Dune: Awakening live coverage: Server status, launch info, and all the latest news

At long last, Dune: Awakening is here. While people who purchased the more expensive editions have been playing since June 5, today is the day Funcom's survival MMO goes into full launch. As written! As of 7:00 am PST the game is officially out and the servers are up.

I'll keeping tabs on the launch, the community reaction, and anything that comes up during Dune: Awakening's launch. If you want to see how servers are coping with the influx of new players and keep up with the latest news, check back often!

Dune: Awakening review-in-progress: Fun in the sun

I know, I know, it's way to early to even think about a proper review since I've only been playing since Thursday and this is an MMO that's meant to be played for hundreds of hours. But I thought I'd put together a few early thoughts covering my first 25 hours of the game. There's plenty more to come!

In short: I'm having fun. For a bit more elaboration, read my Dune: Awakening review-in-progress.

Players are already riding sandworms—even though that's not an actual feature

Spotted this yesterday, but players have already figured out how to ride sandworms, even though Funcom expressly said that wasn't going to be a feature in Dune: Awakening (yet). Turns out, if you use the right combo of skills and gear, you can tempt the worm to charge, avoid it's gaping maw, and leap onto its back for a ride.

Here's video to prove it. Lisan al-Gaib!

Funcom is "closely monitoring servers and spinning up new ones" for launch day

So far, so good? I'm not seeing any major complaints about server issues and playercount is steadily rising since this morning's patch and launch. I'm sure a lot of players are still downloading the game and haven't actually tried to join a server, though, so we'll keep a close eye on things.

"We are closely monitoring servers and spinning up new ones as necessary to give everyone a place to call home on Arrakis," Funcom said on the official Discord. The list of Dune: Awakening servers has also been updated. For those who have been playing with advanced access, Funcom says "5 additional Hagga Basins have also been added to the head start servers."

North American servers had some "unplanned downtime" and some are "taking a little longer to become available"

Looks like North American servers have had a bit of trouble this morning. They went down completely for a bit, in what Funcom called "unplanned downtime" on the official Discord. They began coming back up around 6:00 am PST, though "some newly created NA worlds and servers are taking a little longer to become available."

Hopefully that will be the end of North American's server woes. Small sample size (a sample size of one) but I just jumped into my NA server with no problem. I hope you're having smooth sailing, too.

Dune: Awakening had its first Coriolis storm last night, and it looked pretty intense

Last night Dune: Awakening got its first Coriolis storm: the weekly event where the Deep Desert map gets overwritten: resources, points of interest, and any player structures in the Deep Desert zone get completely wiped. The storm's arrival also leads into weekly server maintenance.

But just because the storm is a nice cover for Funcom to shut servers down and wipe the desert clean doesn't mean there isn't some immersion. In the hours leading up to the storm, winds increase, sand blows around, and lightning begins to strike. If you're outside in it, your character will even put their hand up to shield their face from the harsh winds.

Here's a video from Reddit where you can see it in action. I'm not advanced enough to make it to the Deep Desert yet, but even in other areas of the map you can see the weather getting worse and worse as the storm approaches. Pretty cool.

Steam store issue: Players can't upgrade from deluxe to ultimate edition

Players are reporting issue with upgrading from the Dune: Awakening deluxe edition to the ultimate edition. There should just be an option to pay the difference in cost between the two (like when you upgrade from the base edition to the deluxe edition), but apparently it informs players that they need to buy the deluxe edition... which they already have.

Funcom is aware of the problem and is investigating.