I recently had the great fortune to interview Joel Bylos, Funcom’s Chief Creative Officer, who is also spearheading the long-awaited Dune: Awakening. As someone who’s been extremely excited for the game’s upcoming launch, it was amazing to see what’s going on behind the scenes and hear about the road leading up to this ambitious project’s inception. During the interview, Joel shared how the project started, how it has evolved, and even talked about the MMO landscape and how these enormous games should also focus on solo play. Here’s everything Joel had to say.
TNS Interview with Joel Bylos
Joel embarked on his Norwegian journey in a modest manner, starting by washing cars at Bislet Bilutleie. Presently, he holds the esteemed position of Chief Creative Officer at Funcom. Here, he is spearheading the studio’s most ambitious project to date – the Open World Survival MMO, Dune: Awakening.
Throughout the span of 17 years, Joel has been intricately involved in the development of various games from their inception to release. His roles have been diverse, ranging from Quest Designer for Age of Conan, Lead Designer for Rise of the Godslayer, Lead Content Designer for The Secret World, to Creative Director for The Park and Conan Exiles.
Julio La Pine, Senior Staff Writer at The Nerd Stash: If I may start with a very unofficial question that isn’t part of the ones for the interview, how are you and the team feeling with the imminent release of Dune: Awakening?
Joel Bylos, Chief Creative Officer at Funcom: I think there’s that combination of nervousness and excitement. I was very nervous about the beta weekend because we haven’t had large-scale feedback from a lot of players. We had a closed beta, and we had people. I was very relieved because I think the game is pretty good. When the beta sort of confirmed that people were really enjoying it, I was like, “Okay, great, I’m not a crazy outlier.”
So, I think people really like it. The tech was fairly stable. A lot of things went right in the beta. So, my shoulders are down a little bit toward launch. Obviously, there are still things that can go wrong, and we want to clean up a few of the things that people saw in the beta, but we’re all a bit more confident after the beta. We’re getting ready for launch. It is very surreal after five years. So, yeah, it’s exciting and nerve-racking at the same time.
Julio: As the first official question, I have to shamefully admit I have not read the novels, but I have watched David Lynch and Denis Villeneuve’s representations of Dune. So, I wanted to ask about your history with the franchise, and how the collaboration between Funcom and the Dune IP came to be.
Joel: My personal history is kind of weird. When I was young, my dad had a bookshelf, and it had a copy of a book called Dune. I remember I tried to read it when I was 12. But I didn’t understand anything. I thought it was a bit weird and a bit slow. Then, a few years later, I was 15 or 16, and I played the Cryo Dune game. I really liked it. I loved the music. So I went back and read the book and really liked it, but I think at 15/16, I didn’t appreciate it as much. Years passed, and I’ve always been into sci-fi. I watched the Lynch movie at some point in the ’90s.
So, we were working with Conan games and a company called Petroglyph. So, when we were working with this project called Conan Unconquered, they told us, “Hey, we think there’s a new Dune movie being made. We were looking for something after Conan.” And we were like, “Well, we just released a Conan game. We’re not going to release a Conan 2 straightaway or anything like that.” And then our CEO started talking with Legendary, and they were open to the idea of collaborating. It all came together.
It was funny because they ran a survey in the company back in 2018 or 2019, and it was like, “If you could work on a sci-fi franchise, what would it be?” And there was a big list of things like Terminator and Alien, and Dune, I think was number two on the list. Then, they announced we were going to work on Dune a few months after. So, everyone was really excited.
Julio: One thing that I have noticed about Dune: Awakening is that, in my opinion, it takes more inspiration from Villeneuve’s films. But, were there any other inspirations that influenced your creative vision for Dune: Awakening?
Joel: Yes, 100%. So, Villeneuve is the core Dune thing right now; it’s what everybody knows, so we have to hit that. And we’re working with Legendary, and that’s their vision of the franchise. But my personal take on some of the stuff, obviously, I mentioned I loved the Cryo games. The way that the sunsets were handled in the pixel art of those games is beautiful, and I talked to our art director and showed him some of the things from those games.
The Jodorowsky bible that he was building, the work that he was doing for the franchise, I think you can see in some of the building sets. We drew a bit of inspiration from the work that had been done. One of my personal things is that I think, and it’s not a criticism, I don’t think Villeneuve showed how hallucinogenic the Spice can be and how strange it can be. So that was something I wanted to take from Jodorowsky and bring into the game.
And of course, the core of it all is the books. That’s the heart. For me, it’s always the first and dearest reference. So I try to be as true to what Frank wrote as possible. Not just the books that he wrote, but also the interviews about it, like having read everything he ever said, or as much as I could find. And just try to be true to that thematic resonance that he has. That philosophical kind of approach.
