The open-world survival / sandbox genre had its heyday a few years ago, with many representatives on Steam's digital shelves, but it's been a while since the studios have been much more skittish about it. idea of offering this kind of experience. In the most played games, we always find the same headliners, except for a cow: The Forest, Ark, Rust, or even Subnautica are constantly squatting the best sellers in this category , at least on the Valve store. There was Valheim, which came to give the genre a little boost last year, or even Core Keeper a few weeks ago, but overall, large-scale survival games are much rarer than there are. 5 / 6 years old. Thus, the fresh announcement of a Dune sandbox by the studio behind Conan Exiles is potentially excellent news.
A studio that has experience in the genre
Indeed, it will not be the first attempt of the Norwegians of Funcom in the jungle of survival games in the open world. A few years ago, they already offered Conan Exiles which, as its title suggests, took over the universe of Conan the Barbarian. And having spent nearly 300 hours there, yours truly can confirm that it is one of the most solid sandboxes on the market today , with excellent gameplay ideas and quality PVE. We can therefore trust Funcom to develop a convincing experience around the cult work of Frank Herbert.
First artworks and recruitment
On the other hand, the development is a priori only at the pre-production stage. This announcement is more a highlight for the recruitment campaign around the game than a real reveal in good and due form, even if Funcom has published two first artworks as an appetizer. Now we will have to be patient and forget about this project, probably very ambitious, which is not likely to see the light of day for several years.