Dune: Awakening will get Private Servers at release but with limits

Some good news for Dune: Awakening, Funcom have announced it actually will have Private Servers you can rent and sort with friends.

In a Steam post published June 2nd the developer noted "We’ve previously communicated that private servers are for post-launch, but we’re happy to share that progress has been faster than expected". However, it's a bit complicated since it is at its heart a proper MMO so the game as a whole won't be entirely private.

Part of the problem is how the game works. There's many different servers, and a few of them contain different parts of the game. They said that "each server belongs to a World consisting of several other servers, and each of those share the same social hubs and Deep Desert" which "allows us to retain a neighborhood-like feel to the Hagga Basin and provide persistent, freeform building, and other server-demanding mechanics you typically see in survival games". Moving all of this to a private server model "has not been trivial".

Rather than probably incorrectly paraphrasing it due to the mechanics involved, here's what the developer said:

How private servers work

When you rent a private server, you essentially rent a server containing one Hagga Basin, just like the official servers. Here you have the full Hagga Basin map, and you can do everything you would do on an official server.

Your private server will belong to a World consisting of other private servers, and you can choose a World for your private server when you rent yours from a provider.

That means that you will still be able to take full advantage of Dune: Awakening’s large-scale multiplayer content and mechanics, including visiting the social hubs and the Deep Desert, to meet and play with people from any private server in the same World.

Players do not rent or control social hubs nor the Deep Desert. These are provided by the server hosting company, who ensures each private server’s World has them.

Private server settings

So, what settings will be available for your private server?

Because your private server will belong to a World of other private servers, and you will be meeting and playing with other people in the social hubs and the Deep Desert, you won’t be able to control every aspect of how your private server works.

Which settings you can configure for your server is ultimately up to the third-party server provider, but these are the settings we are making available:

• Security Zones: you can disable security zones entirely, making all parts of Hagga Basin PvP enabled, or you can choose to have pockets of PvP like on official servers
• Taxation: you can disable taxation on your server
• Sandstorms: you can disable sandstorms, making them not appear on your server

You will also be able to name your server and set a password for it.

Please note that private servers do not have an admin control panel nor character transfers presently. We will evaluate this functionality post-launch.

Visiting other private servers

Just like how you can visit another server in your World when playing on official servers, you can do the same with private servers.

All you need to do is select the other server in the server selection menu and put in the server’s password when prompted. You can take with you everything on your character, and you are free to do anything you would like on the server. You can even claim land, something you can’t do when visiting official servers.

When you arrive on the other server, you will appear at Griffin’s Reach trade post.

It really does sound complicated and still a little bit confusing. But you essentially get your own private area, that's linked to a much bigger more public area.

Some other good news - their press team has approved my key for it. So I'll be taking a look to ensure it works properly on Linux, SteamOS / Steam Deck. I don't anticipate many problems, especially since they already confirmed to GamingOnLinux that BattlEye would be enabled. Check out more anti-cheat compatibility on our dedicated page.