Dune: Awakening Trailer Previews Open-World Action Survival MMO

In a repeat from last weekend, the animated adventure Kung Fu Panda 4 and Dune: Part Two led the box office, per Deadline. Both movies maintained their strong performance, with Panda experiencing only a 48% decline, accumulating $30 million in its second weekend and reaching a domestic total of $107.7 million. Meanwhile, Dune saw a 37% drop, earning $29.1 million in its third weekend and bringing its domestic total to $205.3 million.

The domestic box office received a nice shot in the arm this weekend thanks to Kung Fu Panda 4 and Dune: Part Two, which helped propel business 13% over last year, per Deadline. DreamWorks Animation’s fourth entry in the long-running franchise featuring the voice of Jack Black got off to a hot start, earning $55 million in its debut week. This makes it the second-highest opening for Po and Co., trailing only the original Panda’s $60M opening in 2008. That film earned $631M worldwide, followed by Kung Fu Panda 2’s $664M and Kung Fu Panda 3’s $521M. How high can Po fly? With an A- CinemaScore, on par with the original, there’s a chance this one legs out to solid worldwide numbers.

Dune: Awakening's developer says religion will have a reduced role in the upcoming open-world survival MMO compared to its source material.

Hot on the heels of yesterday's gameplay reveal, we've learned more about Funcom's upcoming MMO, Dune: Awakening, which remains shrouded in mystery. Crucially, we knew the story would take place in an alternate universe set a few years before the events of the Frank Herbert books or Dennis Villeneuve films and would ignore one of the most critical aspects of its universe, religion, for undisclosed spoiler reasons. Now you've got our attention!

Visually, looks like it's set in the world of Denis Villeneuve's movie adaptations, with the studio behind these films, Legendary, having shared assets with the development team at Funcom, as well as inviting them on set. Despite this, the game's story has made at least one massive change from the book and the movies that could have major consequences going forward.

The creators of longtime survival MMO Conan Exiles – Funcom – have just shown off the upcoming Dune: Awakening, so it’s time for us to delve into some release date speculation, as well as taking a look at the pre-order situation, gameplay details and a trailer to cap it all off.

Joel Bylos, chief creative officer at Funcom and creative director of Dune: Awakening,has stated that the game will focus on a «topical» war «between humans and artificial intelligence.» 

Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Two film wormed its way through theaters over the weekend, and if you’ve still got sand in the brain, there’s plenty more where that came from. Namely, Funcom shared a closer look at the upcoming Dune: Awakening survival game, which is in the works for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.

The Spice is undoubtedly in the air, with Part Two of Dennis Villeneuve's Dune film adaptation of Frank Herbert's epic sci-fi series now in theatres. Striking while the iron is hot, we also got a stunning gameplay trailer from Funcom for the upcoming survival MMO Dune: Awakening, which was revealed in August 2022 and prophesied to come to PS5 someday.

Developer Funcom has confirmed that Dune Awakening will let you join guilds under two factions, along with a third that is yet to be revealed. 

Dune Awakening had to make some changes to its source material, and the developers needed express permission to make that happen.

While looks to provide players with an authentic Arrakis experience, two iconic parts of creator Frank Herbert's world haven't made it into the game. Given the gigantic scale of and the various aspects that must be included to authentically adapt the sci-fi universe, it stands to reason that certain aspects would need to be changed or added through future updates. Fortunately for players, developer Funcom has good reason for leaving out some iconic parts of the franchise.