
In an official announcement, Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs has revealed that the live service action title is being shut down this May.
For those who may not be familiar, Dauntless is a Monster Hunter-esque title in which players face off against dangerous creatures, using their eventual spoils to enhance their character's abilities and equipment.
Dauntless launched for PS4, PC, and Xbox One back in September of 2019, and it attracted a good amount of attention thanks to its colourful art direction and solid gameplay loop. However, the title never quite pushed on from those early days of positivity, and over the years, its player numbers started to dwindle — even after it made the jump to PS5 in 2021.
And those same years haven't been kind to Phoenix Labs itself. The studio has been hit with layoffs on multiple occasions, shedding more than 100 employees in 2024. Various projects were cancelled, and although the developer had stated that it would continue to support Dauntless, the writing was on the wall.
Indeed, Phoenix Labs announced yet more layoffs — making up the majority of its remaining workforce — just last month.
And to be clear, Dauntless is completely done. The game will no longer be playable from the 29th May, 2025. "Thanks to all for being a part of the Dauntless journey," reads the official statement.
Did you ever play Dauntless? Dare we ask if you're a regular? Consider all of those unused crafting materials in the comments section below.
[source x.com]
Comments 33
Can’t say they didn’t try.
They shot themselves in the foot with a rocket launcher with how they changed and tried to monetize it.
The latest update killed the game.
They got too greedy smh
I mean it lasted like 6 years. How many Concordes is that? 😂
Only played a little bit of Dauntless when it came out but didn’t get into it much.
More into the MH series and I doubt any of the monster Hunter clones will top the MH games
@rjejr Inevitably, someone will do the maths and work this out.
And another one gone, another one gone, ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST!!!!
I remember watching this project when it was created for PC players that didn't have an official MH title (in the West, anyways, as MH Frontier and I think Online hadn't died yet). Pretty neat on release but I couldn't get into the art style. Then MH World came to PC so...there went my interest.
@ShogunRok @rjejr ...175 and a half Concords.
(Edit - that's to today, so add another 8ish Concords to the final tally with the shut down date)
Never trust an always, only online game for long term enjoyment. It's so very few that last more than a couple years.
Live.service.fail. Colour me shocked
@Xbox_Dashboard That's exactly why I don't spend a penny on those free to play games. I feel sorry for those that spend hundreds and thousands on gacha games just for them to shut down a few years later, especially on mobile.
They probably knew they wouldn't have much longer so they milked the remaining fans as much as they could before shutting it down.
No surprise, on countless fronts. More recent developments may have been the final nail in the coffin, but having dipped in and out of it since the Closed Beta on PC, it's a game that never really overcame its "oh crap, Capcom announced Monster Hunter World" panic from way back then, and just seemed to make (mostly) bad decisions to try and re-invent itself.
@UltimateOtaku91 “ shut down a few years later,”
I suppose it would be bad for the people who were currently playing it, but if you haven’t spent hundreds or a thousand dollars on games a decade ago that you never played again, well I’m guessing you’re the exception more than the rule. I may have more than $1,000 worth of just PS2 discs on my shelf I can’t play b/c I don’t have hardware that will play them. I don’t ever want to know what we spent on toys to life, we own like all of them. But it was fun while it lasted.😁
Gaming is a hobby, not a financial investment.
@Mintie @ShogunRok Thanks. Sometimes it is fun to be here. 😂
Must be so miserable for people working on making these games. To have them just blotted out of existence. At least single player failures still hang around, sometimes gaining a belated cult following.
@Xbox_Dashboard how the heck is 6 years not long? i swear yall just try yall hardest to downplay live service. how’s that recent $60-70 single player game you beat months ago within 50 or so hours?
@Balosi single players are usually one and done & makes devs less money. at least with live service you get more than your moneys worth since there’s always something to do until the game shuts down .
@nomither6 yes at which point all of your work is wiped out. I don't know, maybe games programmers don't care that much about legacy or whatever, but just seems wasteful to me to see years of work just wiped out.
@Balosi it's not wasteful, though. It'd be wasteful if after 6 years of making the game, it was cancelled and all their work never saw the light of day. If people played it and enjoyed it for years, it wasn't a waste.
There was a psvita game called Destiny of Spirits that came out about a decade ago. It was my most played game and I paid quite a lot of money for MTX, mostly to help the developers. Its servers were shut down after a year, but I, personally, didn't see it as a waste. I simply appreciated all the time I spent enjoying it.
@rjejr I get that but you still have those PS2 games and Toys to life, it's still possible to use those and play those games. But with live service (especially gacha) you spend a lot of money and then the game gets took offline and servers not kept up for those wanting to play offline. Thats like you spending thousands on your PS2 games and toys to life collection and then for them to just disappear.
Didn’t this studio sell itself to some weird NFT outfit, only then to monetise the game out of the wazoo and kill player sentiment?
I hope the devs walked away happy with whatever they sold the studio for and it was all worth it.
Only themselves to blame after they nuked the game with the last big update.
It felt like a mobile game. I couldn’t truly get into it ever, really. Menus, hub, etc. But let’s be real, this is the fate of all live service games. I’m always down for a game with lots of online stuff, but cmon, requiring the developer to support your gameplay on their servers is not the jam. Trust that games will stay alive has dwindled more than ever, and no amount of reassurance can help.
How about that one last cash grab though, right?
@StrickenBiged Yes. The devs that were left behind worked to try to make the game profitable again, which included essentially a hard reset to the progression and a complete dismissal of the original gameplay loop to one that favored pay to win.
I played this for a good while couple of years ago. Damn shame to see a good game(imo) shut down
Winter came and that December update annihilated them 🤯🤯🤯🥶🥶🥶👀
The moment the game was bought by those crypto obssesed guys, the writings were on the wall. It's a big shame that as of now, the only ongoing hunting game on the marker is Monster Hunter.
Nature of the beast. Surprised it lasted this long.
@ShogunRok @rjejr 156 concords
@nomither6 Those single player games are gonna be still playable 10 years from now. Also, didn't realize it had been 6 years. Good on em for lasting that long.
I played it from time to time on PC, Switch and my PS5, and when I did play it, I had a lot of fun. However, it was never a "Must-Play" for me.
Always sad to hear of studios getting shutdown.
@Coffeeglitch Monster Hunter Wilds is a live service game. Dont be reductive. This died because it wasn't run well. Games dont die because they're LS. People on this site have a serious hate obsession with live service not even realising some games they enjoy are exactly that
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