Dauntless’s launch on Steam has gone horribly, horribly wrong with overwhelmingly negative reviews: ‘This update is easily, out of every game I’ve ever played, the worst one I’ve seen’ Hallie Frederick | usagoldmines.com

Dauntless has launched on Steam, and smashed straight into a huge brick wall that claims “Overwhelmingly detrimental.” The co-op looking recreation, which has been accessible to play since August 2017 however is new to Steam, has over just a few days amassed almost 1,000 detrimental evaluations and so they’re all concerning the main overhaul Dauntless acquired for this launch. The quick model: Everybody, and I imply everybody, hates what it is accomplished.

The complaints revolve across the double-whammy of the Steam relaunch seeing progress reset for gamers, which isn’t the primary time Dauntless has pulled that trick, alongside a brand new monetisation mannequin that does sound a bit bit a lot.

“All weapons you had within the recreation are taken from you,” says Dragontooth562. “Weapons are locked behind a $20 pay wall. (Other than the beginning 7). Eliminated a number of weapons (Sure those you like and grinded for) […] This recreation was a main instance of a recreation that by no means wanted to be touched and was ruined, replace by replace.”

The Steam relaunch and the modifications to the sport additionally got here shortly after gamers found that developer Phoenix Labs, based by Riot alumni, had been acquired in 2023 in an unannounced deal, and its parent company is now Forte. Forte is a blockchain firm and, erm, in accordance to a Game Developer report Phoenix Labs employees had been ordered to maintain silent concerning the acquisition, which is at all times a constructive signal.

“This replace is definitely, out of each recreation I’ve ever performed, the worst one I’ve ever seen,” notes Steam user Saturniidae. “However it was the primary replace that got here out after a brand new firm purchased Phoenix, who was a blockchain/NFT group. Properly they’ve nonetheless had their arms in video games that had nothing to do with crypto stuff, like…. oh all these video games closed down very quickly after. Hmm.”

OK, so issues weren’t going nicely. The developer then issued a letter to the group searching for to justify the modifications made to the sport, and it is solely thrown gasoline on the hearth. Phoenix Labs says the good reset is so all gamers need to do the tutorials for the brand new techniques, and I am not kidding: “We needed to make sure that even veteran gamers would have and take the time to dig into the brand new and complicated techniques earlier than leaping straight into the hunt doubtlessly with non-ideal gear set-ups, subsequently encountering a level of issue that will be counter to a constructive gameplay expertise.”

This went down in addition to you’d assume. Phoenix clearly is aware of individuals are fuming about this, however the perfect it will possibly supply is the marginally weaksauce concept that veterans will race by way of this content material anyway. Nice I assume? Lastly the developer does acknowledge a difficulty with gamers accessing chain blades, strikers or repeater weapons with out an in-game buy, and says it is made a change to grant pre-Awakening gamers variations of those.

The pretty lengthy missive principally simply explains all of the modifications and why Phoenix Labs thinks they’re nice anyway. An particularly bum observe is when it addresses the complaints about new Canisters being loot bins, and says “Canisters are certainly loot bins, nonetheless, our group has taken a really cautious method.”

For sure, the letter has not had the specified impact. “The contents of this large textual content dump quantity to ‘that is how the sport works, that is what you hate concerning the new Dauntless,’” huffs Umbra. “That is it. Not ‘we’ll change this,’ or ‘we’ll repair this,’ simply ‘that is how a loot field works; you do not HAVE to purchase it.’ Yeah, we KNOW how a loot field works. We do not need them right here. The brand new gameplay is, for my part, fairly good. The brand new monetization mannequin is canine shit.”

Dauntless is because of obtain an enormous replace on December 19, and Phoenix Labs hopes to handle a few of the points gamers have: However there are clearly some greater issues right here that appear past a little bit of patching. I ought to level out that the sport has at all times been pitched as a free-to-play various to Monster Hunter, so it isn’t just like the grumbles about monetisation are new. PCG’s Wes Fenlon, as high-quality a hunter as you may discover, took Dauntless for a spin just a few years again and, whereas he discovered loads to love concerning the recreation, the nickel-and-diming received a bit an excessive amount of:

“As soon as once I booted up Dauntless, and as soon as once I merely returned from a hunt, it threw up adverts for its ‘ELITE TRACK BUNDLE.’ On the display screen on the finish of each hunt, it reveals me how I am not getting a bonus as a result of I haven’t got the Fortnite-inspired Elite Hunt Cross […] Monster Hunter has cats that prepare dinner me gigantic steaks; Dauntless has this man who desires me to spend $9.99 on Platinum. Sure, it is an unfair comparability, however solely certainly one of them fills me with pleasure.”

Dauntless however received over a sizeable playerbase and has been a going concern for seven years now: So there’s clearly a superb recreation someplace in there. However a launch that ought to’ve introduced it to a a lot wider playerbase, and possibly even seen it win some veterans again, has attracted all of the flawed form of consideration. Per SteamDB the sport at present has just over 400 players. Phoenix Labs might nicely really feel the modifications it is made to the sport are justified, however it’s received a protracted approach to go to persuade its gamers.