Well, it took several decades but the Dune franchise is finally turning into the kind of multimedia mega-franchise it always had the potential to become. The latest Dune thing to sweep the world is Dune: Awakening, a new video game from Funcom that came out earlier this month. "Dune: Awakening launched June 10 and 1,000,000 players have awakened! It’s now Funcom’s fastest-selling game ever," the studio said in a statement, per IGN. "We have seen so many amazing things from all of you — the bases, the close calls with Shai-Hulud, the epic vehicle jumps, the struggles, discoveries, victories, heroic deaths, and so much more... We salute you, Sleepers."
Dune: Awakening has gotten solid reviews from critics. It features a unique story: you play as an agent of the Bene Gesserit agent sent to the desert planet of Arrakis, which is a dangerous place as Houses Harkonnens and the Atreides battle for dominance. You're there to find the Fremen, the native inhabitants of Arrakis, who have disappeared. That's the story mode. You can also go into the "Deep Desert" to fight other players in a multiplayer mode. And whole thing takes place in an alternate universe where Paul Atreides was never born.
So the plot of Dune: Awakening has seemingly little to do with anything that Dune author Frank Herbert ever wrote, nor with anything his son Brian Herbert ever wrote after his death; there are a lot of Dune books out there. But the fact that Dune: Awakening is popular anyway goes to show how compelled people are with the brand right now. This game is hitting at the right time, whereas a video game like Game of Thrones: Kingsroad came out a few years after the Game of Thrones hype cycle reached its peak. In love, war and video game releases, timing is everything.
As we speak, director Denis Villeneuve is working on Dune: Part III, the final movie in his Dune trilogy, although Warner Bros. Discovery may be laying the groundwork to make more after he leaves. Meanwhile, HBO is mounting a second season of Dune: Prophecy, its TV show set thousands of years before the events of Dune. The iron is hot on Dune right now, and everyone is striking. So far, they haven't missed.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and Twitter account, sign up for our exclusive newsletter and check out our YouTube channel.