Developer and publisher Funcom is proud to announce that Dune: Awakening is now available on Steam! The time has come to rise from survival to greatness and challenge the power of an Imperium in what is not only the biggest Dune game ever made, but also one of the most ambitious survival games to date.

Those who bought the Deluxe or Ultimate Edition have had the opportunity to play the in the 5-day head start that began on June 5th. During that time, Dune: Awakening saw 117,087 people play at peak concurrency on Steam, a number that is expected to soar even higher now that the floodgates are open and the pre-order phase is concluded.

Razer, the leading global lifestyle brand for gamers, announced the integration of Razer Sensa HD Haptics and Razer Chroma RGB features into Dune: Awakening, the highly anticipated open-world, multiplayer survival MMO developed by Funcom. In the latest addition to the Dune franchise, players will do any and all things Dune-related, from building a fortress to mastering the power that lies within the planet of Arrakis for the taking.

Conquer the sands of Arrakis with Razer Sensa HD Haptics and Razer Chroma RGB
Step into the sands of Arrakis like never before with Razer Sensa HD Haptics, delivering over 230 specially curated haptic feedback effects that bring the harsh, immersive world of Dune: Awakening to life. Supported on Razer Sensa HD Haptics-enabled devices like the Razer Freyja gaming cushion, Razer Kraken V4 Pro gaming headset, and Razer Wolverine V3 Pro gaming controller, players can experience ultra-low latency, multi-directional haptic sensations that let them feel every pulse of combat. Whether it is the thunderous rumble of a sandworm erupting behind you to the sharp jolt of a lasgun blast striking from the left, Razer Sensa HD Haptics provides a directional sense of danger and terrain awareness—turning every encounter into a heightened sense of spatial awareness and instinctive experience.

Welcome to the second week of June and boy is it a crowded week of big new releases after a week of mainly Switch 2 games. It's almost as if every game publisher out there decided that this is the week to release a new game and it all kicks off with a dusty game full of worms for this week's major release. First out in the regular line-up is a retro top down arcade game, followed by a futuristic third-person shooter, an MMORPG, a long time coming Korean ARPG and a sci-fi survival game. Make sure to check out the additional release this week as well.

Dune: Awakening / This week's major release / Tuesday 10 June
Dune: Awakening is an open world, multiplayer survival game on a massive scale. More than just survival, Dune: Awakening offers a large-scale, persistent and highly immersive world with social hubs bustling with other players, server-wide politics and intrigue, and a cinematic storyline that will leave you at the edge of your seat. The Fremen have vanished. Paul Atreides was never born. Lady Jessica obeyed the Bene Gesserit and gave birth to a girl. Duke Leto Atreides survived the assault on Arrakeen and is now locked in a brutal conflict with the Harkonnen over Arrakis and its precious spice. Steam link

Greetings soon-to-be-awakened, today, just about 72 hours before the floodgates open, we can finally share with you that rentable private servers will be available from head start launch on June 5th! We've previously communicated that private servers are for post-launch, but we're happy to share that progress has been faster than expected. We do, however, want to manage expectations about how private servers work in Dune: Awakening. As you know, this is not your typical survival game.

Why private servers work differently in Dune: Awakening
Dune: Awakening is powered by a unique server and world structure, something we went in-depth on in a recent blog post. In short: each server belongs to a World consisting of several other servers, and each of those share the same social hubs and Deep Desert. This allows us to retain a neighborhood-like feel to the Hagga Basin and provide persistent, freeform building, and other server-demanding mechanics you typically see in survival games. We combine this with the large-scale multiplayer mechanics you would expect to find in MMOs where hundreds of players meet each other in social hubs and the Deep Desert to engage in social activities, trade, conflict, and more.

Greetings Sleepers, we're less than two weeks away from launch of Dune: Awakening (and head start is even closer!). It's time to grab your Fremkit, put on your stillsuit, and start getting ready. The first thing you need to know is exactly when you can start playing. Dune: Awakening will first be available in head start on June 5th for those who have pre-ordered either the Deluxe or Ultimate Edition. Pre-ordering either edition, or the base edition, will also unlock the Terrarium of Muad'Dib pre-order reward.

