As the scope of Funcom’s Dune game expands, they’ve brought in a new co-developer to bring the title to gamers!
It’s been a while since we’ve heard anything about the upcoming Dune game(s) from Funcom; pretty much since it was first announced they had the license to Dune back in 2019! While we still don’t have much information on their first title, today brings a quick update.
As work continues on their “open-world survival game” Funcom has announced they’ve brought in German studio, NUKKLEAR, to co-develop the title. Again, not a big update, but they DID offer a first look at some concept art/logo for Dune:
NUKKLEAR will be taking on a co-development role, helping to realize the expanded scope of the title previously announced by Funcom. The studio was also recently awarded approximately 1.6 million EUR by the BMVI (Bundesministerium für Verkehr und Digitale Infrastruktur) as part of the “Computerspieleförderung des Bundes” German Federal Government Grant. The grant will be used to support in part NUKKLEAR’s development and production work on this project.
In 2019, Funcom announced that it had secured the rights to make a game based on the popular sci-fi franchise, Dune. The untitled project will take inspiration from Funcom’s most successful title, Conan Exiles, and be an online multiplayer survival game. After investment from Tencent, the Dune project greatly expanded its scope, and NUKKLEAR has been brought on to assist in completing it.
“We’re grateful to Funcom for bringing us on to help bring Dune to a new audience. We’ve supported and collaborated on many projects over the years, but taking on Dune is by far the biggest yet,” said Kirk Lenke, CEO of NUKKLEAR. “Our team welcomes the challenge and is confident in the expertise that NUKKLEAR brings to the table.”
NUKKLEAR has been working with top development studios for the past 10 years, in both a support role and co-development role. Their talented team has worked on the UI/UX design for Destroy All Humans, and supported Rockfish Games on Everspace, among other projects. The NUKKLEAR team’s experience with large online 3D games such as the recently released Comanche lends itself well to the untitled Dune project, and their expertise is sure to help Funcom realize their vision for the game.
“As the Dune open-world survival game is the most ambitious project we’ve ever undertaken at Funcom, having skilled and reliable partners is an absolute must. With NUKKLEAR we have just that. 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 Rui Casais, Funcom CEO.
