Dauntless (video game)

Dauntless
Developer(s) Phoenix Labs
Publisher(s) Phoenix Labs
Engine Unreal Engine 4
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows
Release
  • WW: Q3-Q4 2018
Genre(s) Action role-playing
Mode(s) Single-player, multi-player

Dauntless is an upcoming free-to-play action role-playing video game in development and to be published by Phoenix Labs. The game hit open beta on May 24, 2018 and is available on Microsoft Windows.

Gameplay

Dauntless takes place in a fantasy setting, where a cataclysmic event has torn the world apart, releasing monster-like Behemoths that prey on the surviving humans. Players take on the role of Slayers to take down Behemoths, collecting loot that they use to craft and upgrade weapons and equipment as to take down larger and more powerful Behemoths. While hunting, the game plays as a third-person action game; the player uses a combo system to attack the creature, while monitoring their own health and stamina gauge. Such hunts can take upwards of twenty minutes of in-game time to complete.[1] The game can be played both as single-player or cooperatively with up to four people.[2]

Development

Phoenix Labs was formed by former Riot Games developers Jesse Houston, Sean Bender and Robin Mayne,[3] and as of January 2017 includes 40 developers formerly from BioWare, Blizzard Entertainment, and Capcom developers.[2] While a small studio compared to the AAA studios they left, Houston said that they are positioned in a way to offer "a new, unique approach to crafting AAA experiences".[3]

Dauntless will be the studio's first release. It was heavily inspired, as well as frequently compared to, Capcom's Monster Hunter series, which can see hundreds of hours put into a game by a player;[2] the developers themselves have over a collective 6000 hours in various Monster Hunter titles.[4] Dauntless was also influenced by Dark Souls and World of Warcraft.[3] Houston credits Dark Souls specifically for helping to prove out that there is a market for "hardcore action games" focused on player versus environment encounters, which allowed them to take a safe risk on their approach to Dauntless.[5] The game is intended to be played co-operatively as they see it as a social experience,[3][6] and intend to add social/multiplayer interactions that are persistent in games like World of Warcraft and Destiny to differentiate Dauntless from the Monster Hunter games.[7] Houston said that they plan to make extremely difficult quests within the game, so that while most players will be able to reach a principle endgame state, only a few will be skilled enough to take on these quests, similar to some quests in World of Warcraft.[5] The game's look and feel was inspired by the animated film Tangled and other Disney films, avoiding hyper-realism so that the game's graphics will age well.[5]

Since its announcement, the game has garnered a great deal of interest from players, prompting Phoenix Labs to be much more transparent about the development plans for the game and interact with their fans to help guide development.[5] They also plan to move the closed alpha sooner by a few months to get more early feedback.[5] They later announced plans to start the alpha testing in April 2017.[8]

The game was first revealed during The Game Awards in December 2016.[3] Phoenix Labs planned to start with a closed alpha period, followed by an open beta period prior to the game's full release in the last quarter of 2017.[2] The alpha was launched August 18, 2017;[9] though players could register to be selected for the alpha, Phoenix Labs also offered premium early alpha access in for-cost packages that included in-game buffs, features for customization, and the ability to create guilds.[10] By the PAX East 2017 event in March 2017, they had the basic combat for the game completed, and were starting the development of the impact of skills and boosts into the game.[5] By September, Phoenix Labs pushed back the release schedule for the game, citing issues found during the closed alpha period including game stability and game balance in comparison to the Monster Hunter formula. The open beta was moved to early 2018, and formally launched in May 2018, though prior to that, they invited small waves of players to the closed beta to increase feedback.[11][12] Within two weeks of the open beta period, over one million new players had played the game.[13] By July 2018, they had seen over 2 million players.[14]

