Developer Updates

Developer Updates are regular Dune: Awakening blog posts typically providing a deeper look behind the curtain at upcoming features.

We provide a summary of each blog post below, with a corresponding link to the full Developer Update article.

2026

Developer Update - April

PVE-first Open World Survival

• All PvP zones in Hagga Basin will be disabled across all official Worlds.
• All official Worlds will have separate Deep Desert instances you can choose from:
  • A PvE instance for pure survival and exploration experience with no player combat. There is no PvP in this instance across any of the rows, including Shipwrecks.
  • A PvP instance with the classic high-stakes environment and open-world conflict across rows B through I. To make sure the rewards match the risk, the yield from mining and spice harvesting will be multiplied by 2.5 in PvP areas.

Self Hosted Servers

Full instructions on how to set up and customize self-hosted servers will be included in the patch notes when the feature becomes available. Please be advised that the initial setup for this first iteration of the feature is more technical than most other games and requires a computer running Microsoft Windows Pro with Hyper-V in order to run the servers in a Linux Virtual Machine (VM).

Q&A

• Dune: Awakening runs a larger, more complex world, requiring a more technical setup than most other games.
• This is an early experimental version of self-hosting. The goal is to make hosting easier, more accessible, and less technical over time.
• Bare minimum server hardware requirements for 1-4 players on the same map:
  • OS: Windows 10 64-bit Pro with Hyper-V
  • MEMORY: 20 GB RAM
  • PROCESSOR: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 1600
  • NETWORK: Broadband Internet connection
  • STORAGE: 100GB
  • ADDITIONAL NOTES: SSD required
• You are free to experiment with running the server directly on Linux, but it is currently not officially supported.
• All self-hosted server customization options will also be made available to private servers, though hosting providers may implement them differently.
• You will be able to transfer your character from Official servers to Private and Self-hosted ones, but never back to an Official server again.
• Player capacity is determined by your server hardware, but it is generally 40 in most cases.
• The self-hosted server feature is free.
• This initial version of self-hosting requires Windows Pro with Hyper-V. Additional options may be explored later.
• PvP rules can be freely customised, among other things.