After a delay, one of our most anticipated games of the year, Dune: Awakening, will kick off its head start launch this week on June 5. As for some last-minute good news for players, developer Funcom has confirmed that rentable private servers will be available starting that date. Previously, the team was aiming to have private servers available for post-launch, but managed to get them incorporated in time so players can start with them right out of the gate. There are some caveats, however, as Dune: Awakening features a unique server and world structure.
Although players will be able to rent private servers, only Hagga Basin is actually private. Areas such as the Deep Desert, Harko Village, and Arrakeen continue to be shared, and each World will have multiple private servers that all share social hubs and the Deep Desert. Funcom decided to go this direction because it didn’t want to remove the fundamental MMO-like features that make the game unique, but private servers still give players some control over their experience.
Those who choose to rent a private server will basically be renting a server containing a single instance of Hagga Basin. That private server belongs to a World consisting of other private servers, and players will be able to choose a World for the private server. Players won’t have the ability to rent or control social hubs or the Deep Desert. Those will continue to be provided by the server hosting company. There will be some customizable settings for Hagga Basin, which include disabling security zones, disabling taxation, and disabling sandstorms. For now, private servers won’t have an admin control panel and it will not support character transfers. Funcom is considering adding this functionality later on, but won’t commit to it right now.
At launch, there are three official hosting companies from which to rent Dune: Awakening servers:
