Dune: Awakening gets a limited time free trial and the biggest discount yet

Dune: Awakening from Funcom is trying to pull in some fresh players, with a new free trial available and the biggest discount on Steam so far. Thankfully even with the BattlEye anti-cheat, it is enabled and working on Linux / SteamOS systems, unlike many other games.

Available now until November 27th, you can jump in completely free. It does work well on Linux desktop with Proton, but is a little rough on the Steam Deck. It's actually Steam Deck Verified according to Valve, but in my original testing and a recent re-test it still likes to dip below 30FPS. At least if you have a more powerful Linux machine, you'll be good to go.

For the discount, it's also 25% off, which is the historical low for it on Steam. During the trial you only get 10 hours though, which is quite a limit for this type of MMO so you only get a small taster of the game overall.

Sadly, Dune: Awakening has been struggling, with the player numbers dwindling down. As you can see on SteamDB, it has been quite a drop and only continues to fall. However, they appear to be making some changes that should hopefully make various parts of the game feel a lot better like the ability to carry vehicles across maps and coming soon:

• The Base Reconstruction Tool lets you safely store your entire base and all its contents, so you can take a break from the game without losing any of your progress.
• Character Server Transfers will allow you to move your character to another World entirely. Combined with the Base Reconstruction Tool, you'll be able to bring everything with you when you move.

Back in August they also added an auto-run keybind, which made exploration a lot nicer too.

One of the biggest issues appears to be the end-game, which they're hoping to solve early next year. They said the goal for the next chapter is specifically to "enrich the endgame experience" with a new system that provides "repeatable PVE activities, expanding the character progression with specializations, crafting the next chapter in the main storyline, and much, much more".

So perhaps we might see it have quite the comeback at some point over the next few months.