Dune: Awakening Guide | How To Switch Faction Allegiance

A guide on How to Switch your Faction Allegiance in Dune: Awakening.

Game Guide by Groot on Jul 01, 2025

In Dune: Awakening, your choice between House Atreides and House Harkonnen significantly impacts your gameplay experience on Arrakis. You can only change sides once, making this decision crucial for your long-term progression.

Whether you initially chose the noble House Atreides or the ruthless House Harkonnen, you have the opportunity to switch allegiances if you find yourself wanting to experience the opposite faction's storyline, equipment, and political dynamics.

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This comprehensive guide will walk you through the entire process of switching your faction allegiance, including the prerequisites, locations, and consequences involved.

Initial Faction Selection

Early on within the Eastern Vermilious Gap at the Anvil Trading Post, you will end up making your decision on which faction you decide to side with - either Atreides or Harkonnen. Whichever quest you end up following, you will end up doing theirs and completing their quest chain.

This will take you through the main story of the factions, where you join a house, complete all of their quests along the way, and eventually find yourself aligned with one of the factions at a max Rank of 5.

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Important Considerations Before Switching

You should note that you're only allowed to switch once, so beware. Plan which guild you want to join before choosing a faction, as you can only change sides once.

A good thing you can do is actually finish Rank 5 with one of the factions before switching, as you can still leave, but you just have to leave in a different way.

If you've completed the quest chain and reached max rank, there is a different way to defect, which is what this guide focuses on.

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Additionally, you should know that you'll be keeping any of those customizations that you purchased for your current faction before you switch. Make sure you buy everything for your current faction because it goes to double the price when you're buying from the opposite faction.

Switching from Harkonnen to Atreides

If you are Harkonnen and you want to join the Atreides, you'll need to fly to Arrakeen. As soon as you load in, you're going to make your way all the way to the left-hand side of the map to the area where you'll be heading for the people at the table with all the Atreides banners.

These are the leaders where you'll be doing a lot of your quests. You'll speak with the specific NPC there, and this is where you should have the option to defect to the Atreides if you are Harkonnen.

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It will have a pop-up on your screen telling you to beware that you can only do this once - you can only betray once, and you're not welcome back to the Harkonnen if you do this.

Switching from Atreides to Harkonnen

If you are instead Atreides and you want to be Harkonnen, you will have to make your way to Harko Village. In Harko Village, you can find the same NPC to switch factions located near the entrance, just opposite the Harkonnen vendor. If switching from Atreides to Harkonnen, talk to Piter de Vries. He's at Harko's landing zone, right across the Harko faction vendor.

When you engage with him, you'll see that you have the option to defect to their house. This will bring up the warning that betraying a faction has serious consequences, so be very careful with what you do.

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The Defection Process

When you proceed with the defection and choose to break your oath of allegiance, if you're already Rank 5 and you've completed the quest line, you'll get a new contract that you can complete.

If you're already Rank 5 and you're doing this defection process, you shouldn't get a very long quest line to complete.

The quest typically involves tasks like eliminating enemies at a specific base, looting information logs, and then making your way back to deliver the stolen item to your new faction representative.

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The process then requires you to deliver false information to your original faction. You'll make your way back to your original faction's location and betray your former representative directly to their face.

After this betrayal, you return to your new faction's village to speak with the representative and complete the contract, cementing your place in the new faction.

Benefits of Switching

This defection process will immediately rank you up to Rank 5 within the opposite faction if you went from Rank 5 in your original faction. You won't have to progress through Rank 1 through Rank 4 if you have already completed all those quests for your previous faction.

Once you're with your new faction, you'll be able to access NPCs that were previously inaccessible to you, and you can buy all the faction items for half the price you would have paid if you were still with your original faction.

Also, check our Dune: Awakening Review and other guides below:

Rubaiyat Shihab

Editor, NoobFeed

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