Dune: Awakening had what you’d call a “rough landing” on Steam even before its official release on June 10. Nearly 100,000 players were received by Funcom’s desert-flavored survival MMO on the first day, only to find themselves stuck in crashes, server issues, and gameplay bugs. Unsurprisingly, they let off steam on, well, Steam—dropping the game’s review score to “Mostly Negative”.
But just one day later? The tide turned. Dune: Awakening now has a “Very Positive” rating as 4,210 players have given positive feedback up to this writing time, which is 83% of all reviews. If you’re scratching your head about what happened in that 24-hour window, it’s not a miracle patch or a sudden server upgrade but the usual internet being… the internet.
Day-One Rage Meets Day-Two Reality
Like many MMOs before it, Dune: Awakening caught some flak for the usual launch week suspects: janky servers, performance issues, and the balancing quirks that scream “early access.” But once the dust settled (literally, it’s Arrakis), most players realized there was a solid, gritty, sandworm-infested core underneath it all.
One Steam reviewer summed it up best:
“A lot of the bad reviews feel overblown. Dune: Awakening is tons of fun. The world feels alive, the mechanics are engaging, and there’s something seriously satisfying about surviving the harsh desert of Arrakis.”
Another said:
“This game is great with friends, and lets me live out my fantasy of getting eaten by a sandworm.”
Honestly, that last part might be doing more for player retention than anything else.
This kind of “review rebound” isn’t new. MMOs are famously volatile at launch, with even the best titles Final Fantasy XIV gone through their trial-by-fire periods. Dune: Awakening seems to have weathered its mini sandstorm, and the players who stuck around are now finding what early access is meant to offer: a promising foundation, slowly shaped by feedback and updates.
To be clear, not everything is fixed. Players are still pointing out bugs and asking for tweaks, but the tone has noticeably turned from “this game is broken” to “this game is worth the ride.” Even if that ride occasionally ends with a sandworm death animation.
Dune: Awakening will launch on Tuesday, June 10, and the early access response—warts and all—has at least shown that something is compelling here for fans of survival MMOs and Dune narrative alike. If you are holding off for fear of the usual MMO mess, maybe give it another look. The desert is still harsh, but at least now it’s starting to feel worth exploring with friends, or solo, or, sure, as sandworm food.
