As 2026 rolls along, Dune: Awakening's endgame Deep Desert has been busy evolving from a PvP-only thunder dome into something a little more welcoming—though it still has teeth. For a while, conflict-averse players could practically hear the sandworms snickering as they approached the Deep Desert only to find the door guarded by rocket-slinging Ornithopters and very patient snipers. Now Funcom says a side entrance is on the way.
The developer has announced that, starting soon, the Deep Desert will gain designated PvE areas where players can gather the game's top-tier resources without volunteering for full-scale PvP. Creative director Joel Bylos didn't mince words: 'We want PvE players to be able to play the endgame and have access to the content of the endgame. Our goal is not to force PvE players to interact with a PvP system that they may have no interest in.' In other words, the spice is no longer only for the spicy. If a player wants to farm in peace, Funcom is finally tossing them a bone.
But hold on—solo wanderers shouldn't expect a leisurely nature walk. Bylos warned that going alone will still feel grindy. The endgame remains balanced around guilds and groups, and the most profitable spice fields and resource caches will stay in high-risk, high-reward PvP zones. Think of the PvE area as a pleasant picnic spot, while the real all-you-can-eat buffet still sits inside the blast zone.
The Ornithopter eats humble pie
The Scout Ornithopter has been running the Deep Desert like a winged landlord, but its lease is getting revised. Funcom recently removed the ability to damage other players by ramming them with vehicles, and now the studio is planning more changes to stop thopters from ruling every PvP battle. Those changes include bigger penalties for equipping Scout Ornithopters with rockets and a new rocket launcher that gives ground players a proper way to swat the flying menace out of the sky.
Bylos explained the design philosophy with the patience of someone who has watched one too many thopter montages: 'We have infantry and ground vehicles and air vehicles, and they're all supposed to have clear roles, clear strengths, and clear counters. Thopters will always be incredibly important for crossing the desert, but they shouldn't be the dominant force in actual battles. We're planning to make more changes to the Deep Desert to accommodate ground battles and reinforce the use of player builds.' Translation: the thopter is still a great desert taxi, but it isn't supposed to be the entire air force, navy, and infantry rolled into one.
The Landsraad finally gets a softer side
The Landsraad endgame system has also been doing some soul-searching. Bylos admitted it 'isn't exactly in the right place.' Right now, most tasks reward huge turn-ins of resources or crafted items, so smart players simply hoard materials in advance and then dump them the moment a task appears. That wasn't the grand political drama Funcom had in mind. The plan is to add more micro rewards for solo players and small groups, making the system feel less like a warehouse-hamster wheel and more like an actual political arena.
Here's a quick cheat sheet of what's changing:
| Change | What it means for players |
|---|---|
| Deep Desert PvE zones | Peaceful access to top-tier resources, but solo play stays grindy |
| Ornithopter adjustments | New rocket launcher, harsher rocket penalties, less air supremacy |
| Landsraad updates | Micro rewards for solo players and small groups, less stockpile-and-dump |
A million copies and a serious player count
Despite all the endgame complaints from PvE players since its June 5, 2025 advanced access launch, Dune: Awakening has been doing numbers that would make a Guild Navigator blink. The game recently hit a new concurrent-player record of 189,000 players, according to SteamDB, and Funcom announced it has sold one million copies. That makes it the fastest-selling game in the studio's history. Not too shabby for a title whose endgame briefly looked like an exclusive club with a very cranky bouncer.
So while the Deep Desert still has plenty of sand, spice, and sudden violence, it is also becoming a place where more players can find a reason to stay. Funcom seems to understand that an endgame shouldn't just be a playground for the loudest thopter pilots—it should be a living desert where guilds, small groups, and cautious hermits all get to play their own way. Or at least, that's the pitch.