How Dune: Awakening devs crafted an experience without a key hero | interview

Funcom’s Dune: Awakening has sold more than a million copies since its launch in June. Working for years on the ambitious project based on Frank Herbert’s best-selling sci-fi novel and Denis Villeneuve’s blockbuster films, the team knew one secret thing.

In a persistent world like Dune: Awakening, nobody gets to be the novel’s hero, Paul Atreides. Of course, everybody wants to be the hero. But you can’t have a massively multiplayer online role-playing game with millions of Paul Atreides in it.