Welcome Sleepers, to the year-end edition of the Communinet Signal!

2024 has been a pivotal year for us and the development of the game, as we have opened the development build of the game to the lucky players selected for our Closed Beta testing. We started with a very small core group of testers at the end of last year and have been slowly growing that group ever since. Sometime in the middle of this year, we expanded the scope of the test with the Persistent Beta test, where we keep the servers running 24/7 for our testers.

It has been an incredible source of important data and feedback that we have taken to heart and used to continually improve the game, doubling down on the parts of our vision that resonate with our players, and tweaking and adapting those that do not. It's a very rewarding process, and we're incredibly grateful to all of our testers for helping us complete this final leg of our journey to launch. There's not much we can share with you just yet, as these tests are still strictly under NDA. But as a year-end treat for you all, we will be sharing some fun and interesting stats from these Closed Beta tests!

The Early 2025 release is fast approaching. Until then, enjoy this last Communinet Signal of the year!

In November and December we were working on all sorts of fun stuff we can’t wait to tell you about (in... dune time).

But on the public side of things, we attended Dreamhack Stockholm! Magnus (Senior PR and Events Manager), Ignasi (Community Manager) and Tomek (Senior Influencer Manager) roamed the halls of the event, meeting with fans, industry friends and content creators to network and discuss fun and interesting possibilities for the coming year!

From left to right: Magnus, Ignasi and Tomek at Dreamhack Stockholm’24.

Cosplayer Yuji joined us once again (she was with us at the Nordic Party event at Gamescom 2024!), showing off her amazing stillsuit, taking pictures with fans, and giving out Dune: Awakening stickers!

Yuji cosplaying at Dreamhack Stockholm'24.

Shortly after Dreamhack and to close out the year, our Creative Director Joel Bylos joined PirateSoftware for a live interview during his stream on December 13th. Thor asked a lot of insightful questions about the game and Joel was happy to answer them. If you are interested, you can watch the segment on PirateSoftware's Youtube channel!

On another note, and as a fun wrapper for the year, we'd like to share some statistics from the Closed Beta with you all. We hope you find these interesting and that they give you some hints at what’s to come next year!

• Deadly Arrakis: The NPC inhabitants of Arrakis are responsible for 58% of player deaths.

  • The second and third most common causes of death are Sandworms (27%) and dehydration (22%). 

  • 2% of players who have played at least 10 hours have never died in the game…yet!

• Who’s your mentor? During character creation you can chose your mentor, which determines your starting abilities as well as some dialogue choices across the game. These have been the selections of mentors chosen by our beta testers so far:

  • Bene Gesserit: 31%

  • Swordmaster: 24%

  • Trooper: 23%

  • Mentat: 22%

  • PS: We gave an early look at an in-development version of the character creation process in our Dune: Awakening Direct Episode 2 and our Gamescom Gameplay Reveal!

• All water is precious on Arrakis: Closed Beta Players extracted approximately 1.5 million liters of blood from fallen enemies and living creatures.

  • Close to a hundred muad'dibs had their blood extracted (the kangaroo mouse not the Duke Leto's son who doesn't exist in our game). How could you?

If you found these stats interesting and want to contribute to them, remember that you can still sign up for a chance to be selected for our Closed Beta tests. Just head over to our website and fill out your Beta Profile survey!

For today's highlight, we wanted to give the spotlight to our cosplayers. If you've traveled to any of the events we've been to this year, you've probably seen and interacted with them. And if you're an avid Communinet Signal reader, you've seen them in many of the pictures we've shared so far.

They are incredibly talented and passionate professionals who use their craft to enhance the event experience for everyone. They are also wonderful people. For these reasons, we thought they deserved a spot here so you could all get to know them a little better.

For this edition, we will be exchanging words with Alejandra (Anhyra), who has been with us ever since PAX East, all the way through ComicCon Nordic, Gamescom and Brazil Game Show. She has kindly lent us some of her time to answer a few questions!

You’re a seasoned veteran in the cosplay community Anhyra! Can you tell our readers a bit about your career as a cosplayer and previous projects you have cosplayed for?

It has been a wonderful and long journey! I've been doing cosplay for more than 10 years now! It started as a hobby, I am a huge fan of Mass Effect and I wanted to make Commander Shepard's armor, so I decided to make it for Carnival, which is a big thing where I live. Then I took it to a local convention, it was super fun and everyone loved the cosplay, so that encouraged me to keep making armors. Since then, I started entering cosplay contests and was lucky enough to win the best armor award at Blizzcon 21. This put me in the spotlight and helped me a lot to start a career as a professional costume maker. In the past few years I've worked on costumes, props and cosplay content for games like Destiny 2, World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls, Diablo IV, Blasphemous, Bloodhunt... and Dune: Awakening! <3 I'm so grateful for all these opportunities because I really love making costumes.
I've also worked as a cosplay judge in many events in Spain and Europe! Many conventions have asked me to do panels on costume making and to judge their competitions! It was an honor to judge the Gamescom and Dreamhack Cosplay Contests in Germany or the international finals of the Tournament of Champions in Vienna.

Speaking of Dune: Awakening, tell us a bit more about your experience designing the stillsuit cosplay! What were the biggest challenges and considerations you had to face when crafting it?

