Dauntless is a monster-hunter RPG developed by Phoenix Labs and published by Epic Games. It has grown significantly since its release, now supporting over 25 million players. With its growth comes many benefits, but also some problems.
Dauntless appealed to many players who enjoyed games like Monster Hunter Worldand Dark Souls, mostly because of its gameplay and the way you progress throughout the game. Dauntless has a wide variety of weapons to choose from when hunting a monster, or behemoth as the game calls them. The weapons include a sword, an axe, a hammer, a war pike, gauntlets, a set of dual pistols, and two chain blades. Each weapon comes with its own unique move set and playstyle, providing a unique, extensive and immersive experience for players.
There are also a handful of exotic weapons, where the recipe for crafting them is a very rare drop, but the weapons are extremely powerful and worth the grind. The exotic weapons include a sword called The Hunger, which is exotic because of its special ability, granting life steal but damaging the player over time. There is also: a war pike called The God Hand, which is exotic because of its unique ability, a beam that will do extreme damage if used properly, a hammer called Molten Edict which shoots fireballs and a pair of pistols with many special abilities including a dash and the ability to shoot bombs. There are also three exotic armour pieces with abilities ranging from being revived temporarily as a shadow after dying, gaining a shield for your stamina and being able to grant players an invulnerable shield for a short period after being revived.
The game offers an extraordinarily wide variety of customisation for players. Players will be able to equip whatever armour pieces they choose and engrave them with whatever effects or abilities they wish, so long as the armour can support that type of effect/ability. For example, if you equip a piece of armour that has a place for a defensive cell (a cell being what the game calls these effects and abilities), then you will be able to choose a cell that resists a specific element or type of damage. The same concept applies to the weapon, so you can combine cells to create builds to suit your playstyle. Also, equipping the same cell multiple times can increase the effectiveness of its ability or effect, and each one has a maximum of +6. +6 does not mean you have six of the cells equipped, each cell will have a value depending on its rarity. The rarity can be upgraded at any time using specific resources. The highest rarity has a value of three and the lowest has a value of one. When these values are added together, that equates to the total power of the cell equipped and its overall effectiveness.
Another place Dauntless excels is the behemoths that are available to hunt. As you progress through the game you unlock more behemoths of different elements that you can fight, and as you discover more behemoths they gradually increase in difficulty and their move set will start to become more complex and dangerous. You are also offered more difficult game modes to go out and hunt behemoths with.
As the player unlocks more behemoths and kills them, the objective will be to craft armour and weapons out of the parts you claim from killing them. This allows the player to improve their equipment and successfully progress through the game. Weapons that are crafted from the legendary (boss fight) behemoths come with a superpower that the behemoth uses, and the player will be able to activate this move and use it in combat.
One of these game modes is called an Escalation. In an escalation players will start off with a single behemoth, then 2, and then it will be another single behemoth, but it will be much harder to beat than the first 3 behemoths, and then 2 behemoths of the same difficulty as the previous stage. In the more difficult escalations, there will be a boss fight with a legendary behemoth after completing the earlier stages. The boss you fight will be determined by the element of the escalation you choose. For example, if you choose a blaze escalation you will face a fire boss at the end.
The other game mode available is called Trials. These trials are for the best of the best. The players that are no longer challenged by the basic quests and available hunts in the game. Every week a new behemoth will be rotated into trials with a set of battle modifiers which makes it extremely difficult to fight properly. Players are also given one chance, if they are knocked, they can only be revived by their teammates, no self-revives will be available.
Dauntless is very similar to Monster Hunter. It follows the same concepts and has similar weapons. The only significant difference between the games is the accessibility. Dauntless is free to play, but Monster Hunter costs a fair amount of money in comparison, and I personally much prefer Dauntless.
Unfortunately, like every other game, Dauntless has some issues. Dauntless is often faced with a lack of change and or improper change. Issues or bugs within the game are either fixed incorrectly or just ignored for some time. Eventually the issue will be resolved, but it can affect the player’s experience, and, in some rare cases, make the game unplayable.
I love this game. I’ve been playing it since it was released on console, and I’ve enjoyed the game ever since. Its gameplay is refreshing and the ability to essentially customise the game to your liking is phenomenal. It will take years to run out of things to do in this game, especially since new content is added frequently. I would highly recommend you try the game for yourself.
