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Dune: Awakening Blood and Ice Expansion Takes Survival Into the Cold
Arrakis is hardly the first place that springs to mind when thinking about freezing to death, but Funcom is about to turn one of Dune: Awakening’s most fundamental survival rules on its head.
The free Blood and Ice expansion launches December 1 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, sending players into Arrakis’s frozen north through an entirely new map called the Polar Sink. Instead of constantly hiding from brutal desert heat, players must keep warm as they search for new equipment and resources to survive the cold.
It is also a sizeable addition. Funcom estimates around 35 hours of progression within the new region, arriving a little over two months after Dune: Awakening‘s console launch brought the evolving survival experience to a much larger audience.
The Polar Sink Flips Dune: Awakening’s Survival Rules
The Polar Sink is divided into two major biomes, starting with the tundra, where wealthy water-shipper families have established heavily defended strongholds. Pushing farther north leads into the ice cap, making access to ice itself one of the region’s major objectives.
Existing desert equipment may not be enough for the journey. Players will need to upgrade their gear for colder conditions, while traversal returns to a heavier emphasis on ground travel rather than simply bypassing danger from above.
Resources exclusive to the Polar Sink feed back into the wider progression loop as well. Players can bring harvested ice home to cool base equipment and speed up production, while new vehicle modules, Augments, and Specialisation traits add more options for building out characters and equipment.
Blood and Ice Is Only Part of Funcom’s Next Roadmap
Funcom is pairing the expansion with a broader run of additions over the coming months, including more substantial events across Arrakis.
Following The Scourge, the upcoming Water Crisis event will revolve around fighting over dwindling water supplies and ultimately ending the shortage. An Events tab will also arrive alongside Blood and Ice, giving players a dedicated place to track progress and rewards as Funcom moves towards more frequent narrative events.
A new cosmetics store is also coming, offering outfits, vehicle variants and base customisation items. It will initially use a rotating selection that includes designs recognisable from the films, before a later update makes the complete catalogue permanently available. Funcom says revenue from these optional purchases will support continued free updates.
Offline Single-Player and Full Cross-Play Are Also Coming
Beyond Blood and Ice, some of Dune: Awakening’s most requested features now have firmer timelines. A fully offline single-player option arrives in November, followed by character copying between multiplayer and single-player in January 2027. Characters will also transfer from single-player to selected private servers. Full cross-play is scheduled for January 2027 as well.
This offline option differs from the broader single-player mode introduced in Update 1.5, which added customisable settings and removed the need to participate in the game’s multiplayer systems.
Funcom says more than one million new players have joined Dune: Awakening since its console release, and the studio is already promising several major free updates with new locations, mechanics and content throughout 2027. Blood and Ice will be free for all players when the cold reaches Arrakis on December 1.
