Dune: Awakening is finally making Deep Desert and shipwreck PvP fully optional

After spending the better part of a year sanding down the edges of Dune: Awakening's PvP system, Funcom has finally decided to throw in the towel. In a new developer update for April, Funcom said it's become clear that it needs to "rethink our approach and underline the PvE-first nature of the game," and so it's disabling all PvP zones in Hagga Basin and adding separate PvP and PvE instances for endgame players.

Effectively mandatory PvP in Dune: Awakening's Deep Desert endgame zone—basically, if you want to get the really cool stuff, you have to risk getting ganked by other players—has been one of the most persistent complaints about the game. Funcom said in June 2025, just a couple weeks after Dune: Awakening launched, that its goal "is not to force PvE players to interact with a PvP system that they may have no interest in," and just days later it split the Deep Desert in half, leaving the northern half PvP-enabled, while the southern portion was made PvE only.

But that didn't stop complaints, and after more tweaking and tuning through multiple subsequent updates, Funcom has seen enough.

"With over 80% of our lifetime players exclusively engaging with PvE content, the convergence of PvE and PvP, particularly in the Deep Desert, didn’t align with our objectives and remained a significant topic of discussion," Funcom wrote in today's update.

"Combining our goals, the in-game data, and the results of player surveys, made it clear that we needed to rethink our approach and underline the PvE-first nature of the game. While PvP conflict is an important aspect of Dune: Awakening for some, it must be optional and incentivized rather than required for progression."

Funcom said some of the issues have been addressed with "new repeatable gameplay loops" added in Dune: Awakening Chapter 3, and four bigger changes are on the way:

• All PvP zones in Hagga Basin will be disabled across all official Worlds.
• All official Worlds will have separate Deep Desert instances you can choose from:
• A PvE instance for pure survival and exploration experience with no player combat. There is no PvP in this instance across any of the rows, including Shipwrecks.
• A PvP instance with the classic high-stakes environment and open-world conflict across rows B through I. To make sure the rewards match the risk, the yield from mining and spice harvesting will be multiplied by 2.5 in PvP areas.

"By separating these experiences, we allow players to hunt for spice or explore Imperial Testing Stations without the constant threat of a blade in the dark, while ensuring those who live for the thrill of the hunt have a dedicated arena to prove their mettle and the rewards to make it worthwhile," Funcom wrote.

The PvP overhaul isn't the only big change in the works. Dune: Awakening is also getting self-hosted servers that will let players run their own private servers with unique rules and customizable settings, beginning with things like resource harvesting rates, adjustable limits on base building pieces, and item durability and base decay options. Funcom said it's releasing the feature early to get feedback, and warned that the initial iteration of self-hosted servers is both experimental and a little technical, requiring "a computer running Microsoft Windows Pro with Hyper-V in order to run the servers in a Linux Virtual Machine."

We are reworking the way PvP and PvE interact, and we will soon begin testing self-hosted servers for Dune: Awakening!Read more about it in our latest Developer Update.???? https://duneawakening.com/news/developer-update-april-2026/

— @duneawakening.com (@duneawakening.com.bsky.social) 2026-04-09T21:44:49.586Z

You'll also need a reasonably capable PC to do the job, particularly with regards to RAM. Hardware requirements will vary based on how many people are playing at once and what they're all doing, but the minimum at this point, for 1-4 players on the same map doing "normal activity," is:

• OS: Windows 10 64-bit Pro with Hyper-V
• Memory: 20 GB RAM
• Processor: Intel Core i5-8400 / AMD Ryzen 5 1600
• Network: Broadband Internet connection
• Storage: 100GB
• Additional notes: SSD required

Funcom warned, however, that CPU and RAM demands "increase rapidly with number of players and number of maps."

A specific date for all of this wasn't announced, but self-hosted server testing is expected to begin soon. The PvP/PvE rework will roll out as part of the upcoming 1.3.20.0 patch.