No Dong Slider in Dune: Awakening, But Plenty of Other Sliders

So there I was, sitting in a dimly lit room at a game developers conference in San Francisco, watching Funcom demo the character creator for Dune: Awakening. And I'm not gonna lie, folks—my mind went straight to the gutter. Not because the game looked bad (it looked fantastic, actually), but because I couldn't stop thinking about Conan Exiles. You know the one. The survival sandbox that gave us the infamous "endowment slider"—a.k.a. the dong slider—complete with full physics-enabled jiggle when your naked character jumped up and down. Ah, memories.

Back in 2017, that little feature blew up. Our story about Conan's endowment slider was our biggest news story of the year, and a tweet where I demonstrated the slider with a video clip was still getting likes months later. It was a wild time to be alive. So when I got my first look at Dune's extensive character creation system—sliders for arm thickness, neck length, freckle density, even "eye squint" and "sclera tint"—I just had to ask. Eventually. It took me a while to work up the nerve, but I finally popped the question to Dune: Awakening's executive producer, Scott Junior.

"Conan Exiles famously had a genitals slider in character creation," I said, trying to sound casual. "I didn't see one in Dune. Why don't you have one?"

Junior didn't miss a beat. "Ah," he said. "So, Dune's not as… sexy? As Conan Exiles. That's not one of the main, I would say… pillars of the IP. So we want to focus more on the Dune things than what we were doing in Conan Exiles."

Fair enough. But I wasn't done yet. "Did you at any point consider it?" I pressed, fully aware that I didn't have quite enough to justify writing a story—this story—about it later. "Did you talk to the Herbert estate and say 'Can we put in… adjustable genitals?'"

"I do not believe so," Junior said, deadpan. "It was a pretty conscious decision at the start to focus more on Dune than the savage, sexy world of Conan."

And there you have it. No dong slider in Dune: Awakening. Not in this universe, anyway. As a consolation prize, I can report that the character creation system is otherwise absolutely stacked. I'm talking sliders for everything: arm and leg thickness, neck length, freckle density. Just for your character's eyes alone, I counted a half dozen sliders—iris and pupil size, eye height, width, and angle, plus "eye squint" and "sclera tint." There's even makeup options for eyeliner and eyeshadow. So you can make a character who looks like they've been surviving on Arrakis for years, complete with sun-baked freckles and a suspicious squint. But a slider for your junk? Nope. Not happening.

Now, before you grab your pitchfork and demand a refund, let's put this in perspective. Conan Exiles was always a bit of a cheeky game—bloody, brutal, and yes, a little bit horny. The endowment slider fit right in with the game's savage, sexy world. Dune, on the other hand, is a different beast entirely. Frank Herbert's universe is about politics, religion, ecology, and giant sandworms. It's not exactly the kind of place where you'd expect to see a physics-enabled schlong bouncing around. And that's probably for the best. The Herbert estate is notoriously protective of the IP, and I can't imagine a conversation about adjustable genitals going over well.

So what does Dune: Awakening offer instead? A character creator that lets you fine-tune everything from your character's bone structure to their eye color to the exact density of their freckles. It's the kind of deep customization that makes you feel like you're actually building a person, not just picking a preset face. And honestly, that's more impressive than a dong slider any day. Well, maybe not any day. But most days.

Let me put it this way: if you're the kind of player who spends hours tweaking your character's nostril width and jawline, Dune: Awakening has you covered. If you're the kind of player who wants to see your character's package jiggle in the wind, well… you're out of luck. But hey, you can always go back to Conan Exiles. Funcom even gave it a massive Unreal Engine 5 upgrade a while back, complete with an "enhanced endowment slider" to further improve player penises. So if that's your jam, the door's still open.

As for me? I'm just glad I finally asked the question. It was the journalistic equivalent of ripping off a Band-Aid—awkward, a little painful, but ultimately satisfying. And now I can sleep at night knowing that somewhere out there, a Funcom developer is breathing a sigh of relief that they don't have to animate sandworm physics for anything other than, you know, actual sandworms.

So here's the bottom line: Dune: Awakening is not Conan Exiles. It's not trying to be. And that's fine. You can still make a character with perfectly sculpted cheekbones, sun-kissed freckles, and a suspicious squint. Just don't expect to adjust anything below the belt. After all, as Junior put it, that's not one of the pillars of the IP. And honestly? I respect the hell out of that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to tweaking my character's eye squint. It's a delicate art, you know.