Quick Look: Dauntless

Dan and Shays Dauntless

No shade but this looks better than monster Hunter world to someone who wanted to play that game but was super underwhelmed by watching people play. This has the opposite effect. This is super beautiful and a joy to watch. Jason nearly saved the first team and that was awesome. I love skill based games and the progression all seems upwards and positive.

Or does this have a terrible grind like every other mmo-like?

The art style for this looks super generic to a point where it comes across like some kind of new mode for Fortnite. A bit of a turn-off for me because those games are also about "looking cool".

@unastrike FYI, cells are not one-time use. You can slot/remove them at any time.

This is absolutely the most entry level game for this genre and that's pretty cool I guess but it doesn't even scratch the itch in the same way the arcadey ones like God Eater or Toukiden do. It just feels real shallow to play.

Love that big throwable greataxe though. Put that weapon in a more interesting game.

I just can't get over how bland and floaty this looks, similar to Fortnite in that aspect.
Also following Epic's MO of just copying other games down to the UI elements to serve their own.

The stuff I like about monster hunter is the attention to detail in its creature animation, the weightiness and creativity of weapons, and the tactile look of their armour and world design, this doesn't seem to have any of that, just feels... plastic-y.

I like the multi-platform options but otherwise I'll pass..

It's interesting to see they're so positive on this, my experience was pretty negative. I'm glad they seem to like it but for me the enemies were pretty boring to fight, the weapons lacked a sense of weight and impact. It's less like they are swinging a heavy weapon and more like they are pretending with a foam weapon.

I'm not as put off by the art style as some people seem to be, I don't think it looks amazing, but it's at least decent. The issue for me is 100% the mechanics. I will give the game one credit in it's favor, as opposed to Monster Hunter World, which added a bunch of really annoying cutscene limitations on when players can join your quest; at least this game understands "Hey this is a co-op game. want to group with friends and play it."

Shame about the actual gameplay.

Don’t mind the art style but here’s a question (and I’m being serious, not hating - just wondering what I’m missing): why is there a big map when all you do is run towards a monster and then mash buttons?

I don’t get why there isn’t just a small area to fight in. I’m interested in this since Monster Hunter was too complicated for me but is there more than button mashing and running?

@mistercoke: Sometimes the location of the fight can make a small difference, especially for some of the more mobile monsters that run around a lot, but for the most part the "arenas" the monsters are found at are flat plains, so you're right that the maps don't need to be so large. If there were small monsters also populating the world it might be a different story, but so far the only small monsters are summoned by big monsters as part of their fights.

@murlin: ok thanks for clarifying that, I guess I’m gonna try it, since it’s free to play anyways. Thanks again!

Great game, 30 hours in and loving it more than I ever did MH:W because of all the archaic holdovers. I don't have time and just want to go kill shit sometimes.

Been having some decent fun with this game. Its unfortunate that the flatly textured style has become "the Fortnite style". From what I've heard, the style is this way in Dauntless to help differentiate itself from MH:W, rather than be similar to Fortnite.

I hope this is the start of a wave of fully cross-play, cross-progression games. The barriers between game matchmaking are purely artificial at this point.

@steveurkel: The game is pretty forgiving, especially for a f2p game. There is some grind to it as you get towards the end of the game, but it's not too bad (and not pushing you towards paying at all). I would argue that the way they've implemented the loot upgrading makes for a worse experience than MHW though.

Basically whenever you do patrols (hunt random monster in this category) you get upgrading orbs from that category, and you have to get a lot of these orbs. Building up a fresh weapon or armor set from scratch probably takes somewhere between 20-30 patrols (if not more) and half of it is against monsters way below your level. MHW allows you to skip ahead once you reach certain tiers, and building items usually means hunting a specific monster only a handful of times to get the parts you need. This is still necessary in Dauntless as well, but by the time you have the orbs you will most likely have most of the parts as well.