Official launch is June 10th, at which point pre-orders (and the Terrarium of Muad'Dib reward) will no longer be available for purchase. The base, Deluxe, and Ultimate Editions will be available for regular purchase from that point onwards. The game will unlock for play on Steam at 16:00 CEST / 10am EDT, both on June 5th and June 10th. For other regions, we've included a map above with some select locations to help you figure out when it will be available in your area. Pre-load will be available to all pre-order owners 24 hours before head start on June 4th, but please be aware that pre-ordering the base edition does not grant head start access.

In addition to new PC cases and PSUs, the company also brought its new MAKR 75 DIY keyboard to the Computex 2025 show, promising to bring a simplified way of creating an ultra-personalized DIY keyboard, all thanks to the Corsair Web Hub. Corsair is also showing off new Stream Deck integrations for its SCIMITAR ELITE WIRELESS SE mouse, which gives it a whole new level of functionality, allowing users to manage the setup, workflows, and more.

The Corsair MAKR 75 DIY keyboard, or the MAKR 75 Barebones Keyboard Kit, as Corsair has launched it, should combine the best of both worlds, customization of DIY keyboards and performance of gaming keyboards. Corsair makes it simple by allowing users to customize the keyboard through Corsair Web Hub, where there is a wide choice of keycaps, switches, frame options, a special module which can be equipped with a rotary dial or small LCD screen, and more. The Corsair MAKR 75 DIY keyboard features 8K hyper-polling, FlashTap SOCD, gasket mounting, 8-layers of sound dampening, aluminium frame, screw-in stabilizers and much more.

It seems as though Digital Extremes, the developer behind Warframe, and now Soulframe, is ready for a larger audience to try out the new sci-fi fantasy game. Soulframe is being pitched as a co-op action hybrid-MMORPG with challenging Soulslike combat mechanics and some elements borrowed from Warframe. After running closed alpha testing for what seems like an eternity—since late 2023, in reality—Digital Extremes recently announced that interested gamers would have a short time to claim Envoy access for early game testing by linking their Twitch account to their Soulframe account.

Digital Extremes has kept the scope of its early tests quite narrow until now, and opening the invitations to a wider audience is an indication that the game is starting to take a more cohesive shape, even if the move wasn't the original plan. According to the announcement on Discord and the Soulframe forum, anyone who links their Soulframe account to their Twitch account before April 29 at 3 PM ET will receive a Soulframe Preludes invitation via email. This announcement comes after technical issues plagued the Twitch Drop campaign that was active during Devstream 5 on Friday, 25 April. Players who already have a preludes access key be able to transfer their key to a friend or another person.

An unlucky owner of a GIGABYTE AORUS GeForce RTX 5080 MASTER ICE 16 GB graphics card has reported a baffling instance of thermal gel leakage. A forum post—titled: "5080 oh my god thermal problem"—on the Quasar Zone BBS alerted the wider world to this bizarre fault. The South Korean MMORPG enthusiast described circumstances up until the point of critical liquefaction: "it's been exactly a month since I bought it. I use it for (Blizzard's) World of Warcraft. Two hours of use per day. I set up the card with a riser kit. Thermal (material) is crawling out?!" Early 2025 press coverage has largely focused on other types of unwanted high temperature events involving GeForce RTX 50-series cards, but the seeping out of "server-grade thermal conductive gel" compound is something new. As reported by several PC hardware news outlets, GIGABYTE has utilized fancy thermal conductive gel within flagship SKUs—instead of traditional/conventional thermal pads. This gel was placed over the card's VRAM and MOSFET sections; following fairly light usage (as described above) some of this material started to head down—getting ever closer to the unit's PCIe interface.

