 Hello, this is Warner from Warner.tv and today I want to talk about Dauntless. Dauntless is a free to play co-op action RPG Monster Slayer, which is a fancy way of calling it a Monster Hunter-like game for PC. The game was first revealed in December 2016 at the Game Awards, well, well before Monster Hunter World PC was announced. The 40 man or so dev team consists of former developers from Riot Games, Blizzard, Bioware and Capcom. Dauntless went into open beta on Thursday, May 24th with a pretty bumpy launch. Queue sizes reached over 100,000 players and matchmaking between players was a constant issue throughout the weekend. Phoenix Labs worked throughout the Memorial Day weekend to resolve most of these issues and had the players in the game by Sunday, an impressive feat given the small development team. Even though the game isn't on Steam, the impressive launch numbers would have definitely landed it in the top 5 concurrent players behind PUBG and CSGO, a couple of titles you may have heard of. So now that the game is out, you can play today without queues or scaling issues, let's talk about what it is. I once heard someone refer to Dauntless as bite-sized Monster Hunter World and I couldn't agree more. One thing that turned me off of Monster Hunter World was the vast scope. There is so much to do in that game and it can be overwhelming. And at the end of the day, I quit because I just wanted to haunt monsters man. I'm not looking for cutscenes, footprints or any other time wasters or tutorials that get in the way, it just felt way too long to get to the point. Dauntless is none of that. Less than 5 minutes into the game, you're fighting a behemoth as they're called in Dauntless and it doesn't stop. Sure the game has material gathering and a lightweight crafting system but behemoth sling is at the center of the picture, probably why they call you a slayer in the game. At the moment, Dauntless has 5 weapons to choose from. You start with the sword in the tutorial but you then eventually get access to the hammer, chain blades, the axe and the pike or the warpike as they call it. The axe and the warpike come later in the game's progression but not too much, thankfully due to some valuable feedback and a closed beta which I was a part of. The time to acquire these weapons is but a couple of hours of gameplay. Crafting in Dauntless allows you to enhance your slayer to meet certain circumstances. For example, there are stamina potions which grant boost and stamina regeneration, a very helpful pod if you're using like heavier weapons such as the axe or hammer. There are also damage boosting potions, defensive potions and even an airship hair strike from when you need to range justice from above. As you seek behemoths on the island, you pick up various crafting ingredients to craft these potions and more. Crafting and armor progression is fairly simple. In the beginning you are mostly leveling armor pieces up with various materials from the monster fights. You can think of them as like helmet plus 1, plus 2 etc. and the stats scale appropriately. You can also slot your weapon with items called cells. These add additional traits to your weapons which may give damage type and support boops. Each behemoth type offers a different weapon set and different armor sets that give you benefits to your slayer. They scale as you progress through the game. Dauntless has an item called a lantern which provides a reusable support ability. At the start your lantern tells you where the behemoth is, but other lanterns as you unlock them in the game can give speed boosts, armor, AOE damage or AOE buffs. It's a very cool system which is slightly different from its competitors. Control options in Dauntless include keyboard and mouse as well as controller and both options work well for behemoth fights but controllers can be a little bit weird in town dialogues. The free to play model is simple and non-pay to win. The cash shop consists of quality of life items such as potions and exp boosts which can speed up your slayer's progression. Cosmetics such as emotes, landing animations, dies and transmog tokens also allow you to spice up the look of your slayer without affecting gameplay. The paid currency is called platinum which runs about 150 platinum per $5. Optionally you can purchase platinum in bulk for discounts or purchase a supportive pack for more exclusive cosmetics and discount in platinum. Overall I'm satisfied with the model although the prices are a bit steep on certain things such as the landing emotes which can run about $10 per...dowlch. Premium Dauntless consists of 5 islands each of which houses behemoths. On these islands you can perform patrols, expeditions or pursuits. Patrols are randomized behemoths, expeditions offer cash materials upon completion and pursuits allow slayers to choose their behemoth. Once at the top tier it's also known as the maelstrom up there. There's some other options available such as heroics and the super behemoths as I call them. This is where the best loots are in the game and also considered the game's end game. So what do I think about the game? Well, Dauntless is insanely addictive and the gameplay loop is well done but it currently lacks some sustainable content. With around 25 or so total behemoths at the time of this video some of them are reskins with some alternate skills it can definitely use some more to keep players around. Now it's a free to play game and as Warframe has taught us you have to keep pumping out content in order to keep players coming back. Also there's that monster hunter world PC release that's right around the corner. The good news is that the developers recognize this and plan an aggressive schedule to meet demand. Right now there's enough to keep players around for about maybe a couple weeks to a month but unless fresh content is injected I can see them taking the hiatus or even leaving the game altogether. Make no mistake I love this game but I also recognize the fickle nature of the gamer. So with that said the game is addictive. Very addictive. The fights are well done, the animations are well done, the music is well done. The art style takes a little bit of getting used to and there's also some UI elements that are definitely rough around the edges. At open beta these shortcomings are generally accepted for most games but the clock is ticking for Dauntless. I'm rooting for these guys to do well are you? Check out Dauntless at PlayDauntless.com and sign up for a free account. It's definitely worth the try even if you're not interested in any kind of monster hunter games. This is Buona from Buona.tv and this is my quick review of Dauntless Open Beta by Phoenix Labs. I'll see you all next time. Have a great day. Hey guys thanks for watching the video please comment, like, subscribe and all that good stuff and make sure you click the bell to be notified otherwise you ain't gonna see this video. Wait, how did you see this video? I'm okay, bye.