Dune: Awakening says no to David Lynch and Sting in his underwear because the Herbert Estate hates fun
One of 2025's biggies is Funcom's Dune: Awakening, a survival MMO set on an alt-history version of Arrakis where Paul Atreides, the book's protagonist and (kinda) hero, was simply never born. PCG's own Josh Wolens had the chance to play the game recently, and found an unusual genre-blending mix that, above all else, strains to stay faithful to the source material. As the game's producer, Nils Ryborg, put it: "We're making a survival game, but we're making a Dune game, right? One of the design models we have is: make the game fit Dune, don't make Dune fit the game."
That's not as straightforward as it first seems: There are, after all, multiple visions of what Dune is. There are Frank Herbert's five novels, plus the follow-ons by his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. There's Jodorowsky's unmade 1970s film, a holy grail for some fans, then David Lynch's infamous 1984 adaptation, plus various TV shows, games, and comics, until we get to the recent David Villeneuve movies. So what exactly fits Dune could be a fairly broad church.
In this case, it does seem pretty clear that Villeneuve's Dune is the major aesthetic influence, and the cinematic inspiration behind Awakening's Arrakis. But the recent death of David Lynch brought his rather wilder ideas—massive eyebrows, cat milking, Sting stomping around in his underwear, trophy pugs, a completely mad ending—to the forefront of the PCG hivemind. So Josh Wolens asked if we'd see any of Lynch's Dune in Dune: Awakening.
"Not a whole lot, I'm afraid," laughs Nils Ryborg. What about Sting? The daft Stillsuits?
"You know, one day when one of the game is out, I'll show you some stuff that was potentially Lynch-inspired, but it's not made the cut," says Riborg. "We've certainly taken inspiration from everything. But, you know, [Dune rights holders] Legendary have been quite clear that like the vision for the IP right now is the Villeneuve vision. So it is that, along with the game style that we established earlier."
So maybe expect a few little Easter eggs at best, but Lynch's Dune won't be a part of this version of Dune. Rest assured that PCG has made a note of Riborg's promise and, somewhere down the road, we'll be going to Funcom to try and show you some of that stuff that didn't make the cut. But for now: Villeneuve all the way, baby.
Console yourself with the thought that, whatever vision of Arrakis it's going for, Dune: Awakening is shaping up as something that could be special and, at the very least, feels like it's trying to create something with a particular flavour. As Josh noted at the end of his hands-on time with the game: "Building yourself up into a political force once you've bent Arrakis to your will sounds like a very interesting proposition. It sounds tense, it sounds complex, it sounds, really, just like Dune."