Funcom Plans Layoffs as Dune: Awakening Moves Into Long-Term Operations

Funcom is preparing for layoffs as it restructures around the long-term operation of Dune: Awakening and Conan Exiles. The difficult transition comes as the studio moves its enormous Dune survival MMO away from its resource-heavy full-production period and into the ongoing support phase that follows a major launch.

CEO Rui Casais confirmed that the company can no longer maintain the staffing level and organizational structure that were required while Dune: Awakening was being built. The number of employees affected has not been disclosed. Casais said the company's immediate priority is handling the process with support, respect, and transparency for the people impacted.

The announcement is particularly notable because Dune: Awakening remains an active project rather than a game being wound down. It recently received a single-player mode and reached consoles, while Funcom is positioning it as one of its two continuing online projects alongside the long-running Conan Exiles. The restructuring reflects the harsh difference between making a massive online game and sustaining it after release, not an indication that the game is being abandoned.

A Shift From Peak Development to Ongoing Support

Casais described Dune: Awakening as the biggest undertaking in Funcom's history. Developing the game demanded years of substantial resources across the company's studios, a scale that makes sense for a project built around the dangerous open deserts of Arrakis, online survival systems, and the continuing expectations of a live-service audience.

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That level of staffing is not necessarily permanent. Once a game leaves full production, the work changes. Teams still have major responsibilities: fixing issues, maintaining servers, developing updates, responding to player feedback, balancing systems, making new content, and planning expansions. But the composition and size of the team can differ sharply from the workforce needed to construct the foundational game, create launch content, prepare versions for additional hardware, and complete the many disciplines involved in a large-scale release.

Funcom is now making that adjustment. Casais said the studio requires a different organization as it enters long-term post-launch development and operations. The company would have preferred to retain everyone who contributed to creating Dune: Awakening, he said, but cannot sustain the peak-production setup moving forward.

That explanation places the layoffs in a familiar but still painful pattern across the games industry. A successful launch does not automatically mean every role created during the most intensive years of development can continue indefinitely. This is especially true for large games that spend years ramping up before release, then need to settle into a structure designed for regular operation rather than initial construction.

Dune: Awakening Remains Central to Funcom's Future

While the staffing news is grim, Funcom's plans make clear that Dune: Awakening remains central to its business. The studio is pivoting its attention toward its two active online titles: the newer Dune-based survival MMO and Conan Exiles, its established open-world survival game.

That distinction matters. Layoffs associated with a post-launch transition can easily raise concerns among players about whether support will slow down or whether a game is in danger. In this case, Funcom has framed the change as a reorganization for continued development and operations. The studio is not describing Dune: Awakening as a completed one-and-done release; it is treating it as a long-term online project that requires a different type of team.

Dune: Awakening also has clear reasons to remain a priority. It is built on one of science fiction's best-known worlds and represents the largest release in Funcom's 32-year history. Before the latest announcement, the company had characterized the game as showing enormous potential. Its arrival on consoles and the addition of a single-player option demonstrate that the studio has continued to broaden how people can access and experience the sands of Arrakis.

Still, the shift underlines the financial and operational pressures behind modern online games. Supporting an MMO over many years is a commitment, but it is not the same commitment as assembling the game in the first place. Funcom will have to balance the needs of existing players, future content plans, technical maintenance, and the realities of operating with a reduced and reorganized workforce.

Rui Casais Will Step Down at the End of 2026

The restructuring will coincide with a change at the top of Funcom. Casais is set to step down as CEO at the end of 2026, ending an 11-year period as the studio's leader. Scott Junior, Funcom's chief product officer, will take over the position.

Leadership transitions are significant at any game developer, but this one arrives during a consequential period for the company. Funcom is simultaneously adapting its development structure, managing layoffs, and setting its priorities around two live online games. Junior's move into the CEO role will therefore come with immediate responsibilities beyond ordinary succession planning.

For Casais, the remaining focus is on the people affected by the layoffs. His comments emphasize a desire for a supportive process and for directness with employees as the changes unfold. Details on specific teams, roles, locations, or a timeline for the cuts have not been announced, leaving the scale of the impact uncertain.

That uncertainty can be especially difficult for workers and their colleagues. Game development depends on interconnected disciplines, and a change in one part of a studio can affect teams working in art, design, quality assurance, engineering, production, community, publishing, and operations. Until Funcom provides more information, it is not possible to determine precisely which areas will be most affected.

Not Funcom's First Round of Redundancies

This is not the first time Funcom employees have faced job losses during the broader development and launch cycle of Dune: Awakening. In October of the previous year, the company also confirmed redundancies, describing those departing employees as valued colleagues.

At that time, the studio paired the difficult news with optimism about Dune: Awakening, calling it the largest release in its long history and highlighting its potential. The latest cuts show that the challenges have continued even as the game has expanded with new ways to play and reached a wider console audience.

The recurrence of layoffs is a sobering reminder that the health of a game and the stability of its creators' jobs do not always move in lockstep. A title can be actively supported, commercially important, and central to a studio's roadmap while the organization behind it reduces headcount or changes its structure. For the developers affected, that distinction offers little comfort, even if it helps explain why the game's ongoing future is not necessarily in question.

What Players Can Expect Next

Funcom has not outlined how the restructuring will change the content roadmap for either Dune: Awakening or Conan Exiles. Players should not assume specific delays, cancellations, expansion plans, or changes to support until the company provides firmer details.

What is clear is that both games are expected to sit at the center of Funcom's future operations. For Dune: Awakening, the next phase is long-term post-launch work: maintaining the online experience, supporting its community, and building on the foundation established during its major development push. For Conan Exiles, it means continuing to stand as the other key pillar in the studio's online portfolio.

Funcom now faces the difficult task of carrying those projects forward while saying goodbye to some of the people who helped bring its largest game to life. The studio's ability to communicate clearly with staff and players, sustain confidence in its ongoing games, and navigate the leadership handover will shape how this new chapter is received.

For now, the key message is a complicated one: Dune: Awakening is moving into a long-term operational future, but the transition to that future will involve layoffs. The game's continued importance to Funcom does not soften the impact on the employees affected, and the unanswered question of how many jobs will be lost remains the most serious detail still to come.