‘Dune: Awakening’ had to avoid movie spoilers: “We had a bunch of constraints”
The creative director behind Dune: Awakening has revealed that the upcoming game had to avoid all potential movie spoilers.
While Frank Herbert’s Dune books and the movie adaptations follow Paul Atreides’ quest to free the people of Arrakis, open-world survival game Dune: Awakening takes place in an alternative timeline.
According to creative director Joel Bylos, the team did that after a “bunch of constraints” were put on them by Hollywood. “Of course Dune has inspired movies, TV shows, video games, graphic novels, music and more. We decided to try and take on this legacy to bring a new Dune game to the world.”
“That means working with Hollywood during the active development of two-to-three films,” he said during a recent Q+A (via VG247). “We’ve worked very closely with the [Denis] Villeneuve team, Legendary Entertainment and the team that makes the movies.“
He continued: “This means we had a bunch of constraints placed on us, right at the beginning of the project. We weren’t allowed to show the Fremen. We weren’t allowed to show anything that would spoil the plots of the films. We had to avoid the reveal of any major characters before the films did. We had to avoid any and all spoilers about Paul Atreides.”
“As a creative myself, I love constraints,” Bylos added. “They lead to freedom. They lead to us having to solve problems in interesting ways. This is our solution to the constraints that were put on us for this project.”
It was a similar story for Amazon Prime Video’s Fallout, which was rewritten to avoid spoiling plot points earmarked for the Fallout 5 video game.
Dune: Awakening is due for release in “early 2025” but developers have admitted that it’s a loose plan at the moment. The game began production in 2020 and during that time, both Dune and Dune: Part Two have hit cinema screens with a third film also in the works. Dune: Messiah is due out next year and will be director Denis Villeneuve’s final instalment in the franchise.
In other news, Finn Wolfhard has revealed he’d love to star in a God Of War adaptation. “Might be time for bulking season if I’m going to be the next Kratos. Playstation, where do I sign up?!”
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Ali Shutler
NME
