Dune Awakening devs "looking into options" for private servers, but no promises

Dune Awakening, the upcoming survival MMO from Funcom, would certainly be a lot more fun if you could use a private server. This way, certain communities, or friend groups, could play alone. Even one or two people who want to explore and fight together could do that without anyone else interfering. While this is a nice idea, it doesn’t sound like players should expect it right now.

Private servers are something that the fanbase definitely wants to have access to, but if it’s something you’re expecting at launch, Dune Awakening cannot guarantee it. Some things, like no in-game monetization, have been promised by the developers, but private servers are another story.

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Private Servers will not be available at launch for Dune Awakening, but devs are looking into it

During the March 24, 2025, Dune Awakening livestream, the topic of private servers came up during the Q&A session. It’s a popular feature for survival games like this. It allows players to just play the game with the people they want to, or to invite streaming communities to come together to explore the same sandbox world without potential griefers.

(Information is available from 1:59:53)

Natascha (Senior PR) did state that they understand that private servers are something the community wants badly — in particular, the roleplaying part of the community. Natascha also highlighted the aspects that go into decisions regarding private servers:

“There’s a lot of things that go into decisions, and technical aspects, when it comes to private servers. There’s ‘how much can you mod them’, ‘can we allow them to be modded’. But then, especially, our server structure is somewhat complicated, and needs to be taken into consideration as well.”

The developers are aware that private servers are a very popular feature for Dune Awakening, and they’re “looking into options” to help facilitate this for the community. Unfortunately, they can’t make any promises right now, but it is something they’re looking at.

Hopefully, post-launch, we’ll hear news about private servers being available for purchase, and players will be able to tackle this online survival multiplayer game with specific communities. We certainly understand the want to play with just a specific group of people, though. Once Funcom has further information about this, we'll update you accordingly.

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Check out our other Dune Awakening guides and features

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• Dune Awakening: All Starting Classes and Skills (known so far)
• Dune Awakening’s Coriolis storms will act as a weekly map reset