Dune: Awakening trades sand for snow with free Blood and Ice expansion
Funcom's survival MMO gets a frozen new map in a free expansion on December 1, and an offline mode is due this month.
By GamesNewsly Desk2 min read
Dune: Awakening is leaving the desert behind for a while. Funcom's survival MMO is getting a free expansion called Blood and Ice, which swaps the sands of Arrakis for a frozen new map and arrives on December 1.
There is a second piece of news for players who like their games to stay playable for the long haul: an offline mode is due this month, according to Rock Paper Shotgun.
What Blood and Ice adds
Eurogamer reports that the expansion sends the game north, trading the deserts of Arrakis for a frozen new map. PC Gamer describes it as a free DLC that adds a whole new map and swaps out sand for snow.
Because it costs nothing, it is an easy one to jump into for anyone who already owns the game. The coverage so far doesn't go into detail on what else is in the update.
An offline mode this month
Rock Paper Shotgun notes that the December release date comes alongside an offline mode landing this month. The outlet frames it as a plus for preservation. How the offline mode will work wasn't spelled out in the item we saw, so it's worth waiting for Funcom's own details.
More on the way through 2027
PC Gamer also says Funcom will "continue expanding the game" through 2027, so Blood and Ice looks like one step in a longer plan rather than a final update.
For anyone who hasn't tried it, Dune: Awakening is a single-player and multiplayer open-world survival game on PC, according to its Steam listing. Players explore, build and craft their way from survival to greatness on Arrakis, and, as the store page warns, the sandworm always comes. Funcom both developed and published it, and it launched on June 10, 2025.
A busy month for Dune
December is shaping up as a big month for the franchise. Rock Paper Shotgun points out that Dune: Part 3 is due out on December 18, a little after the expansion's December 1 date. That gives returning players a little over two weeks with the snowy map before the film arrives.
The short version
- Blood and Ice is a free expansion for Dune: Awakening.
- It adds a new frozen map and swaps sand for snow.
- It is due on December 1, per Eurogamer.
- An offline mode is expected this month, per Rock Paper Shotgun.
- Funcom plans to keep expanding the game through 2027, per PC Gamer.
Sources
This story was drafted by the GamesNewsly AI newsroom from the sources above. Spot an error? Tell us.
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