Dune: Awakening's Feb 23, 2026 all-servers shutdown, explained

On February 23, 2026, Funcom's official Dune: Awakening account posted: "We are shutting down all servers in all regions at 10:00 UTC/11:00 CET as we work on a critical issue where player bases and placeables can be destroyed with certain weapon types," with an estimated six hours of downtime while a hotfix was prepared. The cause was a PvE exploit that surfaced after the game's Chapter 3 update: certain weapon types could bypass base-protection rules and destroy other players' unshielded structures in areas that were supposed to be safe from that kind of damage. Some players reported losing bases representing hundreds of hours of work; at least one claimed 1,000 hours lost. Funcom shipped hotfix 1.3.5.1 to close the exploit, stating it "made changes to ensure that this method can no longer be used to bypass standard game mechanics." To undo most of the damage, Funcom rolled back five worlds — Pax, Epsilon Eridani, Harmony, Arrakis, and Stoneheart — by 24 hours, and disabled that week's Coriolis Storm event to avoid compounding the losses during recovery. For players who were still net losers after the rollback, Funcom said victims of the exploit who contacted support "will be provided with adequate resources and item packages to cover any losses incurred," while also warning that "players identified to have repeatedly used this exploit will be permanently banned from the game." Massively Overpowered's follow-up coverage reported roughly 444 accounts were punished for exploiting. This wasn't an isolated event. Coverage of the incident (FinalBoss.io) explicitly noted it "is not the first time Dune: Awakening has seen base-break exploits," and separate, differently-dated threads on the game's own Steam Discussions forum ask variations of "are servers down again?" — evidence of a recurring pattern tied to the game's frequent update cadence, not a single bad night. If you land on this page because of a new, unexplained shutdown, check Funcom's official X account and the Steam news hub first: a repeat of this exact announcement style is the clearest sign you're looking at the same kind of event, not a personal connection problem.