Solo Dune: Awakening can finish the story in under 100 hours

On 1 September 2026 Funcom explained how solo mode will loosen the pace of the multiplayer grind. At Gamescom 2026, chief creative director Joel Bylos said a solo player does not have to spend about 100 hours in Dune: Awakening: change some settings, and the story can be finished in roughly 50 to 80 hours.

He does not think a hundred hours is excessive. In that time, he said, a player gets a large amount of content, especially for a game that is only a little more than a year old. The complaints about the MMO side are about length and grind. In the shared world the studio sets the pace of progression, the balance, and the events, because they have to line up for a large number of players.

Solo hands those levers to the player. Survival on Arrakis can stay close to the usual experience, or the limits can be eased so the story ends sooner. Bylos put the difference briefly: in solo the experience is entirely yours, while in multiplayer the studio controls more of it.

The developers also admitted that the multiplayer endgame can feel too grindy right now, and they plan to make that part more comfortable.