Making the Stillsuit was a really big and fun challenge! I had about a month to create this design and at first it was a little intimidating because the suit is really intricate and tight to the body. I considered several different construction options and finally decided to build it like a suit of armor, making different pieces that would attach to the inner clothing and allow me to move properly at conventions, but also make it look like a whole suit. Building it was like a giant puzzle with tons of layers with different textures, tubes... But in the end I was super happy with the result!

Anhyra during PAX East 2024.

Now that you mention wearing it… how was the actual experience donning the Stillsuit? Did everything work as intended?

I was super lucky and everything worked out great! I almost cried the first time I tried to put everything together! I used EVA foam for most of the pieces, so it's very light! But wearing a cosplay is never comfortable, so I had to make some small adjustments in the design to be able to sit down, walk properly or even go to the toilet... Unfortunately, I don't have the skills yet to make a proper stillsuit that recycles liquids. 😂

How was the reception by event-goers? Do you have any fun reactions to share? (hopefully not related to water discipline)

I'm super happy because everyone loved the costume online and also at conventions! People usually approach me to ask me about how I made the costume and they always get surprised when I say that almost everything is foam! Even the parts that look like leather!

 My favorite reaction happened during the Brasil Game Show, a bunch of really little girls ran to me to hug me and they asked me if I was a desert princess... I usually cosplay as monsters or intimidating armors, so I'm not used to that and it definitely made my day! 

Anhyra and Meankitteh (who will also be featured soon) during Gamescom.

That’s incredible! Alright, we don’t want to hog all your time. So as a final note, do you have any advice or recommendations for aspiring cosplayers?

Follow your passion! We all start small, and the more cosplay you do, the more you learn! So don't get frustrated if you can't make a super crazy build right now, just keep practicing and one day you will! ♥️ The cosplay community is really big and there are tons of amazing makers sharing their methods, tutorials and tips, so it's easy to start learning nowadays! And if you want to buy a costume instead of making it...that's great too! Everyone can enjoy it! My favorite thing about cosplay is how welcoming the community is! I've met hundreds of incredible friends all over the world thanks to cosplay, and that's priceless!

Thank you so much Anhyra for your time… and see you at the next event! 👀

You can follow Anhyra on all of her social media accounts (Instagram, X, Bluesky) and be sure to say hi. She is not only a talented cosplayer, but also a wonderful person!

Stay tuned for future Communinet Signals where we will feature more cosplayers who have brought Dune: Awakening to life with us!

We have an amazing collection of fanart in this issue that includes all kinds of mediums. Please peruse our museum of artworks at your leisure.

But we have more exciting news: Those featured here will ALSO get access to the Dune: Awakening Closed Beta! Thank you for sharing your beautiful pieces. We look forward to seeing more in the future.

Make sure to share them on the official Discord server under the #fanart channel, or use the #CommuninetSignal tag on social media.

Hand made Pain Box created from wood by THE Shai Meilud on Discord.

Work in progress!

Art of MewsikOn’s character.

A very dapper Atreides man by Chime Minister’s girlfriend.

A “Feyd” inspired OC as a sphinx cat commissioned by S0lar5ail0r and drawn by Rott-Rott.

Character concept on a Harkonnen Traitor based off of our Senior Concept Artist, Filipe Augusto. Created by Ryan Ross (Goda on Discord), you can find more of the character here!

Wormjak pointing by General Anubis.

Prescience by Arrakis Pilgrim.

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The Deep Desert is meant to be the endgame area of the game, with high risk and high reward. But we also don't want to make the experience too brutal to play. We want you to be able to recover, learn from your mistakes, and come back stronger and wiser. By default, you will only lose whatever resources you may have in your inventory bag, not your equipped gear. If you play wisely, you'll be able to protect the resources you carry and limit your losses. If you do not, other players will have a big payday.

The Landsraad is one of our game mechanics where Guilds will compete for the votes of Major Houses in the Landsraad by doing work for them in a Faction vs Faction gameplay, in order to vote in action World-wide decrees (rules) for the next period. We are actively working on this feature and fine-tuning it in our Closed Beta test. With the help and feedback of our testers, we are narrowing down the benefits and requirements to see which are the most interesting and fun. We can't reveal much yet, but think of it as an example: what if you could raise tax prices and allow a temporary different ruleset in the Deep Desert? Or what if you could lower construction requirements for a week? How would you plan your next move with these tricks at your disposal?

Yes! You will be able to invite players to a party and group together without having to be in a guild. Unlike a guild, a party is a temporary group that disbands when all players leave or log out.

Dune: Awakening will feature proximity voice chat at launch, as well as text chat!

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And with that, we're one step closer to saying goodbye to 2024 and hello to 2025!

We're incredibly excited about the upcoming months. We're working hard to have the game ready for you all on PC early next year, and we're preparing to make 2025 an unforgettable year for all of you Sleepers who are eager to get your boots on the sands of Arrakis. We can’t wait to tell you more about this labor of love we have created for you.

In the meantime, thank you for your unwavering support this year, and here's to 2025, the year of Dune: Awakening! May Shai-Hulud bless the path ahead!

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