Creating a video game based on a blockbuster film franchise comes with a unique set of perks and challenges. On the upside, you get to rub shoulders—albeit virtually—with some of Hollywood’s most recognizable names. On the downside, the collaboration is often mediated through a corporate tool that most developers love to hate: Jira. Joel Bylos, Funcom’s chief creative officer, explains that every major decision for Dune Awakening had to be vetted by Legendary, the studio behind the recent Dune movies.
“We submit assets, story beats, and design concepts through Jira tickets. Legendary’s team reviews them and, if everything checks out, they approve within a set timeframe,” Bylos says. “If a ticket lingers, we politely nudge them: ‘Hey, we need that sign‑off to keep moving.’ In practice the workflow is very automated and runs smoothly most of the time.” What might sound like a dull bureaucratic process is actually a sign of a healthy partnership.
Bylos notes that the trust Funcom has built with Legendary means the paperwork is more a formality than a battlefield. “Once you’ve earned the film studio’s confidence, the actual approval steps become almost invisible. It’s not about endless phone calls with angry execs; it’s about a single Jira ticket that says, ‘We’ve got the IP in safe hands.’” Legendary, in turn, decides whether any issues need to be escalated further—perhaps to the estate of Frank Herbert or to director Denis Villeneuve himself.
One piece of feedback from Villeneuve, for instance, was that the working title “Dune Awakening” sounded a little too reminiscent of Star Wars’ “The Force Awakens.” The team ultimately kept the name, but the anecdote illustrates how closely the filmmakers are involved. This level of oversight contrasts sharply with the lax licensing practices of the 1990s, when many movie tie‑in games were rushed out with little input from the studios that owned the intellectual property.
Today, game and film companies are forging tighter bonds, and some industry observers even predict that game studios could start to resemble film studios in structure. Stuart Muckley of Code Wizards, speaking at ExDev Week, pointed out that the surge in project‑specific financing—rather than equity stakes in whole companies—could lead to each game being housed in its own legal entity, much like a film production company.
Bylos sees the logic in that model: “You isolate financial risk in a holding company, just like Hollywood does. Investors can choose to back the Dune project without having to invest in Funcom as a whole.” He cautions, however, that such a shift would require significant changes in employment practices, including more fixed‑term contracts and stronger union protections to prevent exploitation.
“Hollywood works because unions are strong. Without them, a project‑based model could be risky for workers.” Bylos’s own journey with Funcom began nearly two decades ago. An Australian native, he moved to Norway in the early 2000s, learned the language, and even washed cars at a rental agency to make ends meet.
“I kept asking myself whether I’d ever get out of that job, given I had a university degree,” he recalls. His break came in 2007 when he landed a quest‑designer role on Age of Conan. He later directed Conan Exiles and was promoted to chief creative officer in 2019. His current focus is the console launch of Dune Awakening, which follows a substantial update to the PC version.
The most notable addition is a single‑player mode, a request that many fans had voiced. “We also introduced a suite of difficulty sliders that let players fine‑tune the experience, essentially giving them a creative‑mode toolbox similar to Minecraft,” Bylos explains.
This shift required a massive rebalancing effort, as multiplayer and single‑player economies demand very different design philosophies. Porting the game to consoles introduced another layer of complexity. Each platform has its own performance envelope, but Bylos appreciates the stability of dedicated hardware. “Optimising for a fixed console is different from PC, where specs can vary wildly.
It’s actually refreshing to have a known target.” The PlayStation 5’s DualSense controller also gave the team a chance to experiment with haptic feedback and adaptive triggers. “Walking across a dune and feeling the subtle rumble of a sandworm underneath is something the DualSense can convey beautifully.” Looking ahead, Bylos hopes the console debut will spark a surge of new players. To retain them, Funcom is exploring more in‑game events, longer‑term content roadmaps, and varied monetisation strategies. Dune Awakening currently follows a premium‑plus‑DLC model, but Funcom has experimented with battle‑pass stores on Conan Exiles.
“We tried a battle pass, dropped it, kept the store. We’ll watch market trends and adopt what makes sense for us,” he says. The live‑service landscape is notoriously volatile. Bylos recalls how MMOs have shifted from subscription models to free‑to‑play with microtransactions, and how the industry now seems to be circling back to in‑game advertising.
“We actually pioneered ad placements in Anarchy Online back in 2001—virtual billboards in a sci‑fi city that generated solid revenue without hurting gameplay. It’s funny to see that model resurfacing now.” He stresses that Dune Awakening will not adopt ads, but the experience informs Funcom’s broader business outlook. Funcom underwent a round of layoffs in late 2025 to concentrate resources on Dune Awakening, and the studio’s subsidiary The Outsiders (the creators of Metal: Hellsinger) was subsequently shut down.
When asked if the company is now solely focused on Dune, Bylos confirms, “We still have a small team polishing Conan Exiles, but the majority of our staff are on Dune. We’re not ready to start a brand‑new IP yet; we’re just brainstorming what could come after.” Predicting the technological future is a core part of game development, and Bylos admits the rapid rise of AI makes that prediction harder than ever.
“Five‑year forecasts feel meaningless when AI can shift the landscape in a few months.” This uncertainty also feeds investor hesitation; “Everyone’s holding their breath, waiting to see what the next breakthrough will be.” When asked about mobile ports, Bylos is candid: “Our expertise isn’t in mobile. Tencent’s studios are far better suited for that. We focus on what we do best.” Nonetheless, he acknowledges a broader industry trend toward low‑spec, portable hardware. “Steam‑Deck‑style devices are becoming mainstream, and consoles will age slower because the memory bottleneck won’t be solved anytime soon.
Games will need to be more stylised, less memory‑hungry.” The push for photorealism, while still a major ambition for many studios, clashes with the preferences of a generation raised on Roblox and other stylised platforms. “Kids don’t care about ultra‑realistic graphics; they care about fun, accessible gameplay,” Bylos observes, noting his own children’s indifference to visual fidelity. He points to World of Warcraft as a case study in timeless art direction—stylised graphics that have aged gracefully despite incremental upgrades. In summary, Funcom’s near‑future appears to be guided by practicality over pure visual ambition.
By embracing stylised aesthetics, focusing on cross‑platform optimisation, and staying agile with monetisation models, the studio hopes to reach a broader audience that includes both console owners and owners of lower‑powered devices. As the market moves toward $1,000‑plus next‑gen consoles, the bulk of players will likely remain on older hardware for years to come, making the case for style‑first development stronger than ever.