Dauntless
Dauntless was one of the many games bundled in Action 52, an unlicensed multicart video game compilation developed by Active Enterprises.
SCREENSHOTS
HISTORY
Dauntless was a free-to-play action role-playing game developed by Phoenix Labs. Either alone or in teams with others, players would fight enormous monsters called Behemoths.
The game initially launched in beta for Microsoft Windows, in May 2018. An early access version was published by Epic Games on 21st May 2019 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, including full support for cross-platform play. The game was fully released for those platforms on 26th September 2019. The Nintendo Switch version was released on 10th December 2019. Versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S were released on 2nd December 2021.
Following the acquisition of Phoenix Labs by a blockchain company in 2023, most of the development team were made redundant by January 2025. As Dauntless was a live-service game with no offline content, the game was discontinued when its servers were shut down on 30th May 2025.
Gameplay
Dauntless takes place in a fantasy setting, where a cataclysmic event has torn the world apart, releasing monstrous creatures known as Behemoths that prey on the surviving humans and absorbing the aether on the scattered islands. Players take on the role of Slayers to take down Behemoths, collecting loot that they use to craft and upgrade weapons and equipment as to take down larger and more powerful Behemoths. While hunting, the game plays as a third-person action game; the player uses a combo system to attack the creature, while monitoring their own health and stamina gauge. Such hunts can take upwards of twenty minutes of in-game time to complete. The game can be played both as single-player, cooperatively in a party of up to four or in public cooperative instances of up to six people.
Development and release
Phoenix Labs was formed by former Riot Games developers Jesse Houston, Sean Bender, and Robin Mayne. In January 2017, Phoenix Labs employed 40 developers formerly from BioWare, Blizzard Entertainment, and Capcom. While a small studio compared to the AAA studios they left, Houston said that they are positioned in a way to offer "a new, unique approach to crafting AAA experiences".
Dauntless was heavily inspired by, as well as frequently compared to, Capcom's Monster Hunter series. The developers themselves have a combined playtime of over 6000 hours in various Monster Hunter titles. Dauntless was also influenced by Dark Souls and World of Warcraft. Houston credits Dark Souls specifically for helping to prove out that there is a market for "hardcore action games" focused on player versus environment encounters, which allowed them to take a safe risk on their approach to Dauntless. The game is intended to be played cooperatively as they see it as a social experience. Houston said that they had planned to make extremely difficult quests within the game, so that while most players will be able to reach a principle endgame state, only a few will be skilled enough to take on these harder quests. The game's graphics were inspired by the animated film Tangled and other Disney films and designed to avoid hyper-realism so that the game's graphics would age well.
Since its announcement, the game has garnered a great deal of interest from players, prompting Phoenix Labs to be much more transparent about the development plans for the game and interact with their fans to help guide development. They also planned to move the closed alpha sooner by a few months to get more early feedback. They later announced plans to start the alpha testing in April 2017.
The game was first revealed during The Game Awards in December 2016. Phoenix Labs planned to start with a closed alpha period, followed by an open beta period prior to the game's full release in the last quarter of 2017. The alpha was launched August 18, 2017; though players could register to be selected for the alpha, Phoenix Labs also offered premium early alpha access in for-cost packages that included in-game buffs, features for customization, and the ability to create guilds. By the PAX East 2017 event in March 2017, they had the basic combat for the game completed, and were starting the development of the impact of skills and boosts into the game. By September, Phoenix Labs pushed back the release schedule for the game, citing issues found during the closed alpha period including game stability and game balance in comparison to the Monster Hunter formula. The open beta was moved to early 2018, and formally launched in May 2018, though prior to that, they invited small waves of players to the closed beta to increase feedback. Within two weeks of the open beta period, over one million new players had played the game. By July 2018, they had seen over 2 million players.