Assisted by the AORUS RTX 5080 MASTER ICE's vertical orientation, the (apparently) highly deformable, but non-fluid thermal gel was susceptible to the effects of gravity. JC Hyun System Co., Ltd.—GIGABYTE's official domestic importer (for South Korea)—weighed in with a separate bulletin: "we are aware of the thermal gel issue with the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 50 series, which was first posted on Quasar Zone—(we) are currently discussing the thermal gel issue with GIGABYTE HQ and future customer service regulations. In addition, we sincerely apologize for the confusion caused to many customers who love and use GIGABYTE products due to inaccurate guidance provided to customers who received the products due to unclear customer service regulations regarding the issue that occurred this time. Lastly, when the manufacturer's customer service policy regarding this thermal gel issue is finalized, we will also forward the service policy to CS Innovation so that it can be processed smoothly in accordance with the service policy. We will also provide information through a separate post so that more customers can be aware of the information." As mentioned by Notebookcheck, GIGABYTE uses this special thermal gel solution on other highly expensive custom: "RTX 50-series cards like the GeForce RTX 5090 XTREME WATERFORCE 32G, RTX 5090 MASTER ICE, RTX 5070 Ti MASTER, and others."

Welcome to Easter week and this week kicks off with a dark ARPG that offers six unique classes. This is followed by an open world MMORPG with retro vibes, a photography sim, a cute retro RPG, an escape room that's an entire world and finally a co-op survival game that involves a lot of flying, just not in planes.

Mandragora: Whispers of the Witch Tree / This week's major release / Thursday 17 April
Create your Inquisitor from one of six unique Classes, and wield blades and magic to battle nightmarish creatures. Craft hundreds of weapons and items, and learn powerful Talents to define your combat style. Explore a vast, interconnected world and unearth its secrets across 60 quests that will push your skills to their limits. Steam link

Earlier today, ZOTAC unveiled a special edition spin-off of its relatively new GeForce RTX 5070 X-Gaming 12 GB design. The manufacturer's Weibo channel outlined the very exclusive nature of this MMORPG-themed offering (via machine translation): "watch the finals and get a graphics card! ZOTAC and the first 'Jian Wang 3' competitive group hero joint customized graphics card, fine customization, supports NVIDIA DLSS 4 and Reflex 2 technology, excellent performance. On April 12-13, Nanjing Ledongli Jiangning International E-sports Center, watch the heroes aiming for the top!" According to an ITHome report, the Chinese brand has redecorated its overclocked GeForce RTX 5070 X-Gaming model with Jian Wang 3 characters. ZOTAC's promotional shots showcase a customized backplate, and the same illustration of Jian Wang 3's main cast adorning the card's retail box.

Late last month, Kuroutoshikou Japan introduced a less impressive Blade and Soul NEO-themed rebadge of their standard Radeon RX 7600 SKU—essentially, PowerColor's Fighter RX 7600 design. ITHome noted that ZOTAC has a short-ish history of readying very limited edition designs for past Jian Wang 3 Masters Tournaments. 2024's prize was based on the manufacturer's GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER TRINITY OC White SKU. 2023 finalists were gifted with customized GeForce RTX 4070 Ti X-Gaming OC cards. Both of the previous gen tie-in designs sported Jian Wang 3 graphics or symbols on their shrouds, while the latest entry simply reuses its base SKU's "youthful graffiti" aesthetic.

Kuroutoshikou—a Japanese PC hardware brand—has introduced a special Blade and Soul NEO collaboration Radeon RX 7600 8 GB model. The company's press release goes into great detail about their retail packaging being "decorated with the beautiful characters and gorgeous stages of Blade," but the card itself is not adorned with any fancy illustrations or markings. In fact, the bare black design seems to be borrowed almost directly from PowerColor's Fighter stable (minus two stickers). As pointed out by VideoCardz, Kuroutoshikou already offers a "normal edition" Radeon RX 7600 SKU—minus NCSoft-related material. An exclusive in-game bonus seems to be the main draw here—as disclosed in the company's marketing spiel: "if you purchase this product and apply on the special page, you will receive a campaign code for the limited costume 'Gentleness' that can be used in Blade and Soul NEO."

