Ever get the sensation a game simply isn’t supposed for you? As a member of the ruling elite, that almost all revered and unique breed of truth-seeker, the freelance game journalist, I get it on a regular basis. You sit there, in your thirties, taking part in the most recent two-bit Fortnite clone, listening to Russian youngsters laughing at you on voice chat, questioning the place all of it went flawed in your life.
I’m stunned to really feel at such a distance from Dauntless although. On paper, I ought to be ravenous for a co-op Monster Hunter/MMO hybrid with meaty character-building and an limitless world of ever extra fearsome Behemoths to conquer. But as I’ve already signalled fairly clearly, I’m not.
The drawback is that Dauntless’s gameplay loop is simply too clipped. This is action-roleplaying at its most reductive, the same old world constructing and incidental element stripped immediately. And of their place? Well, simply the identical jiffy of any given MMO, actually. You dash in direction of a quest-dispensing NPC in Ramsgate, Dauntless’s protected zone, decide up the most recent mission – spoilers: it’s at all times ‘hunt a big monster for me please, thanks’ – then teleport to certainly one of a handful of various biomes, both solo or in a web-based quartet, and hunt the large monster for them please, thanks. After that you simply return victorious to money in your rewards, craft marginally higher bobbins, rinse and repeat.
That may describe any variety of game loops, after all – Monster Hunter doesn’t do too badly for itself with related elements. But Dauntless isn’t mainly the above, it is the above. Oh alright, sure: there are Lady Luck Trials the place you run timed gauntlets and get your identify on an enormous public leaderboard when you do exceptionally nicely, however they’re very a lot a diversion from the core game. Beyond that, it’s a easy concoction of fight and harvesting rewards from NPCs.
The game isn’t with out its deserves, nevertheless. There’s fairly a little bit of depth to fight, highlights of which embody pulling off timed combos with LMB and RMB, dodging assaults on the proper second to stun enemies, and deploying the right elemental results in opposition to enemies for harm bonuses. But at occasions it feels a bit like chasing a rugby scrum round. And it’s a rare resolution on Phoenix Labs’ half to tug out what is usually a 20+ minute battle by having the Behemoths often flee arbitrarily after which ask you to slog mirthlessly over the map to seek out them once more.
While in vary, although, you could be making your self helpful in a number of methods at any given second: firing off a Lantern means (timed buffs for your self and others) or a particular assault, luring the Behemoth away from a teammate on decrease well being or a downed comrade, or doing a beautiful dodge roll simply in time to stagger your foe and let the others dogpile on.
A agency basis for a game, then. But as with every part else in Dauntless, the fight consists of the identical battle, kind of, advert infinitum. Behemoths may function Frost, Blaze, Shock, Terra, Radiant, Umbral, and Terra parts, and shed priceless elements of that selection when felled, however there’s not a lot else to distinguish them. Very hardly ever a Drask Behemoth will summon bat-like minions to boost a battle, however typically fight’s about dodging one lumbering beast’s telegraphed assaults after which laying down the damage.
Combat consists of the identical battle, kind of, advert infinitum
Galvanizing my private sense of alienation with all these proceedings is the F2P mannequin. It’s no extra egregious than some other, however it does serve to amplify any present bewilderment. Bewilderment at why your teammates are dealing 2000-point harm with their specials whilst you handle 150 factors. At what Platinum is, and why you may want it. And at how, in a game that appears so scarcely provided with playable content material, the devs discovered time to create so many outfit and weapon skins?
And but, regardless of all of this, I’m nonetheless taking part in it. Without placing in a real-world dime, the sense of development remains to be compelling to the chimp mind which lurks deep inside you. Items burst forth from loot containers (or Cores, as they’re recognized right here), numbers go up in your character loadout, and you’re feeling an irrepressible sense of satisfaction as they do.
Then you head off on one other hunt and find yourself combating the identical Behemoth sort you’ve overwhelmed many occasions earlier than, in a battle that takes a 3rd of an hour with out even a boss well being bar to contextualise your progress. Dauntless actually is a Skinner field laid naked, and if you can also make your peace with that the fight alone is ample reward. But it’s lacking a lot of what I’d take into account essential in a game like this: ambiance, lore, pacing.
Which leads me proper again to the beginning: I merely don’t really feel like Dauntless was made with me in thoughts. Given how rapidly I’ve been capable of finding teammates for each single battle, there’s clearly a kind of participant on the market who does have interaction with this brutally pared-back, single-minded breed of quasi-MMO questing. Every single certainly one of them is flawed, after all, and I’ll battle all of them individually.
I’m joking, clearly. Let’s not battle. But Dauntless definitely carves a line within the sand with this 1.zero launch: on one facet stand those that solely care about fight and consider world-building as pointless confetti, on the opposite those that cherish it. Deciding the place you stand on this face off provides you with a good suggestion of whether or not Dauntless 1.zero can do sufficient to scratch your explicit itch.
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