While there would be microtransactions in the game, the developers plan to limit this to cosmetic items and temporary boosts, rather than be required for players to access game content. Houston said it was important to the team that any players shown wearing powerful armor or weapons in the game had obtained them through skill, and not via "a deep wallet". While initially they had offered cosmetics through loot boxes within the game, the team opted to remove them following criticism towards the growing trend of loot boxes that was raised in October 2017. Instead, they allow players to directly purchase cosmetics with real-world funds. Having previously worked with Electronic Arts on Mass Effect 3, one of the first games that introduced loot boxes, Houston said that they wanted to give players "a clearer relationship to the content that [they're] purchasing" and so removed loot boxes from Dauntless. Instead, Phoenix Labs opted to use a battle pass system to provide cosmetics and emotes.
Dauntless was initially planned for release only on personal computers (pc), but Phoenix Labs began discussion their game with publishers for consoles. To support their vision of Dauntless as a cooperative, multiplayer experience, Phoenix Labs decided to support cross-platform play between console and pc. Houston said that his team was not worried about potential competition from Monster Hunter: World, which was announced to be coming in 2018, during the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017 in June 2017. Houston said "The more AAA products that are coming into this genre, the wider it's going to get", believing that Dauntless differentiates itself by being a co-operative experience using free-to-play mechanics. The studio later affirmed in May 2019 that Monster Hunter World had initially siphoned some of its player count, but that Dauntless had since grown steadily thanks to the increased interest in this style of game created by the success of Monster Hunter World.
At The Game Awards 2018, Phoenix Labs affirmed that Dauntless would release for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in early 2019, and with future plans for Nintendo Switch and mobile versions. Phoenix Labs successfully implemented a save system in which players' progress was saved to a single account regardless of which platform they play on. By January 2019, Phoenix Labs announced the game would be migrated to the Epic Games Store and into the Store's account systems. This helped Phoenix Labs to support cross-platform play through Epic Games as Epic Games had previously implemented for Fortnite Battle Royale.
On May 21, 2019, while still in early access, Dauntless was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as well as transitioned Windows players to the Epic Games Store. Prior to release, Phoenix Labs only had anticipated having cross-platform play between Windows and Xbox One users, as they were still in discussions with Sony on PlayStation 4 cross-platform support, but by May 21, they had secured the approval from Sony. As such, Dauntless is the first game to ship at launch with cross-play between these three major platforms. Within days of launch, the 3-million player base doubled to 6 million, putting initial stress on the game's servers during this period while Phoenix worked to expand server capacity. The game officially left early access on September 26, 2019 with its 1.0 launch and first major expansion "Aether Unbound", with a total of 15 million players at that point.
The Switch version was released on December 10, 2019, and versions for the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S launched on December 2, 2021. These versions support cross-platform play and progression with Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One versions.
A major update to the game, entitled Dauntless Awakening, released on December 5, 2024, along with the game's debut on the Steam storefront. This update included new weapons, bringing the total to 18, and revamped the game's quest structure based on community feedback.
Phoenix Labs was acquired by blockchain company Forte Labs sometime in 2023. Following this, Phoenix Labs announced one set of layoffs in May 2024 due to cancellation of one game, and then said they had let go of most of its development staff in January 2025. Subsequently, the company…
TRAILERS
REVIEWS
Published elsewhere, collected here. Every score is the outlet's own, on the outlet's own scale. Follow the link for the full review.
“Dauntless is great and addictive, offering many hours of hunting while exquisitely balancing action and RPG. With fun battles and a satisfying progression, I highly recommend the download, as this is the best free title I've played on the Switch - as well as being one of the best online experiences on the console. Even with flaws, the Slayers game is capable of bringing down any performance problem or monster prestigiously, attacking without ever losing its greatness.”
“Dauntless offers up a pleasant alternative experience in the monster hunting action genre that focuses on the battles without sacrificing the core appeal. If you've ever wanted to take down larger-than-life beasties to wear their hides and take down even nastier foes, but felt intimidated by Capcom's more deliberate design, then Dauntless will prove a great, enjoyable way to finally see what all the monster slaying fuss is about. The fact that it's a fair free-to-play game makes it all the easier to experience for yourself.”
“If you enjoy going out and fighting progressively tougher monsters while working your way to new rewards, then Dauntless is a game you need to checkout.”
“If you're not worried about a major story or a lot of strategy but still want to see what the monster hunting genre is like without shelling out a lot of money, Dauntless is a nice free-to-play game to ease you into things.”
