Dune: Awakening is heading north. Blood and Ice, the next free expansion, launches December 1 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox. It comes with a roadmap covering a new cosmetics store, more frequent events and dates for several community-requested features, including offline single-player and full cross-play.
The developers also say more than one million new players have joined since Dune: Awakening arrived on consoles, after a year that brought an endgame rework, three DLCs, single-player and the end of Book One.
The Polar Sink: surviving the cold
Blood and Ice adds the Polar Sink, a new survival map in the frozen north of Arrakis. The usual problem is flipped here: instead of fighting the heat, players need to stay warm. Desert gear won’t cut it, so expect to upgrade equipment, gather new resources and rethink how you survive.
The map has two biomes:
- The tundra, where the journey starts. Conditions are milder, but wealthy water shipper families have built fortified strongholds and won’t appreciate interference.
- The ice cap, a heavily guarded area that the water shippers treasure most. Getting inside and claiming its resources is one of the main goals.
The developers say the expansion puts the spotlight back on ground-level survival, with traversal, temperature management and combat all tied into progression. New survival gear requires resources found only in the Polar Sink, and once you reach the ice cap you can harvest ice to cool base equipment and speed up production.
In total, Blood and Ice offers about 35 hours of new progression, plus new vehicle modules, augments and specialization traits. The region is meant to stay relevant afterwards, with future updates adding more reasons to come back for its resources.
Cosmetics store, events and requested features
To fund continued free updates, Dune: Awakening is getting a cosmetics store with optional outfits, vehicle variants and base customization items. It will start with a rotating selection, including looks from the Dune films timed with the theatrical release of Dune: Part Three in December. The plan is to eventually make the full catalogue available at all times.
Events are also getting bigger. The current event, The Scourge, has players investigating a disease spreading across Arrakis. Shortly after Blood and Ice, Water Crisis will have players fighting over scarce water supplies. Both bring new gameplay and locations, and future events should arrive more often with new stories and free rewards. A dedicated Events tab in the main menu arrives with the expansion, and all events can be completed in single-player or multiplayer.
Finally, there are dates for three features the community has been asking for:
- Offline single-player arrives this November.
- Character copies start in January: you’ll be able to bring a multiplayer character into single-player, or move a single-player character to select private or self-hosted servers on PC, provided the server allows it.
- Full cross-play across supported platforms launches in January 2027.
Looking further ahead, the team plans major free updates in 2027 with new locations, mechanics and content, alongside more events and quality-of-life improvements. Details will follow later. You can read the full announcement on Steam.
Source: Dune: Awakening official news.
