The new co-op action RPG Dauntless is being overrun. Even on the second day after the start of the open beta, almost one hundred thousand players are in the queue at peak times.
Crowded queues: Dauntless launched into open beta on May 24 on PC. Since then, players have been complaining about huge waiting times. Last night, a user on reddit posted a picture of a queue with more than 91,000 people ahead of him. Here at Mein-MMO, readers have also reported queues with 60,000 or more people ahead of them during prime time. Once in the game, the influx leads to unstable servers, crashes, and problems. We wonder: Why is Dauntless so popular right now?
Congrats to phoenix labs, reaching nearly 100k people in login queue! from r/dauntless
5 Reasons Why Dauntless is Busting at the Seams
Not a typical open beta: Dauntless launched into an open beta. However, this is not the kind of open beta that games used to do when testing something before a release. Dauntless is a free-to-play game and will not have a wipe after the “open beta.” The game is effectively released, this is referred to as a soft launch.
Now free: Since August 2017, Dauntless had been playable in an alpha version, but access had to be purchased through founder packs. Apparently, many outsiders have been watching with interest in recent months, but were not willing to spend money on the title. Now that this barrier has fallen, players are diving in. Some are not interested in a closed beta where progress is wiped multiple times and are waiting for the soft launch.
Empty release window: Right now, there’s not much happening in the gaming market. Every year in early summer, small “indie titles” make waves, using the time window to attract attention without much competition. Games like ARK: Survival Evolved, Friday the 13th: The Game, or the PVE variant of Fortnite have managed to create hype in recent years that few expected.
Monster Hunter World as a Helper
Monster Hunter hype: The desire for Dauntless is certainly also high because Monster Hunter World has been one of the success stories of 2018 so far. However, Monster Hunter World is only available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – PC players will have to wait until fall. It’s very possible that some people want to satisfy their thirst for monster hunting with Dauntless in the meantime. The game is considered a reasonable alternative. The Dauntless developers have repeatedly emphasized that they believe the hype around MHW helps their game by bringing more players into the genre. They could be right.
Just a small team: But the fact that the queues are so huge could have another simple reason. Dauntless is an indie title with a small team. They never expected so many players to come in. Unlike larger studios, like Funcom with Conan Exiles, they can’t react quickly and scale up servers sufficiently.
What is Dauntless doing now? The developers are putting in overtime and night shifts to get the number of players in queues under control. But that seems almost impossible at the moment while the hype continues.