As for comparing the games overall I'd say Dauntless might be more appealing initially, but these are games you very easily get stuck into and at that point Dauntless will feel sorta shallow compared to MHW eventually. I've had a lot of fun with it though, but it's only been out for a week and a half and I'm sorta ready to move on (having put in a good few hours every day) compared to MHW which I played non-stop for over a month.

A note on Canadian food - yes, we eat beaver tails. No, not really.

"Beaver tails" are a pastry of the "fried dough with stuff on it" family. The kind of thing you get at fairs or festivals.

This and monster hunter world are different enough that I've been enjoying both. I hope this game is successful and continues to add more content. Dauntless feels a lot more like an arcade game while MHW is an actual living world.

I wanted to like this game when I tried it a few moths back. The most complex weapon in Dauntless has less depth than the shallowest weapon in Monster Hunter. I'm okay with a lower skill floor, but I wish the ceiling was higher.

I like the style on the effects and weapons, but the models and geometry look flat and lacking in detail. With that being said, it does look pretty cool in action and I do like the overly-dramatic, heavy music. I might give it a shot, considering it's $0 and has crossplay.

@pastry: I totally agree. I put hundreds of hours into MHW on PS4, but due to update parity and not wanting to pay 60$ again, I never picked it up on PC even though I play games on PC primarily. Dauntless has been super fun to just turn my brain off and bash some monsters. Does it have the depth and polish of Monster Hunter? Of course not, but it's a fun casual alternative that still has a surprising amount of depth and polish for a f2p game.

I get that some people just would rather play MHW, but it makes me sad seeing some people bash this game for being too casual or for having a "fortnite" artstyle. The game is great!

I think I'll be giving this a shot tonight, was holding off for...no real reason but looks fun!

@physic: Completely agree. I don't usually play many f2p games but this one has given a handful of fun hours without investment. MHW is preferred for myself but this has been a nice alternative as you mentioned.

This game runs so badly on my non-pro PS4. :(

These things always make me feel bad for the monster. :(

This looks like a pretty good MH clone. I'll give it a shot.

For a game whose biggest selling point is it's cross compatibility with most platforms, it sure isn't available on Steam.

@dropkickpikachu: Me too. Wish they would have brought it up, because it is fucking unplayable. The frame rate never seemed to go above 20 and as soon there was a slight bit of action is dropped to the choppiest bullshit I've seen in a long time. Not to mention the terrible server problems.

It's totally unacceptable that it released this way on consoles.

Because its on the Epic Games PC server, not Steam. They made that pretty clear during the QL. Other developers have their own gaming server stores to compete with Steam. Epic Games is one of them. Bethesta is another one, for example.

Props to the character creator and options. You can be gender neutral

I'm having a decent amount of fun with this game and the cross platform partying up feature is amazing as I have friends on console but I'd prefer to play on PC. I love MH: World but this game is a nice, quick hit of slaying that doesn't require a lot of prep and inventory management.

So, this is the game that's so popular its servers are straining? Never underestimate the value of free, I guess.

Huh, I imagined this differently. Not a fan of the art style at all and it looks a bit easy, certainly not gonna drag me away from MHW. Thanks for the quick look guys.

It doesn't bother me that this game is on the epic store, it bothers me that I paid $40 to support the game way back, and now if I try to update the game using the dauntless launcher, it tells me to download the epic launcher. I can't even log into the dauntless website without an epic account. That's super messed up, and I don't want any part of it.

I like this game but it's a damn mess. Horrible framerates on consoles, bugs everywhere and tons of lag.

The battle pass or whatever it’s called is 1000 of the premium currency, which is on offer for $4.99 in the shop with an included arrival emote.

I’m playing on an Xbox One X and the frame rate seems fine except for in town, and when the monster dies. There is a weird hitch that happens whenever you kill a monster. The work around for the frame rate in town is to just use the menus and not even bother running around town unless you absolutely have to (Weapon and Armor shop.)

One thing that I don’t think the quicklook mentioned that is kind of weird is that on Xbox , PS4 players’ icon is a slightly skinnier version of the computer icon, not a PS logo.

Overall I’m having a lot of fun with it for my five dollar investment.