There’s also a line in the book that I really loved because it inspired one of the game mechanics. It’s Duke Leto looking out of the palace. The sun is coming up, and he sees the flowers blooming in the fields, and he sees people taking the water from the flowers. It’s just one line—the Dew Reaper. No survival game can have this feature, except for us, because we’re working with this franchise. That’s not in the movies; it’s only one line in Frank’s book. Our art director said, “These aren’t limitations, they are inspirations for us.” Things that will make a Dune game, be a Dune game, and not anything else.
Julio: Speaking of mechanics, I never imagined I’d see a game using the actual shadow as an actual mechanic. You need to be under the shadow because if not, you’re going to get heatstroke. Out of curiosity, how difficult was it to implement in terms of gameplay?
Joel: Quite easy, actually. We know where the sun is, and we can do a line trace toward the player to see if it’s hitting anything in between. That’s already how we render shadows in the game. Except now we’re checking if it hits the player. From the time that idea was brought up to the time that it was in the game was probably less than a month. It was actually one of the better ones. I do have to give credit to our friends at Stunlock. They have a similar thing in V Rising.
We were talking about how to make the sun feel like an enemy. I was like, “V Rising does that with the vampire thing.” We don’t need to be the same, but yeah, in a 3D world, we can probably do that. I really liked it. I also want to shout out the Nightingale guys. They have a very similar mechanic.
Julio: Moving away from the inspirations of Frank Herbert, David Lynch, etc. Were there any other games that inspired you to create other mechanics that didn’t come from the Dune universe?
Joel: I play a lot of open-world games with immersive worlds, and I’m always looking for the things that make the world feel interesting. I think Ghost of Tsushima is one of the best games of the last 20 years. The way they do the reveal of the map is something I liked, and if you look at our game, you launch the probe, and the map opens up. Ghost of Tsushima directly inspired that.
The way Ornithopters fly in our game. We’ve been talking about how simulation-like it should be and how arcade-like it should feel. And it’s much more arcade than simulation. I look at games like Battlefield. We want players to build and use their vehicles, not worry about 500 dials.
If you look at the dialog system in the game, it’s directly inspired by classic RPGs, like Knights of the Old Republic. I love good, complex dialog systems—I love RPGs. So, I wanted to have some elements. I can’t make a single-player RPG in Dune, but I can make a multiplayer game that has those elements in it.
We always wanted to make an approachable survival-crafting, which sounds like an absolute oxymoron. But we really broke down what that means. And approachable means you don’t have to grind for five hours to build the basic house. We make it easy for you to build a house. There are threats in the world, like water. You need it, but you don’t have to manage five bars; it’s only one. All of the mechanics tie around that.
Julio: Speaking of making something for everyone, you just had the beta weekend and press event, so what has been the biggest piece of feedback or lesson that you learned from these tests?
Joel: I was surprised at how many people were not happy with the tool system. They wanted to change tools faster. Some felt there were not enough slots. It’s funny because, from a game design direction perspective, we actually set it up to encourage people to think and make deliberate decisions.
The way people played the game when I watched streamers is that they ran around like vacuum cleaners, picking up everything. Then, they are out of inventory space. And it’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. I watched a streamer, and I won’t say anyone’s name. They ran around, harvested everything they saw, and came to a piece of iron, and were like, “Oh, I have a full inventory.“ So, they opened their inventory and dropped all their iron so that they could harvest more iron. I don’t understand how they play this way, but it was interesting.
So, it makes us think about how we are going to make this QoL for people, with the tools and the inventory. I think that was the biggest gameplay revelation. Obviously, we had some PvP stuff. People were upset about stunlocking. But that’s stuff we’ve fixed already internally. Some minor stuff about how people use certain elements in the game. Feedback on some of the abilities.
But the biggest thing for us was that we were testing out technical entry points to the game. We were seeing how servers held up when they got full. We did a lot of load testing. It doesn’t mean everything is going to be great for launch. Launch could have many more players; we don’t know. But it made us more confident.
Julio: Since you mentioned abilities, I wanted to ask something about classes. In terms of gameplay, which class was the hardest to adapt to Dune: Awakening, and also the most fun?
Joel: It’s been a long struggle on this one. I would say this was one of the most difficult parts of development. One of the principles of our game is, “make your designs fit Dune, not make Dune fit your designs.” We’ve had a lot of back and forth. So, I think the Mentat has been and still is the hardest one. The Bene Gesserit, I think it’s okay because you use the Voice and can come up with a series of voice commands that make sense. The Trooper is a bit more standard. And the Swordmaster, well, everyone understands what it is.
A Mentat, however, is a human computer that can process data at immense speeds. It has been and continues to be a challenge, I think. We have some interesting abilities on the Mentat, but it still isn’t 100% what I would want it to be. It’s gotten to a better place. I want to continue working on it. Still, they are a great class to play, but are the hardest one to get perfectly to work.
