Dune: Awakening: free ice expansion on 1 December, offline play coming soon
Funcom sends players to Arrakis' polar region: Blood and Ice is free. An offline mode follows in November and cross-platform play in January.
Archive image · Photo: Jesusbella / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
Studio Funcom is expanding its survival game Dune: Awakening on 1 December with the free Blood and Ice expansion for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. It leads to the Polar Sink, a new region of tundra and ice cap where players fight freezing cold instead of heat. The tundra is controlled by wealthy water-shipping families with fortified strongholds, while the ice cap holds valuable resources. Harvested ice cools base equipment and speeds up production. Funcom promises around 35 hours of new progression.
A single-player mode without an internet connection is due in November 2026. January 2027 brings cross-platform play and the option to copy characters from multiplayer into single-player – and the other way round to approved private PC servers.
A new rotating store for optional cosmetic purchases is also launching; some items are inspired by the film Dune: Part Three, which opens in December. According to Funcom, more than a million new players have started Dune: Awakening since its console launch.