The free alternative to Monster Hunter, Dauntless, recently launched on Steam. However, the loyal players who have been gaming for years are extremely angry.
What kind of game is this? Dauntless is a free alternative to Monster Hunter, where you take on the role of a “Slayer” and go monster hunting. Just like in Monster Hunter, you gather loot to craft equipment and weapons. You can embark on quests either solo or in co-op with other Slayers.
Various modes await you, where you have to do one thing in an open world, in a rogue-like game mode, in an arena, or in a race against time: kill monsters!
While the game was previously exclusive to Epic Games, the developers wanted to celebrate the release on Steam with a major update. With Dauntless: Awakening, improved graphics as well as many new contents were supposed to come, along with a revision of well-known systems.
Dauntless: Awakening is now live on Steam, but instead of a celebrated update, it has received nothing but endless negative reviews.
Here you can watch the trailer for the big Dauntless update:
Community is angry
What is making the players angry? Instead of bringing fresh momentum into the game with the comprehensive update and attracting new players on Steam, as fans might have hoped, the update primarily resulted in empty inventories for players.
A main component of Dauntless was not only defeating monsters but also crafting with the materials that these bosses dropped. However, weapon crafting has now been removed from the game.
With the new system, many of the old weapons were also removed from the players’ inventories. Only a few weapons remained, while all others were turned into skins. Bitter for the players who had invested thousands of hours into their characters.
Instead of a variety of weapons as before, there are now only 18 different ones, of which only 7 can be unlocked for free through quests. The other 11 weapons are available for purchase in the shop using premium currency, which can be obtained for real money, from the battle pass, and through challenges (via playdauntless.com).
What other changes are there? Many of the new features simplify systems that players previously enjoyed. The update removed entire progression systems and skills from them. However, there is a new loot box system that did not previously exist in the game.
The improved graphics, which was considered one of the major innovations, also receives little praise from players. When visual optimizations are mentioned, it is often cited as the reason for the noticeably degraded performance.
What do the fans say? The fans who have been playing Dauntless on Epic Games for years are outraged. Especially the core player base is likely to be the most affected by the update. Accordingly, many players’ reviews are highly negative:
- Dulon (Gimli) writes on Steam: “Removing weapons – Removing weapon crafting – Adding loot boxes – Placing weapons in loot boxes – Resetting 90 % of progress on the existing account – ‘NEW UPDATE GUYS, NOW GIVE US MONEY!’”
- No Shoes rates Dauntless on Steam: “This used to be a decent game, a fun PC version of Monster Hunter, before Monster Hunter came to PC […] The game is dead, this is a soulless cash grab that barely works. It’s sick to call the [Editor’s note: new update] the same game”
- Hack Doug finds the new update on Steam like this: “The worst iteration so far. Resets the progress to zero. Paywall weapons, you only get the effects of legendary weapons if you spend real money. Stupid idea. This could be the end of Dauntless.”
On Steam, the game currently has only 16 % positive reviews and is thus just one point better than the heavily criticized project The Day Before. Many players accused the game of fraud, prompting a lawyer to take a look at it: The Day Before: “Fraud of the Year” on Steam? – This is what a lawyer says