Julio: One of the questions that an editor wanted me to ask you was, how have you felt after watching all these crazy clips from players getting eaten by the Sandworm or doing wild house builds? How does it feel to see your vision unfolding into something this magnificent?
Joel: It’s a great moment. It’s been such a long journey of uncertainty. Sandworms, for example. I have never had to fight so much in my career to make sure the Sandworms remain as full loot destroying creatures that everybody should be scared of. There was always pushback. From every angle. People were like, “No, it sucks to lose my gear.” “You’re going to drive people away from the game.” I just knew in my heart that if the Sandworm wasn’t the scariest thing on Arrakis, what’s the point? My game director was always supporting me, and we fought for it. And we kept it.
So, when you see people on Twitch, screaming as they die to the Sandworm, and they get up and are like, “Oh, I lost all my gear.” But are like, “Yes!” And start playing more. That’s the moment when you know you were right. You feel it was worth fighting for. It’s a great relief, and everybody on the team is cheering because players get it. They are able to live with this loss and move on. It motivates them. I think the game is approachable in many ways, but never should the Sandworms be approachable.
Julio: Another question that I have, especially for you, because I know you have a lot of experience with MMOs. We have a lot of games that are supposedly coming out, like Star Citizen and Ashes of Creation, that are stuck in limbo or changing daily. And new ones like Throne and Liberty that are very guild-centric. So, what’s your opinion on the current MMO landscape and these games? Instead of making solo-friendly experiences, they stick to a multiplayer-focused approach.
Joel: I think the best games of a multiplayer style are the ones that trick you into playing with other players. I think World of Warcraft did this magnificently. You could solo that game. For a long, long time, you could play hundreds of hours of content in World of Warcraft without ever talking to another player. But you would just sometimes come across a quest that was like, “Oh, it’s an Elite quest.” Then, you’d meet someone who’s hanging outside that Elite village and team up with them. It was spontaneous and beautiful. Forcing it is the wrong approach.
I was talking to someone who was asking about the clutter and the bases that were being built. Saying I could instance layers. And I was like, “Yes, but I want people to understand their neighbor.” Even though you play alone, I want you to wake up every morning and wonder what the guy in the weird building over there is doing. You see them online, and it makes the world richer.
In Dune: Awakening, you can play completely solo, and you can even create a solo guild and participate in the politics if you want to. You don’t have to join a larger guild. But I think there are points in Dune when you’re looking at other people and think this might be easier with someone else. Creating opportunities to experience social play is what these games should focus on. But not forcing people into social play. That’s why things like group finders hurt the social experience. People aren’t there to meet people. They are there to get their loot and get out. What you want to do is create a more organic experience.
Julio: If you had the opportunity to work in another franchise, sci-fi or something else, and bring it to a survival-crafter MMO, which one would you choose?
Joel: Someone asked me this at a show in London, and I had three answers. The Wheel of Time. It is one of my favorite book series. If I could do it like an MMO, not a survival-crafter, I think something in that world would be amazing. World-building-wise, there’s almost no one as good as Robert Jordan was. It’s so rich and so deep.
The second one, The Red Rising. They are really good. It has everything it needs to be a fantastic video game. There are a lot of elements there that I think would crossover from Dune.
The last one is The Dark Sun from Dungeons & Dragons. I would love to do something with Dark Sun. It’s one of my favorites. That one would be a perfect survival game. It’s also set in a desert, so I don’t know if people are going to get sick of me making games set in deserts.
Julio: In your opinion, what makes Dune: Awakening stand out from other survival-crafting games we’ve seen recently?
Joel: We tried to make the best combat system in the genre. We wanted to make it feel like a proper sandbox. A lot of people think we managed it. Dune: Awakening is also a very textured, very deep universe, and I feel that playing Dune: Awakening sometimes feels like playing an Obsidian or Avowed-type game. There are characters to talk to, dialog to have, quests and contracts, politics, and so on. People don’t quite understand how much depth there is.
Julio: Just to wrap up, I have two final questions. Right now, a lot of handheld platforms have become more available in the market. The long-awaited Nintendo Switch 2 is almost here. Do you have any plans to bring Dune: Awakening to this platform?
Joel: It runs on Steam Deck, it runs on the ROG Ally, which is what I have, so I have definitely tested it on that platform. It runs fine on Windows-based platforms. However, I’ve never seen a Switch 2 development kit, and I have no idea. Maybe one day.
Julio: As a final question, do you have any messages for your fans who have been eagerly waiting for Dune: Awakening?
Joel: Yes. Once the game launches, it’s not our game, it’s your game. Once it becomes that, we need to pay attention to what you have to say to make it better. Thanks to everyone who’s interested and excited about the game. When you take over this game, and we hand it off to you, we hope you treat our baby well. That’s all I can say.
