Dauntless Reviews
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.
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.
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.
A good free-to-play, with simple Monster Hunter gameplay element at its base, but only them.
Review in Italian | Read full review
There are definitely some things that the developers need to iron out, and should if they want to keep their impressive player base, but as it stands right now Dauntless has a very strong base that can be built upon moving forward.
As things stand today, Dauntless is still a promising game, crippled by some technical issues (there's still an OB in the software version, after all), but enhanced by a great cross-play feature.
Review in Italian | Read full review
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.
Dauntless is a great entry point to hunting games that is easily accessible to players who have yet to experience the thrill of the hunt.
Dauntless is a free-to-play action RPG developed by Phoenix Labs and debuted a full release across Windows, Xbox One, and Playstation 4 with fully functional cross-play. The game closely resembles the gameplay structure of the popular Capcom series, Monster Hunter. Though not without its problems, Dauntless might be one of the best free-to-play games currently available.
A fantastic multiplayer experience and vibrant art direction help make Dauntless stand out, despite feeling a little empty at times.
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.
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.
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 combines Monster Hunter and Destiny to create a fun, free-to-play experience.
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.