What's the next genre/series that Epic can rip off and make the Kraft mac n cheese version of? Can't wait for season 4 of this where you hunt Rodan as one of the kids from Rim of the World. Why would a person choose to play this over MH World?

@fnert_bjerglen: MHW requires a huge investment in time and brainpower to wrap your head around everything and succeed, while Dauntless is breezy, and a perfect podcast game. Not saying i’ll spend a ton of time with it, but so far it has been nice side game to play for an hour or two while I listen to The 3am boys.

I like Dauntless for the fact that it is an arcadey Monster Hunter. I don't need another game I need a PhD to understand.

@cikame: It's still on PC and you can play it on PC. You anti-EGS folks sure like to repeat a lot of bad points.

Think I'll stick with Mohun. The f2p trappings leave a sour taste, I know exactly how those games play out in the long run, no thank you.

I think this looks like a capable game... if it weren't released in a world with MH, and it didn't compare itself (reviewers didn't compare it with?) MH. All of what made MH combat feel good doesn't seem to be at that sort of level here, with player/monster animations looking floaty and weightless, the sound design/music being ok at best, monster designs looking like generic video game creatures, and worst of all, there being so little depth to the weapons (one small point that stuck out to me was how the hammer weapon seems to be able to reload its special shells with little to no animation and risk). When I see Jason consistently miss those stationary electric spikes because his character can rotate too much during combos, it reaffirms to me that the so-called "rigid and clunky" combat animations of MH was a well thought out choice by the MH devs, and that "more freedom and ease of play" doesn't necessarily make a game control "better". To me it looks like it'd be much more approachable than MH to someone who never fully grasped MH (like Brad in this instance), but will be something set aside after a couple months at best. Of course, I do think it's a little unfair to compare a series with 15 years of refinement to a just-released f2p game with a small dev team; and in that perspective, it maintains a decent level of polish.

I'll definitely give this a shot since I love the idea of there being more MH-styled games coming to the market, and I'd love to be proven wrong about the initial impressions that this footage gives me. I'm a little surprised that Jason seems so positive about it, so that might mean the game has more to show than what can be seen here too.

As free to play games go, I think this is a good one. That said, as a huge Monster Hunter fan, all it really did for me was make me want to go back and play some more Monster Hunter World which, to me, is superior in all ways. (I strongly disagree with the idea that the weapons in Dauntless have the depth of Monster Hunter's weapons.)

That said, I do think there are many good things about Dauntless and I think it's a good place to start if you've been interested in the hunting genre and want to dip a toe in the waters and give it a shot.

I was curious about the battle pass, but I just am not into the game enough to justify the purchase. It has personality but not as much personality as, for example, Fortnite.

As an animator: The animation in this game doesnt even approach the incredible animation of the monster hunter series. Like, its not only not in the ballpark. Its not in the city, the country or even on the planet.

I've been playing a bunch of this - I had no idea how much I needed a simpler Monster Hunter in my life.

I've got over 500 hours in MH:W, and yes, it is better in most (not all) aspects, but there is room in the world for both deep and shallow experiences.

I actually like the idea of a hop-in monster hunter lite. The customization is a little more free'd up to choose what you want. While obviously not as super-featured and paced differently than monster hunter, I really do like being able to load up Dauntless check what I'm after, and just 'Go'. I also like aesthetic- I liked MHW's a lot too, but it's refreshing to see a western animated film style take a crack at it. They state that it is an evolving game, so while I think the core loop might be a little bare for some, I suspect things will get more interesting for people who stick around.

Also as an animator, I guess I agree but also, as a 2D centric animator, it's pretty baller when explosions are (seemingly) hand drawn effects. There's some aspects to the way the world looks and the animations play that make this feel a little more 'alive' than some of what Monster Hunter offers. Personal opinion, and I think MHW has very nice animation as well. Why are we comparing this again?

I feel kinda bad for those monsters

The game still has all kinds of things they can add into it.

However, the game available today compared to the game just two months ago is so massively different, and it's absolutely amazing.

I have high hopes for the future of this game.