Dune: Awakening on PS5 and Xbox review: Arrakis now for solo players too
More than a year after its PC launch, Funcom's survival game has arrived on consoles – with a new single-player mode. Metacritic average on PS5: 79.
Photo: Jesusbella / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Trailer: YouTube · Funcom · youtube.com
Critics' rating
Scores: Metacritic (PS5) 79 · COGconnected 85/100 · Cubed3 7/10
- Platforms
- PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC
- Studio
- Funcom
- Release
- 22.09.2026
+ Pros
- New, fully fledged single-player mode
- Smooth 60 fps in performance mode on PS5
- Well-adapted controller layout and menus
- Strong base building and an impressive desert world
– Cons
- Combat and enemy AI remain weak
- Lots of legwork and repetitive locations
- Plenty of Dune jargon left unexplained
- Solo and online characters are kept separate
Critics' verdict
The best version yet of Funcom's survival game – above all for Dune fans who want to explore Arrakis on their own too.
Summary of published reviews – sources below.
Dune: Awakening has been available for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S since 22 September, more than a year after its PC launch. The survival game set in the Dune universe is developed and published by Norwegian studio Funcom. The console launch brought a fully fledged single-player mode to all platforms, with adjustable settings such as harvesting rates, death penalties and experience gain, plus the paid Filmic Archive expansion with gear from the films.
COGconnected awards 85 out of 100, calling the console release a "bigger, better" version with many fixes. CGMagazine (8/10) praises the stable performance and the menus rebuilt for controllers. Cubed3 gives 7 out of 10, highlighting the impressive desert world and base building, and reports smooth 60 frames per second in performance mode on the base PS5.
Criticism centres on simple enemy AI, bullet-sponge bosses, repetitive locations and a lot of legwork early on. CGMagazine warns newcomers about plenty of unexplained Dune jargon, while Ungeek notes that characters cannot be transferred between solo and online modes. On Metacritic, the PS5 version stands at 79.