Dauntless's launch on Steam has gone horribly, horribly wrong with overwhelmingly negative reviews: 'This update is easily, out of every game I've ever played, the worst one I've seen'
Dauntless has launched on Steam, and smashed straight into a gigantic brick wall that says «Overwhelmingly negative.» The co-op hunting game, which has been available to play since August 2017 but is new to Steam, has over a few days accumulated nearly 1,000 negative reviews and they're all about the major overhaul Dauntless received for this lunch. The short version: Everyone, and I mean everyone, hates what it's done.
The complaints revolve around the double-whammy of the Steam relaunch seeing progress reset for players, which is not the first time Dauntless has pulled that trick, alongside a new monetisation model that does sound a little bit much.
«All weapons you had in the game are taken from you,» says Dragontooth562. «Weapons are locked behind a $20 pay wall. (Apart from the starting 7). Removed a lot of weapons (Yes the ones you love and grinded for) [...] This game was a prime example of a game that never needed to be touched and was ruined, update by update.»
The Steam relaunch and the changes to the game also came shortly after players discovered that developer Phoenix Labs, founded by Riot alumni, had been acquired in 2023 in an unannounced deal, and its parent company is now Forte. Forte is a blockchain company and, erm, according to a Game Developer report Phoenix Labs staff were ordered to keep silent about the acquisition, which is always a positive sign.
«This update is easily, out of every game I've ever played, the worst one I've ever seen,» notes Steam user Saturniidae. «But it was the first update that came out after a new company bought Phoenix, who was a blockchain/NFT group. Well they have still had their hands in games that had nothing to do with crypto stuff, like… oh all those games closed down very soon after. Hmm.»
OK, so things weren't going well. The developer then issued a letter to the community seeking to justify the changes made to the game, and it's only thrown fuel on the fire. Phoenix Labs says the great reset is so all players
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