Dune: Awakening Loses Nearly 90% of Players Just Over Two Months After Launch

Two months after launch, Dune: Awakening’s Steam average sits nearly 90% below its all-time peak.

Dune: Awakening is Funcom’s open-world survival MMO set on Arrakis. The PC version launched on June 10, 2025, with early access starting on June 5. For what’s coming next, Funcom says Chapter 2 will arrive on September 10, 2025, alongside the paid “The Lost Harvest” DLC.

While the game’s been getting constant updates and patches, the player-count trend on Steam isn’t looking great. Earlier this month, we reported that the game is now nearly 80% of its peak player numbers since June 2025. And now, it looks like that number keeps dropping.

Using Steam’s public data, the game’s current “Last 30 Days” average is a fraction of its launch peak, more on that below.

Dune: Awakening Steam player count (August 2025)

According to SteamDB, a third-party app that tracks player data, Dune: Awakening hit an all-time peak of 189,333 concurrent players at launch in June. The Last 30 Days show an average of 22,411 concurrent players, which is about an 88% drop from the peak. (22,411 is ~11.8% of 189,333)

In other words, the launch month saw massive player numbers because the game was new and there was a lot of curiosity around the first big Dune game; two-plus months later, the average has settled far lower. Peaks also cooled: the recent 24-hour peak of 24,828 is ~87% below the all-time high.

Here’s the full breakdown of the Dune: Awakening player count on Steam:

• All-time peak: 189,333 (June 2025)
• June average: 96,218 (baseline)
• July average: 49,715 (−48.3% vs June)
• Last 30 days average: 22,411 (−54.9% vs July; −76.7% vs June; −88.2% vs all-time peak)
• 24-hour peak: 24,828 (−86.9% vs all-time peak 189,333)

A drop this steep isn’t unusual for big PC launches, but a few factors likely made it sharper here: launch hype inflated the all-time peak, and once the early progression loop was done, a lot of casual players moved on.

This, combined with the endgame Deep Desert experience, which has been widely criticized as extremely toxic, especially for new players. Then, the push-pull between PvE and PvP has also been a sticking point; some players felt funneled into fights they didn’t want, while balance swings (like the rocket-Ornithopter nerfs) frustrated others.

On the content side, Funcom is pointing fans to the free Chapter 2 update and its paired Lost Harvest DLC, launching on September 10, 2025. After that, the roadmap lays out a steady, roughly quarterly cadence: free Chapters that push the story and systems forward, each paired with a themed DLC drop, plus a monthly loop of testing fixes on a Test client before pushing to the Live game. In 2026, the devs have teased a full expansion, console releases, and more DLC updates.

Below, you can check out the full roadmap for Dune Awakening in 2025 and 2026:

• September 2025 – Chapter 2 (free): Main story continues; character re-customization, dynamic encounters, social hub contracts, new Deep Desert layouts, new archetype armors, new hairstyles and tattoos, and more.
• September 2025 – DLC “Lost Harvest” (paid): New vehicle, new contract chain with unique locations, new building pieces and decorations, new armor and weapon skins, new Swatch and Emotes, and more.
• Jan–Mar 2026 – Chapter 3 (free): Revamped endgame & more.
• Jan–Mar 2026 – DLC “Raiders of the Broken Lands” (paid)
• Apr–Jun 2026 – Chapter 4 (free): To be revealed.
• Apr–Jun 2026 – DLC “The Water Wars” (paid)
• 2026 (beyond the above): Expansion, consoles, more free updates, more DLCs. (no dates yet)

If Chapter 2 lands well, and if promised fixes keep trimming pain points, there’s room for a bump in player numbers. But for now, all we can do is wait and see how all this pans out.

What’s your experience with Dune: Awakening right now? Sticking with it through Chapter 2, or taking a break until bigger changes? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!