“Dauntless is a brilliant and lengthy free-to-play game – one that has and will be supported with crazy amounts of content. The latest update that pushed the game out of early access is its biggest and best update yet, especially with the release of the ridiculously fun new striker weapons. With a lot of content and the ability to play with friends, Dauntless is at least worth giving a shot. Obviously, it draws comparisons with Monster Hunter World but if you need another fix of David vs Behemoth action, this will more than quench your blood-thirstiness.”
“It's hard to play Dauntless without comparing it to Capcom's incredibly successful and popular Monster Hunter franchise. The free-to-play title captures many of the aspects that fans loved about those titles here. Killing monsters, gaining loot, and crafting new gear. It's a little disappointing that a bulk of the personalization options are locked behind microtransactions but this is a small issue. Dauntless successfully crafts an addicting monster hunting formula with lots of incredible Behemoths to kill.”
“Although hardly original in its premise, Dauntless offers an extremely fun and accessible take on the monster-hunting roleplaying game. It wastes no time in throwing you straight into the action and while easy to pick up there's plenty of depth there for fans of the genre. What's more Dauntless is completely free to play, gracefully sidestepping those annoying monetisation pitfalls we're so used to seeing.”
“The pure focus on hunting and looting monsters feels amazing, with fun missions and even better weapons. It thrives and pushes you constantly to completion, and slowly moves that completion goal further down the pipeline. As a free-to-play title, it is absolutely one of the nicer ones and makes for a great time with your friends.”
“Unlike many other free-to-play games, Dauntless never makes you feel like you’re missing out if you don’t spend any money. Needless to say, if you’re after an action RPG along the lines of Monster Hunter to really sink your teeth into, you can’t go wrong with Dauntless.”
“There is a lot of potential for alternative game modes and expansion of content for Dauntless, as they regularly update the game every other week.”
“If you're a fan of the action RPG genre and love to dish out major pain to monsters that would otherwise eviscerate you, you've found the game.”
“A good free-to-play, with simple Monster Hunter gameplay element at its base, but only them.”
“I wanted very badly to love Dauntless, and for a time I think I did thanks to the fantastic combat and weapon variety. But the lack of any real storytelling makes the repetitive questing structure a glaring issue in desperate need of some TLC. If you're looking for a new go-to F2P experience, you could do much worse — just don't expect a world drenched teeming with lore and compelling characters.”
“Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the loop of hunting monsters and collecting their parts to craft better weapons and armor. That being said, its performance issues in the open-world hub and the inability to earn any substantial amount of platinum through regularly playing the game inhibits me from giving further praise. However, with some improvements, this game could be a sleeper hit within the library of free-to-play Nintendo Switch games.”
“Though this Switch port mightily struggles from a performance perspective, it’s still enjoyable on a consistent enough basis that such issues can be mostly overlooked. It literally costs you nothing more than time to give Dauntless a try, and we’d highly recommend you give it a shot.”
“Phoenix Labs has built Dauntless to be the same game for all gamers. That has been their mission from the start and in that they have absolutely succeeded.”
“Dauntless is one of those games that's best played in short bursts every once in a while.”
“A game with unapologetically singular focus, its distillation of deeper MMOs' elements nevertheless results in an experience that all too often feels barren. Phil Iwaniuk”
“Uninteresting and uninspired, Dauntless is certainly impressive in its own right, but as far as actual gameplay goes, what's present fails to engage beyond the surface level. Perhaps that'll be enough for most who download the free title, but between aesthetically resembling Fortnite and aping Monster Hunter's combat wholesale, Phoenix Games has failed to contribute anything truly novel to the experience. Dauntless is as derivative as they come, and while that lack of price tag may be appealing, there are much better games to spend one's time (and even money) on. Go play Monster Hunter instead”
“For RPGamers new to the hunter sub-genre of RPGs, Dauntless can provide an excellent entry point, especially given its free-to-play model.”
Reviews are the work of the outlets named. Titles, scores and quoted excerpts are reproduced for identification and criticism; each links to the original.