Funcom (Conan Exiles) has teamed with German studio NUKKLEAR (Destroy All Humans, Everspace) to develop a new Dune MMO survival game inspired by Denis Villeneuve’s movie. NUKKLEAR has received a 1.6 million EUR grant to bring on more staff for the project.
Today, NUKKLEAR GmbH , is thrilled to announce that it is partnering with developer Funcom on their upcoming survival game set in the world of Frank Herbert’s Dune. NUKKLEAR will be taking on a co-development role, helping to realize the expanded scope of the title previously announced by Funcom. The studio was also recently awarded approximately 1.6 million EUR by the BMVI (Bundesministerium für Verkehr und Digitale Infrastruktur) as part of the “Computerspieleförderung des Bundes” German Federal Government Grant. The grant will be used to support in part NUKKLEAR’s development and production work on this project.
Funcom has been working on the game since 2019. Concept art for the game was released in December 2020, with visuals inspired by the movie such as panoramic landscapes and character designs.
Kirk Lenke, CEO of NUKKLEAR, said “We’re grateful to Funcom for bringing us on to help bring Dune to a new audience. We’ve supported and collaborated on many projects over the years, but taking on Dune is by far the biggest yet“. Recently, NUKKLEAR collaborated with Rockfish Games on Everspace. “Our team welcomes the challenge and is confident in the expertise that NUKKLEAR brings to the table,” he added.
Rui Casais, Funcom CEO, explained that the sheer scope of the project necessitates the studios join together for the best possible outcome for the game.
As the Dune open-world survival game is the most ambitious project we’ve ever undertaken at Funcom, having skilled and reliable partners is an absolute must. With NUKKLEAR we have just that. We’ve benefited particularly from their expertise in vehicular- based gameplay, but I know them as highly skilled and creative game developers in general,
There is no release date for the game yet, but it will have a lot to live up to, since the Dune 2000 RTS from Westwood Studios set high standards for the genre, achieving many fans and success across multiple platforms.
Source: NUKLEAR (via Games Press), reddit