While there will be microtransactions in the game, the developers plan to limit this to cosmetic items and temporary boosts rather than to require players to access game content.[1] Houston said it was important to them that players shown wearing rare armor or weapons in the game got those through skill and not by "a deep wallet".[5] While initially they had offered cosmetics through loot boxes within the game, the team opted to remove them following criticism towards the growing trend of loot boxes that was raised in October 2017; instead, they will allow players to directly purchase cosmetics with real-world funds for monetization purposes.[15] Houston, who had previously worked with Electronic Arts on Mass Effect 3, one of the first games that introduced loot boxes, said that they wanted to give players "a clearer relationship to the content that [they're] purchasing" in their decision to eliminate these.[16]

Dauntless is currently planned for a personal computer-only release, but Phoenix Labs have been in discussions with publishers for consoles, and would like to support cross-platform play if they do publish to these systems.[5] Houston said that his team was not worried about potential competition from Monster Hunter: World, which was announced to be coming in 2018 for personal computers and consoles during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017 in June 2017. Houston said "The more AAA products that are coming into this genre, the wider it’s going to get", and believes that Dauntless differs itself by being tuned to a co-operative experience and using free-to-play mechanics.[17]

References

  1. 1 2 Marks, Tom (January 26, 2017). "Dauntless is the PC Monster Hunter game we've all been waiting for". PC Gamer. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Kollar, Philip; Robinson, Nick (January 26, 2017). "Dauntless aims to bring the best of Monster Hunter to a much bigger audience". Polygon. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Conduit, Jessica (December 1, 2016). "Former 'League of Legends' developers unveil 'Dauntless'". Engadget. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
  4. ↑ Evans-Thirlwell, Edwin (July 12, 2017). "Dauntless is Monster Hunter for people who fear grind". Rock Paper Shotgun. Retrieved July 12, 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Barrett, Ben (March 17, 2017). "Dauntless boss on the game and his company - "We cannot go anywhere near putting weapons behind a paywall"". PCGamesN. Retrieved March 17, 2017.
  6. ↑ Frank, Allegra (December 1, 2016). "This is Dauntless, a co-op fantasy RPG from ex-BioWare vets". Polygon. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
  7. ↑ Dawn, Hannah (January 5, 2018). "How the team making Dauntless aim to take on Monster Hunter". PCGamesN. Retrieved January 5, 2018.
  8. ↑ McKeand, Kirk (March 23, 2017). "Free-to-play Monster Hunter-alike Dauntless gets an alpha in April and you can sign up now". PCGamesN. Retrieved March 23, 2017.
  9. ↑ Brown, Fraser (August 18, 2017). "Dauntless founder's alpha is live now, with closed beta coming in September". PCGamesN. Retrieved August 18, 2017.
  10. ↑ Hall, Charlie (April 6, 2017). "Free-to-play Dauntless offers up alpha access for a price". Polygon. Retrieved April 6, 2017.
  11. ↑ Tarason, Dominic (September 16, 2017). "Monster Hunter-like Dauntless rewrites the roadmap, delays open beta to early 2018". PCGamesN. Retrieved September 16, 2017.
  12. ↑ Kzenevic, Kevin (May 24, 2018). "Free Monster Hunter-Like RPG Dauntless Now Available On PC In Open Beta". GameSpot. Retrieved May 25, 2018.
  13. ↑ Bailey, Dustin (June 7, 2018). "Dauntless gets 1 million players in just two weeks". PCGamesN. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  14. ↑ Takahashi, Dean (July 17, 2018). "Phoenix Labs' Dauntless hits 2 million players and readies big expansion". Venture Beat. Retrieved July 17, 2018.
  15. ↑ Messner, Steven (October 30, 2017). "Dauntless is getting rid of loot boxes". PC Gamer. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
  16. ↑ Newman, Jared (November 14, 2017). "How Loot Boxes Led to Never-Ending Games (And Always-Paying Players)". Glixel. Retrieved November 14, 2017.
  17. ↑ Kollar, Philip (June 16, 2017). "Dauntless developers not worried about competing with Monster Hunter: World". Polygon. Retrieved June 16, 2017.
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