Palworld

VS

Dune: Awakening

Palworld is a survival/adventure sandbox game released in January 2024 by Pocketpair. It experienced an explosive launch with millions of sales and high concurrent player counts on PC. Since launch, player counts have declined from their peak but remain strong for a new multiplayer survival game, thanks to active updates and ongoing community engagement. It's not an MMO, as servers are typically limited to smaller group sizes and don't feature a true persistent, massively multiplayer world.

As of late August 2025, Dune: Awakening had approximately 14,000 concurrent players, reflecting a significant decline from its peak of over 189,000 concurrent players shortly after launch in June 2025. This decrease is attributed to factors such as player burnout, game design issues, and technical problems. Despite these challenges, the developers remain optimistic, citing strong player retention and a 10-year development roadmap that includes plans to explore new planets and regions within the Dune universe. ([gamesradar.com](https://www.gamesradar.com/games/mmo/dune-awakening-dev-says-player-retention-has-been-extremely-good-and-the-mmos-10-year-plan-still-has-so-much-to-pull-from-in-the-lore-well-go-to-new-planets-eventually/?utm_source=openai))