Kuroutoshikou will deliver their "RD-RX7600-8G/Blade & Soul NEO Collaboration" edition to market on April 4, which could place it in a similar release timeframe with natural successors—AMD and board partners are expected to launch Radeon RX 9060 Series graphics cards in the second quarter of 2025. Surprisingly, the lower end of RDNA 3 keeps generating news articles—PowerColor seems to be working on a "V2" Fighter Radeon RX 7600 SKU, while plenty of China market-exclusive Radeon RX 7650 GRE cards have appeared within the past month or two. A possible surplus of Navi 33 GPUs could explain the sudden "reemergence" of previous-gen hardware. Going back to Kuroutoshikou; their current graphics card portfolio seems to consist of slightly rebranded PowerColor designs for the AMD side of things, while NVIDIA GeForce offerings are rebadged GALAX IPs.

Dune: Awakening, the multiplayer survival game inspired by Frank Herbert's legendary sci-fi novel and Legendary Entertainment's award-winning films, will launch on May 20th. Funcom is excited to share that pre-orders begin today, and gamers everywhere are now less than two months away from descending upon the most dangerous planet in the universe.

The standard edition, the Deluxe Edition, and the Ultimate Edition are now available for pre-order on Steam, with the latter including, among many other goodies, an incredible, 90-minute-long digital soundtrack. In celebration of this moment, Funcom has prepared a journey behind the scenes of the making of the music, giving viewers a unique glimpse at how award-winning composer Knut Avenstroup Haugen brought the album to life with a live orchestra at the legendary AIR Lyndhurst studio in London.

BlizzCon is back! The ultimate celebration of our games and the community that unites us is returning to the Anaheim Convention Center Saturday, September 12, and Sunday, September 13, in 2026. One of our favorite traditions, BlizzCon brings us together over our shared passion for Blizzard's universes, but at its heart, BlizzCon has always been about so much more. It's about you, the communities you are a part of, and gives us the chance to connect, build friendships, and create unforgettable memories together.

We've come a long way since our first event in 2005. Over the past nearly 20 years since its inception, BlizzCon has inspired us to innovate, push the boundaries of creativity, and deliver once-in-a-lifetime moments. It's important that we put on an event worthy of our community. For 2026, alongside BlizzCon staples like Opening Ceremony, in-depth panels, the Darkmoon Faire, friendly competition, hands-on gameplay, and more, we aim to meaningfully elevate this iconic celebration and create an unforgettable experience for all who take part in it. We are building this event just like we build our games: with a deep commitment to our players, with respect for your connections to our universes, and as a celebration of the strength of the bonds formed through shared adventure.

An industry mole—familiar with internal NCSOFT activities—believes that three game development projects have been cancelled: Pantera, H, and J. Past speculation has pointed to "Project H" being an announced Horizon MMO title—based on evidence that emerged shortly after the announced formation of a "strategic global business partnership" between Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) and NCSOFT (back in 2023). Reportedly, Jim Ryan—the now former CEO and chairman of SIE—spearheaded PlayStation's concerted push into multi-faceted "live service" development cycles. Industry oracle, Jason Schreier, questioned the prioritization of "games as a service"—his late 2023 predictions seem very prescient, when looking at the present day landscape.

Last week, reports suggested two unannounced Sony-owned live-service games being placed on the proverbial chopping board. Bluepoint's much rumored "God of War" project was quietly canned according to Schreier's Bloomberg column, as well as a mysterious Bend Studios-produced title. NCSOFT's Project H—also known as "Skyline"—appears to be the victim of an internal "feasibility review." Target platforms were reported to be PC and mobile—therefore placing Project H/Skyline in a separate tranche; distinct from another online-oriented Horizon game. Franchise originator—Guerrilla Games—is reportedly still toiling away (with Bungie's guidance) on an upcoming multiplayer-focused release for PlayStation 5 home consoles.

As we enter the second to last week of January, we have another week packed to the brim full of new releases. The major release of this week allows you to walk around in 2016 km² of a mediaeval fantasy world with five different regions for some MMORPG action. This is followed by some 4X Roman strategy, a trip to Norse mythology hell or pretending to be one of King Arthur's knights. This is followed by a remake of another JPRG from a famous franchise and we end the week with an anime inspired PvP shooter.

