"Where did all the content go?": Monster Hunter rival Dauntless debuts to "Overwhelmingly Negative" Steam reviews as players rip into the action RPG's overhaul

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The removal of weapon crafting seems to have rattled monster slayers

Key art from Dauntless: Awakening, showing a trio of monster hunters posing against a pink moon.
(Image credit: Phoenix Labs)

Free-to-play Monster Hunter-like Dauntless just got its "biggest update ever" - and also its most controversial update ever as the game has now debuted on Steam to a 'Very Negative' rating.

Dauntless released in early access years ago on The Epic Games Store before inviting Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch players into its Disneyfied world of beast-bashing and gear-crafting. But developer Phoenix Labs released a massive Dauntless: Awakening update just yesterday, alongside a Steam release, that seems to have shaken the popular game's playerbase.

Right now, more than 500 Dauntless Steam user reviews give it an average 'Overwhelmingly Negative' score based on how drastically the Awakening update has overhauled what the game used to be, while only 15% of reviewers came away with something positive to write. Dauntless once loosely followed the Monster Hunter formula where you'd pop into a map filled with creatures, maybe with some co-op friends, and then use their remains to craft new weapons and armor. The Awakening update has stripped away weapon-crafting completely, essentially deleting over 200 weapons in favor of around 18 mainstays.

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Phoenix Labs' explanation for the change makes sense on paper, though the implementation hasn't gone down too well: "In the past, weapons have operated basically the same way within each category," it wrote in a recent blog post. "A Hammer would play like a Hammer, etc. etc. And so, aside from Exotics, different 'weapons' would really be more like different skins." Awakening instead gives you a couple of weapons per category (hammer, axe, sword, etc), but some seem to have been temporarily locked behind controversial battle passes until they eventually become craftable with a different in-game currency. 

The negative reviews are filled with complaints about changes to how weapons work (or don't work), but arguments against the new loot boxes, gutted progression, and convoluted systems are just as persistent. "Where did all the content go?" one review asked. "As a veteran slayer, I was excited to see it make a 'comeback' if you want to call it that. With this new update I basically wasted the hundreds of hours I've spent grinding for my load outs back on Epic Games," said another.

"This IS definitely a change," Phoenix Labs acknowledged on social media. "We do want to clarify that Alluring Moons is the only weapon that you have to pay for, other weapons can still be earned for free by earning weapon tokens. In time, even Alluring Moons will become available for free."

Looking for some other recommendations? Check out our picks of the best co-op games and best free games available right now.  

Kaan Serin
Freelance contributor

Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that's vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he'll soon forget.