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The free-to-play game market is both saturated and varied.
What will come to mind for many is Epic Games' juggernaut battle royale game, Fortnite.
It’s the beginning of the end for Dauntless.
But there are others that fulfil certain niche genres.
Dauntless was a very interesting concept back when it originally launched.
Dauntless may seem obscure to most, but for years the game thrived.
Dauntless aimed to be a more “accessible” version of Monster Hunter.
The game acquired over15 million playersafter leaving its open beta in 2019.
Dauntless' weapon prestige system let players go the extra mile to improving weapons they held dear.
While the update boasted a cool new behemoth and island to explore (like many other updates).
Dauntless' collection of playable environments provided a decent alternative to Monster Hunter, at least for a while.
Steam’s community systems help paint a clearer picture of the update’s reception.
Awakening has been met withoverwhelmingly negative reviewsand even similarreview bombing on Xbox.
Either way, at the heart of this backlash and undeniable player exodus lies a very ugly truth.
Dauntless shot itself in the foot with a big player reset nobody asked for.
Awakening removed a lot of what made Dauntless the quality alternative to Monster Hunter it once was.
Many build crafting options were removed.
Such as the lanterns that players could use for their unique abilities that synergized with certain playstyles.
As game production costs increase, monetization has become an issue for many studios.
One beloved feature that players enjoyed for many years, the “Cell Fusion system” was also removed.
As a result, a lot of visual variety in locales found themselves abandoned on the cutting room floor.
If removing many locations, weapons, and crucial aspects of game did not cut deep enough.
They salted the wound with a full reset of every player’s progress in Dauntless.
Hey Dauntless, Wheres My Stuff?
While every players cosmetic purchases were carried over in the Awakening update.
Only a select few items were kept by players when they logged back in.
This is no doubt the root cause of the negative reception for Awakening.
They lamented the loss of their weapons, armor sets, lanterns and high rarity cells.
This is also a major point of contention for the community.
For years, Dauntless relied on cosmetics and battle passes to keep the studio afloat.
But in Awakening, any unique weapon a player wants to acquire now must be bought with weapon tokens.
These weapon tokens can only be earned through weekly bounties in the game or purchased with money.
One final thing that is worth noting is how the leveling system for weapons has been severely slowed down.
Before Awakening, players could level weapons up through traditional gameplay methods.
Leaving one big question with multiple answers what happened to Phoenix Labs that lead them to this point?
The damage done may simply be too great.
