A new Dune video game is in the works with two prestigious studios at the helm and they are excited about taking on this project with lots of backing support.
Today, the teams at NUKKLEAR and Funcom are delighted to announce their partnership on bringing a video game based on Frank Herbert’s novel, Dune. You heard that right! The world of Arrakis will be playable in their next project. To help with NUKKLEAR’s development and production work, the studio was awarded the German Federal Government Grant from the Bundesministerium für Verkehr und digitale Infrastruktur (BMVI) with roughly 1.6 million euros (approximately $1.8 million USD).
The CEO of NUKKLEAR, Kirk Lenke, commented on the collaboration, ““We’re grateful to Funcom for bringing us on to help bring Dune to a new medium. We’ve supported and collaborated on many projects over the years, but taking on Dune is by far the biggest yet. Our team welcomes the challenge and is confident in the expertise that NUKKLEAR brings to the table.”
It will be quite the challenge indeed. This is not the first time hearing about a Dune video game in the works since Funcom originally made an announcement in 2019 that they had secured the rights to use the sci-fi world. Funcom is most recently popular for the success of their online multiplayer survival game, Conan Exiles, that peaked gamers’ interests back in 2017. Now, it is with the push and help from Tencent and NUKKLEAR, this new project will be able to flourish.
“We’ve benefited particularly from their expertise in vehicular-based gameplay, but I know them as highly skilled and creative game developers in general.” Said the Funcom CEO, Rui Casais. They also shared this is Funcom’s “most ambitious and biggest” projects yet and that having NUKKLEAR’s special skills greatly helps move this venture along.
NUKKLEAR has worked on so many video games like Destroy All Humans and collaborated with many studios before to bring about works like Rockfish Games’ Everspace. The team has most recently published a futuristic helicopter shooter game, Comanche, and hopes to bring their skills with large online 3D games into this Dune game in the works.
There is no release date or further details as to what the story or gameplay will look like, other than it will be a survival game. It is unclear whether this will also be set in the Dune world seen in the latest film or in part two. I guess we can all expect to be eaten by sandworms…I mean, NOT, be eaten! Perhaps, this will allow players to run their own spice empire. Only time will tell.
