now introducing a single player mode to Dune Awakening.
In a recent developer roadmap update, the developers announced that they are adding a single player mode to Dune Awakening in September 2026.
Single Player Mode
The Single Player mode will allow you to freely play the game and its missions without having to worry about other players stealing your resources, loot, or even worrying about your buildings getting wiped.
If you want to play with a close group of friends and family, you can now do that with the addition of Private Servers as well, which is already available in the game.
Difficulty Customization
This new mode will also introduce custom difficulty customizations to the game. You will be able to change the difficulty of the enemies as well as adjust resource spawn frequencies. Or even fully disable the sandstorms.
Here’s everything you can change in single player and private servers:
- Enable or disable sandstorms
- Security zones (for example, make Hagga Basin fully PvP or fully PvE)
- Resource harvesting rate multipliers
- Experience points rate multipliers
- Base building piece limits
- Item durability settings
- Base decay rate
- Sandworm auto-spawn
- Coriolis storm auto-spawn
- Adjust what drops on death
- Increase max number of land claims
Console Release
With the introduction of Single Player mode, Dune Awakening is coming to consoles in September 2026.
It will be available on PS5 and Xbox as well as on XBOX Game Pass. The game is also verified on Steam Deck for all portable players.
Unfortunately, it does not feature cross-play between consoles and PC.
New Map
A brand new map is also coming to Dune Awakening later in 2026.
The new Polar Cap map introduced new survival elements, a new story, and lots of new stuff to build. The developers teased this map a while ago, showing off snow-covered mountains and frosty peaks.
It seems like this new map will feature freezing environments where we will have to adapt to new survival elements like cold temperatures.
And More
A lot has changed and been added to Dune Awakening since launch. It’s actually a much more interesting game than it was at launch. You can check out a summary of all the updates in the graphic below.
There have been a ton of game fixes and improvements as well.
I’m excited to start fresh in a single-player world and grind my way to the top. Hopefully, this will breathe new life into Dune Awakening because I want this game to survive and thrive with more updates in the future.
