"What's the point of any of this?" - Asmongold reacts as Dune Awakening developer claims MMORPG will "sidestep religion"

Zack “Asmongold” offered his thoughts on the contentious, upcoming Dune Awakening MMO. The title promises to be an open-world survival MMO but is planning on sidestepping religion and not making the player character the Messiah, as portrayed in the Dune novels. This has upset many fans, but Zack had a few thoughts on it where the lack of religion as a focus could make sense.

The streamer also considered that the developers were just afraid and didn’t want players to feel like the game was glorifying concepts like jihad or other types of holy wars. Questioning the purpose of the game, he said:

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Asmongold discussed the Dune Awakening controversy in his March 7, 2024 Twitch stream. On his alternate Zackrawrr account, he discussed the intentional sidestepping of religion in the upcoming survival MMO. The game received pushback from fans for this decision on social media as well.

The OTK Co-Founder also read the Dune Awakening’s X.com post, where they stated that while religion is an important facet of the game, the character is not the Messiah and will not be leading the people of Arrakis on any kind of holy war. That led to Asmongold’s response:

The Twitch streamer then offered his thoughts on why the developers pulled back on religion. In addition, it appeared that he mocked current media for putting modern social norms in fantasy media:

Ultimately, Asmongold felt the developers were too scared to make religion the focus of Dune Awakening, as it is in the various Dune novels by Frank Herbert. However, he did come up with some thoughts on how it could make perfect sense:

On the other hand, if the developers are avoiding religion because they’re afraid of social media pushback, Asmongold was far less