Funcom has confirmed the global release times for Dune: Awakening.

Inspired by Denis Villeneuve and Legendary Entertainment’s blockbuster films, Dune: Awakening is a survival MMO set on the most dangerous planet in the universe, where players can explore Arrakis in an open-world game for the first time ever.

You survive by learning the ways of the Fremen, and expand your potential through combat, the spice, building, and trading. It’s set to release on June 10, 2025, on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X and S after a three-week delay to fix issues identified during its beta testing. Players with a “head start,” however, get to play five days early from June 5.

We had a great time with it, writing in IGN’s Dune: Awakening beta preview: “As a longtime fan of Dune, it also just feels so good to explore and learn more about a world that I’m quite fond of, and Funcom has clearly put a ton of effort into worldbuilding and lore, even despite taking quite a bit of creative liberty by placing Awakening within a parallel reality and canon than the books/movies.”

Last week, Funcom put on a livestream showing off Dune: Awakening’s mid-to-endgame, and a wide tour of the Hagga Basin “to emphasize the size and variety players can expect,” including the “lush O’odham, the forbidding Hagga Rift, the tall spires and imposing rock formations of Jabal Eifrit, to name just a few.” Up until now, even beta players have only seen around 25% of Hagga Basin, so the stream showcased “these huge and diverse landscapes” in all their glory.

“Before even considering the vast dunes and dangers of the Deep Desert, players will experience a full-scale survival game,” Funcom teased.

“They will rise through the ranks of the Atreides or Harkonnen; build powerful strongholds; brave Imperial Testing Stations; craft advanced schematics; explore and harvest in a variety of vehicles, and much, much more.” Furthermore, the “Landsraad feature allows anyone to contribute in the effort to impact their entire faction, whether they prefer PvE or PvP.”

For more, check out details on the MMO’s business model and post-launch plans.

Elden Ring Nightreign is now up to 3.5 million copies sold after five days on sale, with its Steam user review rating improving from ‘mixed’ to ‘mostly positive.’

Elden Ring was a massive hit, selling 30 million since going on sale in 2022, and it seems unlikely that Nightreign will come close to matching that success. For better context, the Shadow of the Erdtree expansion sold 5 million copies within three days of its release in 2024.

FromSoftware’s multiplayer spin-off had launched to 2 million sales in just a day, but with a ‘mixed’ rating on Valve’s platform.

Much of the initial negative sentiment revolved around Nightreign’s brutal solo experience, its lack of duos co-op, lack of voice chat, and other archaic mechanics. That age-old multiplayer struggle to find enough friends to make up a coordinated three-player group is very much a part of the Elden Ring Nightreign experience, too.

As explained in IGN’s Elden Ring Nightreign review: “Let’s get the most important caveat out of the way first: if you are hoping to tackle Nightreign entirely solo, and are anything less than a hardcore Elden Ring player that actively seeks out ways to make that already difficult game even more challenging, Nightreign isn’t for you. Yes, there is technically a single-player option, but it is so poorly balanced that I would be shocked if it isn’t patched and adjusted within the first month of release. And this is coming from someone who lives and breathes these types of games.”

But on Monday, FromSoftware released a patch to make solo play much easier, and despite matchmaking problems over the weekend, sentiment has improved.

Last week, producer Yasuhiro Kitao took to social media to comment on Elden Ring Nightreign’s early sales success and to thank players for giving the game a go despite its quirks.

“Nightreign has some peculiar aspects to its game design and is different from our recent titles in various ways,” Kitao said. “Nonetheless, many of you have bravely jumped into this world, and for that we’re immensely grateful.

“As with Demon’s Souls or Sekiro, it may be confounding at first, but just like those games, Nightreign offers its own challenges and experiences. Once you overcome the initial hurdle, it’ll surely provide a sense of accomplishment that’s also its very own.

“We hope you enjoy it.”

So, what happens next? FromSoftware said that in addition to the DLC releasing later this year, new additions will be “gradually implemented,” including enhanced fights against existing Nightlords starting this month (June), as well as Duo Expeditions at a later date.”

The addition of duos will come as some relief to players who have questioned its omission from launch. Elden Ring Nightreign drops players into the shifting lands of Limveld, exploring and fighting for survival either solo or in groups of three. There is no way to play two-player co-op.

In IGN’s interview with Elden Ring Nightreign director Junya Ishizaki, the Nightreign lead developer discussed the choice to lean on solos and trios as the core experience options. When asked why there’s no option for a pair of players to drop in together without a matchmade third player, Ishizaki said it was overlooked.

“The simple answer is that this is simply something that was overlooked during development as just a two-player option, so we’re very sorry about that,” said Ishizaki. “As we said before, we set out to make this a multiplayer co-op game for three players, balanced for three players, so that was the main focus and it’s at the core of Nightreign.

“Of course, I myself as a player understand that and often want times where I’m just playing myself, so this is something that we considered from the start,” Ishizaki continued.

“And so we did put a lot of effort into creating this experience that was playable for solo players in as much as the rules and new systems allowed. So in putting all our efforts into that aspect, we kind of overlooked and neglected the duos aspect, but this is something that we are looking at and considering for post-launch support as well.”

