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Following the disastrous Steam debut of free-to-play Monster Hunter-like Dauntless and an initial response from developer Phoenix Labs that's done little to calm or assure players, original associate producer Jessie Leigh Gagnon, who was one of the first few devs at Phoenix Labs back in 2014, joined the community in calling on the team to "do better with Dauntless."
The big Awakening update timed with Dauntless' Steam release has been panned like the Colorado River for taking an axe to much of what made the game, well, a game. At the time of writing, its Steam user review score sits at 15% positive – "Overwhelmingly Negative" and then some.
In a LinkedIn post, Gagnon agrees that "Dauntless today is no longer Free to Slay. They’ve gutted the core gameplay and crafting mechanics. The essence of the Slayers (who I named just over 10 years ago), has been, in fact, slayed to ribbons. We never would have made decisions that are so blatantly not player-focused."
"I spent the past week a bit baffled and shell-shocked at the Steam launch of Dauntless from the new studio ownership that acquired Phoenix Labs," her post begins. "I wasn’t going to write anything here, because my personal time and journey at Phoenix Labs was a short one, but Dauntless was every bit my pitch as it was the other five original team members, so I feel I can’t be silent."
Gagnon is referring to Forte Labs' bizarrely secretive 2023 purchase of Phoenix Labs. The blockchain company told Game Developer that it didn't realize all the secrecy was a "giant red flag." Phoenix Labs staff were reportedly barred from sharing the news and evidently only learned of the acquisition after signing some paperwork.
Its exact direction and leadership are unclear, but life since the Forte acquisition has not been blissful for Phoenix Labs. Layoffs came last May, and in July it was revealed that a new game codenamed Project Dragon had been canceled at Phoenix Labs mere weeks before reveal after years in development. It was described as a Minecraft and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild-inspired multiplayer sandbox RPG. An artist attached to the project incidentally revealed that Crash Bandicoot 5 had been in the works elsewhere, too.
Indie dev Pirate Software covered the news on Project Dragon at the time, and in a comment on his video Phoenix Labs animator Belden Pham wrote: "The team working on Dragon was not only the best at our studio but some of the most impressive people I've ever come across in the industry. The amount of competency and skill was inspiring, I loved checking their art channels on Slack to see how far the bar could go. If you thought the art looked good, you should have had the chance to play it. I spent hours on the holiday playtest. Near the ship date for Dragon, a few of our teammates were pulled off of other projects to help them ship. When the layoffs came, we lost them too. We're still feeling the hole and knowledge left from that crop of folk getting let go."
In her LinkedIn post, Gagnon reflects on the spirit that made Dauntless what it was. "Dauntless was created because we had all grown tired of playing Japanese Monster Hunter on handhelds (it was on 3DS at the time), and dealing with aching hands, cumbersome inventory management, and lore that wasn’t super approachable for a global audience that didn’t really resonate with us either," she wrote.
"I had mentioned offhand to Richard Hough that it was 'shocking' to me that a Western MH-like had not yet come out and been successful, and from there, the pitch took off running. Before I knew it, I had resigned from League of Legends, moved to Vancouver, Canada, and taken the riskiest leap of my then-early career in games.
"I spent six months in startup mode devoting every minute of my life to the world building and marketing identity of both [Phoenix] and Dauntless, only to hit a brick wall at about 60 mph. I then had to make the very difficult decision to go on leave from the studio to recover. I cared that much about Dauntless surviving and shipping to the world - that I gave my body and mind to those critical days, and then spent the following six months in serious recovery."
"I have the privilege of working in academia now, where I can be open and honest about my opinions on other games," she concludes, "and this is the time for me to speak up and say DO BETTER WITH DAUNTLESS. Please, if not for us creators, FOR THE PLAYERS."
In brighter news, Monster Hunter Wilds looked better than ever in our hands-on preview at Capcom's Japan headquarters.
