Funcom is taking Dune: Awakening somewhere colder. The studio has officially revealed Dune: Blood and Ice, an expansion that swaps the burning deserts of Arrakis for a frozen region of the planet. It launches in December, and players who already own the game will get it at no cost.
Funcom picked that month on purpose. Denis Villeneuve’s Dune: Part Three, which adapts Frank Herbert’s Dune Messiah, opens in theaters on December 18, 2026, and the studio wants its survival game to be part of the conversation around the film.
Trading sandworms for frostbite
Some players will know this expansion by another name. Funcom first teased it as the Polar Cap update, and the idea is mostly the same as before: a brand-new survival map set in a part of Arrakis the game hasn’t explored yet.
The frozen zone brings hazardous cold-weather conditions, along with new resources, new points of interest and extra crafting. Ice harvesting, fabricators and equipment augmentations are among the new mechanics, which means the habits you built up in the sand won’t fully apply. Staying alive will take some relearning.
The expansion also comes with a standalone storyline of its own. For players who wrapped up the main campaign and wandered away, that story is the reason to return. It’s also free.
Repairs made in plain view
Dune: Awakening is a different game from the one that launched on PC in June 2025. On September 22, 2026, it finally arrived on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and that release came with an update adding a complete single-player mode, adjustable difficulty settings and the end of the Book One storyline. Players had asked for those features more than almost anything else, and Funcom shipped all of them at once.
Multiplayer was reworked as well. PvP is fully optional now, the endgame has been overhauled, and Funcom dealt with the irritating mechanics tied to losing bases and vehicles. Anyone who quit at launch because of those problems has reason to try again.
Full cross-play between PC and consoles is still the biggest missing request. Funcom has confirmed the feature is in development, though it hasn’t given an official release date.
The player count supports it
The move to consoles paid off. Earlier this month, Funcom said more than one million new survivors had joined Dune: Awakening after the console release.
Blood and Ice lands in that context. The game has a wave of new players, the studio has been responding to feedback, and a free map arrives in the same month Villeneuve’s trilogy wraps up Paul Atreides’ story. Herbert’s saga continues well beyond that (Children of Dune is still available for whoever wants to adapt it), but in December, the action on Arrakis moves to the ice.