This means that if you’re playing with just your favorite duos partner, you have to accept a random third into your game. Playing trios is very much what Elden Ring Nightreign is built around.

We’ve got plenty of Nightreign tips and tricks to help you take down all the eight Nightlord Bosses, and if you’re wondering how to unlock the two locked Nightfarer Classes, check out How to Unlock the Revenant and How to Unlock the Duchess, plus How to Change Characters.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.

Zynga has officially shuttered Echtra Games, the development studio behind Torchlight 3, which had been working on an unannounced cross-platform ARPG in the four years since its acquisition.

IGN can confirm the San Francisco-based studio will be shut down by the end of the month. While we don’t have an exact number of individuals impacted, LinkedIn has 61 people who list their current job at the studio.

Zynga has provided the following statement to IGN:

Zynga has made the difficult decision to cease operations at its Echtra studio, ending development on future titles and reducing roles. This decision is part of a strategic realignment of the company’s resources and priorities. We will work closely with impacted employees so they are treated with the utmost respect and consideration as we navigate this difficult process.

Echtra Games was founded by Max Schaefer, one of the co-founders of Torchlight developer Runic Games. Schaefer left Runic after his fellow co-founders similarly departed the studio, and founded Echtra under investor Perfect World to work on a Torchlight MMO. Over time, the game’s vision shifted, eventually becoming Torchlight Frontiers and later Torchlight 3. In 2021, Echtra Games was acquired by Zynga, leaving Torchlight 3 in the hands of Perfect World and starting work on “a new, yet to be announced RPG for cross-platform play” alongside CSR Racing and Star Wars: Hunters developer NaturalMotion.

Unfortunately, Echtra Games’ RPG was never announced or shown. It is unclear precisely why Echtra was shuttered, though its closure comes just three months after Zynga announced it will shut down NaturalMotion-developed Star Wars: Hunters later this year — a decision that was itself announced just nine months after the game launched. Notably, Zynga is a subsidiary of Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive, which slowly dismantled and then sold off its Private Division publishing label earlier this year. The publisher also laid off around 5% of its workforce just over a year ago and canceled multiple projects.

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.

Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel’s annual World Championship is fast approaching, which means the Road to Worlds campaign is underway. There are free log-in rewards, and you can compete in qualifying events for the opportunity to represent your region at the World Championship in Paris.

If you don’t know about Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel, we can give you a quick rundown. It’s a free-to-play digital version of the popular Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game, with more than 10,000 cards and including the evolutions the game has made over its more than 25 years of existence. It’s available across nearly all platforms — iOS, Android, PC, PS4/5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S — and has cross-platform play, letting you Duel players of varying skill levels from all over the world.

If that sounds intimidating, don’t worry. If you’re a new player or haven’t played in a while and need a refresher, there are in-game tutorials that teach you the basics of the game. Once you finish those tutorials, you get a base Deck to get started and can collect new cards as you progress through the game. The game also provides visual cues to let you know when you can execute combos and chain effects or respond to your opponent’s effects, helping make sure you don’t miss anything while you’re learning the game.

You can continue practicing and getting better through Solo Mode, where you play through storylines and learn more about the lore behind the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG. As you probably already know, the Yu-Gi-Oh! franchise extends across several pieces of media and is a big reason for the international popularity of the TCG. That combined with the competitive nature of the game has also made it popular with professional athletes, which you can see NBA player Grant Williams and professional football players Kris Jenkins and Ryan Hunter discuss in the videos below.

Once you’ve gotten more comfortable with the game, you can move on to face your fellow Duelists. And now’s the time to jump in, since there will be free log-in rewards during the Road to Worlds event that can help you build up your Deck before taking on the qualifying events

From now until July 3, you can get a series of daily rewards for a total of 1,000 gems, a profile icon, and a Red Supernova Dragon Card. You can get additional gems and rewards if you take part in the World Championship Qualifiers, which anyone can enter starting June 3.

The initial qualifying round will last until June 12, with Duelists beginning at a different level depending on what rank they reached in May’s Season 41. But don’t worry, even if you didn’t take part in Season 41, you can still compete in the qualifiers, you’ll just start from Duel Level 1. Winning Duels will see you rise through the ranks, to a max of Duel Level 20. Anyone who reaches Duel Level 20 will then move on to Regionals between June 12–15, where the goal is simply to get as many points as possible by defeating other qualifying Duelists.

The top performers in each region earn an invite to the World Championship in Paris, where they’ll compete for the grand prize. While the qualifying rounds and Championship are all single-player matches, the players who win and move on to Paris will also get the chance to team up with two other Duelists to take on the defending champions from the United States.

There will be hundreds of thousands of Duelists of all skill levels from around the world competing during the Road to Worlds events. With so many active players and easily attainable in-game rewards, there won’t be a better time to start your journey in Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel. The game is free-to-play and there’s no entrance fee for the qualifying events, so there’s nothing stopping you from building a Deck and giving it a shot.

For more information about Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel, including several tutorial videos to help you understand card types and strategies, you can visit the official website. For more details about all the events leading up to the World Championship, you can check out the Road to Worlds page. To keep up with news and updates, you can follow Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel on Twitter and Instagram.