Dauntless, a free-to-play Monster Hunter-type game, just received its “biggest update yet,” and also its most controversial update, as the game has now debuted on Steam with a “Very Negative” rating.
Dauntless launched in Early Access years ago on The Epic Games Store before inviting Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch players into its Disney world of beast-slaying and gear-crafting. But developer Phoenix Labs released a massive Dauntless: Awakening update yesterday, along with a Steam release, that appears to have shaken up the popular game's player base.
Right now, over 500 Dauntless Steam user reviews give it an 'overwhelmingly negative' average score based on how drastically the Awakening update has overhauled what the game used to be, while only 15% of critics came away with anything. positive to write. Dauntless once loosely followed the Monster Hunter formula in which you appeared on a map full of creatures, perhaps with some co-op friends, and then used their remains to create new weapons and armor. The Awakening update removed weapon crafting entirely, essentially removing over 200 weapons in favor of around 18 mainstays.
Fearless Awakening | Launch Trailer – YouTube
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Phoenix Labs' explanation for the change makes sense on paper, although the implementation hasn't been very well received: “In the past, weapons have operated basically the same way within each category,” they wrote in a recent post on the blog. “A Hammer would function like a Hammer, etc., etc. And so, exotics aside, different 'weapons' would actually be more like different looks.” Instead, Awakening gives you a couple of weapons per category (hammer, axe, sword, etc.), but some seem to have been temporarily locked behind controversial battle passes until they can finally be crafted with a different in-game currency.
Negative reviews are filled with complaints about changes to how weapons work (or don't work), but the arguments against new loot boxes, mangled progression, and complicated systems are just as persistent. “Where did all the content go?” one reviewer asked. “As a veteran hunter, I was excited to see it 'return,' if you want to call it that. With this new update, I basically wasted the hundreds of hours I spent searching for my loadouts on Epic Games,” said another.
“This IS definitely a change,” Phoenix Labs acknowledged on social media. “We want to clarify that Alluring Moons are the only weapon you have to pay for, other weapons can still be obtained for free by earning weapon tokens. Over time, even Alluring Moons will be available for free.”
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