Dune Awakening's setting speculates what would have happened if Paul Atreides had never been born.
Dune Awakening's setting speculates what would have happened if Paul Atreides had never been born.
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Dune: Awakening MMO frees players to build on an Arrakis without a prophet

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 4 min

For lovers of Frank Herbert’s Dune novel, the Dune: Awakening massively multiplayer online game has a tantalizing premise.

What if Paul Atreides, the anti-hero who is destined to lead a jihad across the galaxy, was never born? In Herbert’s story, the young Atreides is born as a male because his mother, out of love, bore a son to her Duke Leto Atreides. The Bene Gesserit cult was counting on a daughter as part of a messiah breeding program. This decision led to a series of betrayals and plots and set Paul on the path of revenge.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.