The main story of Dune had just ended with Part Two, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t more stories to be told on the planet of Arrakis.
Dune: Awakening is set to release sometime this year. While its timeline is alternate to that of the movies, it was heavily inspired by the status of the Dune films.
How the Dune Films Affected Dune: Awakening
In a recent talk with VGC, game director Joel Bylos revealed that they had to change the game's continuity because they were supposed to be more in line with the films. He explains:
“The reason for the alternate timeline, and why we weren’t allowed to show the Fremen, or at least have the Fremen at launch, was because we were originally planning to launch the game before the release of the second movie… And Villeneuve hadn’t fully developed the second movie Fremen when we started talking about this.”
In the alternate timeline of Awakening, Paul Atreides isn’t born, and instead, Lady Jessica gives birth to a girl—as the Bene Gesserit had always planned. With this change, though, the story writers could shuffle around characters and insert the player character who could very well end up filling the role that belonged to Paul Atreides.
“…And the Fremen?”
With the game's launch version, the Fremen will not immediately show themselves in Awakening. Bylos explained, “The issue was with Fremen; it was not spoiling anything character-wise from the movie, not talking about events that would show up in the movies. The alternate history was our way of sidestepping away from that and giving us more space.”
Even though the Fremen aren’t major players at launch, players can find their artifacts and plant seeds for them to appear later.
With the Fremen out of the way, though, it sets the stage for the Atreides and Harkonnen to fight on the planet, and the player will have to find a way to navigate the factions to their advantage.
A Faithful Adaptation
So far, the game's reviews have been positive. They have commended Awakening for staying very consistent with the world of the Denis Villeneuve movies, from the aesthetics to the music. Thanks to a collaboration with Frank Herbert's son Brian, there are also great references to the original source material.
With Dune: Messiah still underway, Awakening does seem like the perfect avenue for fans to get immersed in the world of Dune. Sure, it may be set in an alternate timeline, but a lot of the pieces may be very close to how exactly the story with the Fremen plays out in the original movie; it will be just up to the players if they want to pull on those exact strings for their playthrough.
No release date has been set for Dune: Awakening, but the game is expected to launch for Xbox Series X|S, PC, and PS5 later this year.