Forums » Smalltalk » Goodbye Dauntless

There was this game, back in the day. Mainly a few years ago I played it... It was called Dauntless. It was amazing, a little like monster Hunter I think. You where In a realm of floating Islands known as the Shattered Isles, where humanity lived scatter and fighting giant elemental monsters known as Behemoths. I don't remember the full lore, but they fed of a energy substance known as Aether, which we humans also used to power things. You played as a slayer with other people, going out into the isles and fighting Behemoths, harvesting parts to make armor and weapons to resist and combat them. There were 6 elements, Shock, and Terre, which opposes each other, Frost and Blaze, opposed, and Radiant and Umbral, opposed. It was amazing, there were different islands, a multitude of different behemoths with different strengths, attacks and weaknesses, events, trials. They even had an amazing mini quest system that allowed you to earn a currency to buy skins for your armor and weapons without needed to swipe a card.

Just today, I was feeling incredibly bored, so I decided, hey, let me go play Dauntless again... I log into the game, and see that the game is now in version 2. Something.. Ok, it got a rework, that's amazing! I bet it will be super fun and- my stuff is gone... Ok, I can always get it back. Ok, go through the first question again things are different, but I'm trying to be optimistic. Until I find out that the cool mini quest system above? Gone. Grinding Behemoths to forge weapons and armor, gone. You gotta pay money now. The new rework still seems to be in early stages, but I looked into it, and it seems some of the developers got fired, leaving the game on its last legs. Many players are unhappy, and we missed the old version... It's like saying goodbye to a part of a younger me that tried to hold onto the happiness he had. Anyways, uh, sorry for this long post its just... Sad.

I haven't even play Dauntless, but had similar experiences with dropping games that became pay to win unfortunately.

Most of the dev team got fired, and while I don't fully understand what happened, the old company Phoenix Labs which funded Dauntless I believe was bought by Forte Labs, which is what resulted in this I think.

I used to play Dauntless with my two best friends! I feel like it was yesterday, it's crazy to think that this game got messed up like that since then. I did think from time to time about logging in to play a bit, because the game was really fun, but I never had time for that. Now it's kinda too late. So yeah, I feel you

It's especially frustrating, because it's the second time this happened to me. A beloved game becoming unplayable because it got sold, then it gets remakes that require you to pay for everything. I would 100% prefer if they just switched to a subscription model with a lifetime option, but we all know that it's easier to "milk" players like that.

I'm not keeping up with game industry news, but I'm kinda aware that its a dumpsterfire that is just becoming worse and worse, so these types of changes are most likely are a part of that.