The Quinfall / This week's major release / Friday 24 January / Early Access
Embark on an adventurous journey to explore the Quinfall universe. Be a part of unique battles and an immersive story with dozens of different professions in the depths of medieval times in an all-new MMORPG experience. Explore the world's largest MMORPG map with an area of 2016 km². Shape your adventure in five regions with their own unique, distinct climates. Steam link

Valve's next-gen hero shooter, Deadlock, has been making waves lately, with a recent update addressing cheating in a rather comical way. Now, it looks like the developers are putting in more work to both expand the game's hero roster and bring it up to feature-parity with other modern MMOs and PvP shooters. According to the changelog for the October 24 Deadlock update, Valve has added six new heroes to the game alongside some much-needed bug fixes, visual tweaks, and new social features.

The biggest news is obviously the new heroes, which, despite being added to the game, aren't quite ready for prime time just yet. As such, Valve has created a new experimental mode called Hero Labs, where players will be able to test new, potentially incomplete, heroes and provide feedback to the developers. The preliminary names for the six new heroes are Holliday, Calico, Wrecker, Fathom, Viper, and Magician, and Valve developer, Yoshi, is clear that these new heroes are still works-in-progress, with Magician in particular lacking his own ultimate ability. New heroes aren't the only changes coming to Deadlock, though, and Valve's update notes include a new character shader and better sky and environment illumination, a commend feature to show appreciation to other players, and a slew of balance changes to just about every character in the game.

Arc Raiders, the upcoming third-person PvPvE survival shooter from the developer of The Finals has received a date for its first tech test on Steam. This will apparently be the game's largest external play test to date, and, given the far-away release date, the developer will likely be evaluating things like server performance and game stability first and foremost—although players will likely be asked for feedback regarding game performance and features, as well. The tech test will run for four days, starting on October 24 and ending on October 27.

Players interested in trying out the upcoming extraction shooter can apply via the game's Steam Store page, although they will also need to agree to a non-disclosure agreement, and they will not be allowed to stream any gameplay, share any footage or images from the new game, or even talk about the playtest. In the announcement for the playtest, Embark Studios is clear that this is not meant to be a marketing push for Arc Raiders, despite the press wave that came with the tech test announcement, and the studio hopes to save the excitement for when the game fully releases in 2025.

Amazon Games recently launched the long-awaited free-to-play MMORPG, Throne and Liberty, in early access, and the game appears to have gone down quite well with the community. On Thursday, mere moments after the launch, Throne and Liberty already had a peak player count of 53,884—a figure it likely earned during its advanced access period in South East Asia and Korea, where it has been available since as early as December 2023.

Since then, Throne and Liberty has continued its success, rising to as many as 54,720 concurrent players on Saturday, September 28. While this only places it in third place for current top sellers on Steam, this player count is in spite of the free-to-play game's early access pass costing a minimum of $40 on Steam. Throne and Liberty has also garnered its significant following despite only 60% of its Steam user reviews being positive, making its success even more anomalous.

Digital Extremes's free-to-play third-person looter-shooter, Warframe, has changed radically over the years, serving as something of a golden example of how to do live-service games. The developer also shows no sign of slowing that progress, with the game's upcoming Warframe 1999 and Koumei & the Five Fates updates looking to introduce a slew of new content and gameplay updates. While both updates were previously announced, Digital Extremes revealed additional details about the rollout of the updates and their content at the Tokyo Game Show.

For starters, Digital Extremes announced that Warframe 1999—the 90s- and cyberpunk-themed story update—will be getting a playable demo on October 16, with an in-game cosmetic reward for players that try out the demo, to boot. The Koumei & the Five Fates update is slated to land on October 2 and deliver a new playable Warframe, Koumei, and a new Shrine Defense game mode with enemies inspired by Japanese folklore. There are also quality-of-life changes, new weapons, and weapon and Warframe mods coming in the same update, and an old Warframe will get a drastic rework and be available as a free login reward between October 3 and 16.

Dune: Awakening, the Open World Survival MMO set on Arrakis from developer Funcom, today unveiled the second Dune: Awakening Direct. The showcase offers 30 minutes of in-depth interviews and game footage showing character creation, the MMO-like server structure, the narrative ramifications of a world where Paul Atreides was never born, and the spiritual journey the player will undergo in the game, following in the footsteps of the Fremen.

