Gale Force Nine has announced a brand-new Dune board game that explores the setting’s rich history. In Arrakis: Dawn of the Fremen, two to four players must face the challenges of leadership and survival in one of the harshest environments known to humankind. This immersive tabletop experience—gaming sessions are expected to run for 60-90 minutes—involves tribal warfare, as well as opportunities for cooperative play. The board game is currently scheduled to go on sale in June 2022.
This upcoming release is the third Dune board game from designers behind the classic Dune: A Game of Conquest, Diplomacy and Betrayal, and its two expansions, as well as the streamlined 2021 version based on Denis Villeneuve’s movie, Dune: A Game of Conquest and Diplomacy: Peter Olotka, Jack Kittredge, Bill Eberle, Greg Olotka, and Jack Reda. While Arrakis: Dawn of the Fremen shares certain strategic elements with aforementioned games—for example, controlling most sietches is one path to victory—players can expect a different style of gameplay.
First distinction is a fresh time period. Arrakis: Dawn of the Fremen takes place more than one hundred generations before Paul Atreides took his first steps on the desert world and forever changed the destiny of its people. The board game focuses on the very essence of survival in Dune. As Fremen leaders, players will be faced with difficult choices as they seek to secure a future of their tribe.
Life-sustaining resources are scarce on Dune, however there are different approaches to gathering them. Will you engage in savage competition with your rivals? Or, will you seek to bargain and perhaps even establish an agreeable cooperation?
And of course the creation and maintenance of sietches, the communal cave dwellings where Fremen reside, plays a crucial role in determining control of the deep desert territories. Establishing such a community is one matter, but retaining
The board game’s official synopsis reads as follows:
Arrakis: Dawn of the Fremen is the brutal, cutthroat game about tribal control of Arrakis, long before the events of the novel Dune. Each player controls a tribe of Fremen warriors, struggling to gather the scarce resources of Arrakis, developing the weapons and sietches they’ll need to survive, and harnessing the power of sandworms for battle.
Will your tribe prevail, or will you vanish into the desert?
Stay tuned for further coverage and reveals, as we approach the release dates for this and the other forthcoming Dune games.
