Featured image: official screenshot via Funcom / Steam
Funcom has just done something studios rarely do right after a big launch: it announced a restructuring, confirmed layoffs and revealed that the CEO who led the company for 11 years is leaving. All of this lands weeks after Dune: Awakening arrived on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S with a brand new solo mode. The studio calls it the move from full production to long-term live operations. For the people losing their jobs, it is a lot harsher than that.
Here is what Funcom actually said, what we still do not know, and why this second round of cuts in a year says something about the state of the survival MMO.
The short version
- Restructuring: Funcom says the process “begins now” and will lead to layoffs
- Headcount: the studio has not said how many people are affected
- Leadership: CEO Rui Casais leaves at the end of 2026, Chief Product Officer Scott Junior takes over
- New focus: only Dune: Awakening and Conan Exiles, with no new game in the works
- Not the first time: Funcom also cut staff in October 2025
What Funcom announced
The news first appeared through a statement to GamesIndustry.biz and was then picked up by PC Gamer and GamesRadar. Casais did not dress it up. He described Dune: Awakening as “the biggest project we have ever undertaken, requiring many years of significant development resources across our studios,” and then explained why that matters now.
“Moving from full production into long-term post-launch development and operations requires a different organization. While we would have wanted everyone who helped build Dune: Awakening to continue with us, we cannot sustain the size and structure required during peak development as we move into this next phase.”
Casais added that his focus is making the process “as supportive as possible for everyone affected.” Funcom also said it will not share further details until the restructuring is finished, out of respect for the employees involved. That is a reasonable thing to say, but it also means nobody outside the company knows how deep the cuts go.
A new CEO from inside the Dune team
Casais has run the Norwegian studio for 11 years and will stay on through the end of 2026 to hand things over. His successor is Scott Junior, who is currently Chief Product Officer and was an executive producer on Dune: Awakening. He has been at Funcom for around 25 years according to coverage of the announcement.
Choosing the person who shepherded the game to launch is a signal. Funcom is not bringing in an outsider to reinvent the company. It is betting that the people who know Dune: Awakening best should steer its long tail.
How Funcom got here
The timeline explains a lot. Dune: Awakening launched on PC in June 2025 and started with a bang. Funcom reported more than 189,000 concurrent players on Steam, and the game sold one million copies in its first two weeks, making it the fastest-selling release in the studio’s history.
The momentum did not hold. In the months that followed, player counts dropped substantially, and the community gave a mixed response to the PvP focus and the faction-based endgame. Funcom reacted with layoffs in October 2025, then spent the next year reshaping the game. The most important change arrived in September 2026, when the console version launched with a full solo mode and the option to play everything, including the Deep Desert and Landsraad faction warfare, as PvE.
Funcom’s road from launch to layoffs
Sources: Funcom press releases, PC Gamer, GamesRadar, MassivelyOP.
The numbers behind the story
Funcom at a glance
Figures as reported by Funcom and the outlets linked in the sources below.
Two games, no new project
The clearest part of the announcement is the narrowing of focus. Funcom will concentrate on Dune: Awakening and Conan Exiles and nothing else. PC Gamer points to a conversation with GamesIndustry.biz last month in which Chief Creative Officer Joel Bylos said the studio was not ready to start a new game, and that future projects were little more than vague thoughts at the back of the team’s minds.
That fits with how the past year looked. Awakening was reworked to lean less on its MMO roots, with solo play and PvE-only modes added. Conan Exiles received a new engine and a major paid expansion. With both reworks done, Funcom appears ready to support what it has rather than build something new.
| Game | Latest big change | Role in the new plan |
|---|---|---|
| Dune: Awakening | Console launch, solo mode, full PvE option | Main live service, long-term updates |
| Conan Exiles | New engine and a major paid expansion | Ongoing support and content |
| New projects | None announced | On hold, per Funcom’s creative chief |
An industry pattern, not just a Funcom problem
This is not an isolated case. Studios keep scaling up for a big launch and then discovering that a live game needs a much smaller team. We saw the other side of that equation when Capcom rebuilt Monster Hunter Wilds’ endgame months after release, which is the kind of post-launch investment that needs a team to exist in the first place. Survival games have a particular challenge here. Once players finish the main loop, they leave quickly unless fresh content arrives. When Valheim left early access after five years, it showed how much patience and a steady small team can achieve in this genre.
The broader mood is not great either. Other recent stories on the industry side include Epic delaying a shooter to go AI first, and PC Gamer notes that Supermassive Games and Splitgate studio 1047 Games have also announced new cuts recently. Funcom’s statement is polite, but the pattern is familiar.
What it means for players
The honest answer is that nobody knows yet, and Funcom has promised no details until the process ends. A few things are reasonably clear from what the company has said:
- The games are not shutting down. Funcom explicitly says Dune: Awakening and Conan Exiles are the company’s future.
- Update pace may slow. A smaller team usually means fewer large content drops, though it could mean steadier smaller ones.
- Solo and PvE are here to stay. The September changes were the biggest shift in the game’s direction and they are now the baseline.
- No new Funcom game soon. If you were hoping for a third project, expect to wait.
My take
Nothing in this announcement says Dune: Awakening is failing. It sold a million copies in two weeks, it just reached consoles and it still has a large audience. What the news says is that the studio built for the launch phase is not the studio the game needs now, and that Funcom chose to say so openly. That is more honest than most layoff announcements, and the quote about not being able to sustain the size of the past is rare candor.
It is still painful for the developers who built Arrakis and are now leaving, especially for the second time in a year. The real question is whether a smaller Funcom can keep two live games healthy while player counts settle. Scott Junior, who knows the Dune project inside out, has a lot to prove from January. We will update this story when the company shares numbers.
Sources: PC Gamer, GamesRadar, MassivelyOP, Funcom press release, Funcom console announcement.
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