Dune: Awakening, which recently shot past 1 million wishlists on Steam, draws on the visual and aural identity created by Denis Villeneuve and Legendary's recent blockbuster movies and is deeply rooted in the original masterpiece by Frank Herbert. The game unleashes you on a vast and open Arrakis torn by war, where you must survive and strive for control of the spice alongside hundreds of other players.

Amazon Games and NCSOFT announced today that THRONE AND LIBERTY, a free-to-play MMORPG featuring massive-scale combat in a dynamic world, will launch in North and South America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan on Tuesday, September 17, 2024. The game will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with cross-platform play enabled.

"On behalf of Amazon Games and NCSOFT, I'm proud to announce that THRONE AND LIBERTY will launch on September 17, 2024. We all know fans around the world have been eagerly waiting for news on when they can jump into the game," said Merv Lee Kwai, Head of Third-Party Publishing at Amazon Games. "We can't wait to show you what we've been working on, and invite you to experience it all for yourself when the game launches this September."

After a couple of slow weeks of new game releases, we're finally back on track with a wealth of new game releases this week. We even have a AAA title, although some of you might disagree with it being such, mainly due to the blue aliens and there being four different editions of the game. When it comes to the rest of this week's releases, we have a city builder with sacrifices, a medieval inspired MMO, a very sandy game that has nothing to do with giant worms, a Viking inspired online co-op game, a DLC for a very popular RPG game and a dystopian city builder.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora coming to Steam / This week's AAA release / Monday 17 June
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is a first-person, action-adventure game set in the Western Frontier. Abducted by the RDA, you, a Na'vi, were molded to serve their purpose. Fifteen years later, you are free, but find yourself a stranger in your birthplace. Reconnect with your lost heritage and discover what it truly means to be Na'vi as you join other clans to protect Pandora. Steam link

Welcome to the first full week of the month of May. It's another rather slow week of new game releases, or rather, there are no major game releases, as a few games that were supposed to be released this week, got pushed back to later in the year. As such, the biggest release this week is all about cats. As for the rest of this week's releases, we have an RPG where you beat up your enemies with plushies, an abyss full of knights, a pill eating yellow blob, a well full of animals and someone holding a gate closed. Next week will be a lot busier though.

Little Kitty, Big City / This week's major release / Thursday 9 May
A peaceful catnap turns into a whimsical adventure! Will you make your way home or will you explore what the big city has to offer first? I mean, getting home is obviously your main priority. Obviously. Well, it's one of your priorities. Maybe more of a guideline... It's definitely on your To-Do list somewhere! But first? Exploration. Steam Link

The month of April continues with more low-key releases and this week's major release is a somewhat new take on the MMO genre which focuses on players being nice to each other. As for the rest of this week we have a VR Western, a gigantic game, some roads in need of repair, a zone free of infection and turn-based tactics game involving mutant animals.

Sky: Children of the Light / This week's major release / Wednesday 10 April
Sky: Children of the Light is a peaceful, award-winning MMO from the creators of Journey. Explore a beautifully-animated kingdom across seven realms and create enriching memories with other players in this delightful puzzle-adventure game. Steam Link

Welcome to the 13th and luckiest week of the year, which is also the last week of March and Easter Week in many countries. Fortunately, we're still getting a ton of new games this week, most of which are released on Tuesday for some strange reason. This week's major release is from strategy game experts Paradox Interactive and it's one of several strategy games this week. The remaining game releases this week includes a cosy MMO, robots, a new take on a city builder, some familiar faces that are up to no good as usual, some necromancing, divine heroes and a spice grinder.

Millennia / This week's major release / Tuesday 26 March
Create your own nation in Millennia, a historical turn-based 4X game that challenges your strategic prowess across 10,000 years of history, from the dawn of humanity to our possible futures. Set the course of history and experience different timelines in every playthrough as you write an epic story through your actions. Lead your people through times of crisis and ages of discovery, face great challenges and opportunities, and build a civilization that prospers through the ages. Steam Link