A Monster Hunter Competitor? Dauntless

Earlier this year, or maybe it was last year (the ragged strands of time have frayed and tangled in the tapestry of my poor, bedraggled mind) Kaiju and Magnataur and I all bought some iteration of Monster Hunter for the 3DS. My periodic blogging companion played the crap out of it. I enjoyed it in spurts. Downing dinosaurs and dragons and forging lances and codpieces of their bones holds a certain appeal. It’s a somewhat different take on the “Boss Monster: the Game” motif.

Magnataur was somewhat less down with the sickness.

You see, there was a lot going on in Monster Hunter. I don’t know if all the versions have little cat people whom you can recruit en mass to assist you in your hunting and sundry material gathering tasks, but the version we played did. There were also oodles of items and components to organize and combine, all sorts of weapon stats and bonuses to learn and be mindful of, and towns and environments that were just large enough to render navigation and travel slightly tedious. Bottom line – the monster hunting was good, but the required logistics are not for everyone.

When we read blurbs about the development of Dauntless, we flagged it. I mean it was Monster Hunter for the PC, but billed as being “from a studio formed by veteran developers who previously worked at BioWare, Riot Games, Capcom, and Blizzard Entertainment.”

That’s some promising pedigree.

A couple weeks ago I got into the closed Beta. Kindly included in my welcome email were two “friend keys,” and so along came Kaiju and Magnataur. I’ve only gotten one short session in with our favorite Alt-Godzilla, but his impression seemed favorable if somewhat tentative (I think he’ll probably skip this one and spring for Monster Hunter World next year). But I’ve had the opportunity to sneak in quite a big of solo gaming, and also a few hunts with Mag, whose enthusiasm has been picking up.

This video by PC Gamer makes a pretty decent representation of what Dauntless is looking like. It’s almost a year old and so some elements are a little out of date (for example there are now, uh, goats running around the maps that you can kill), but most of the explanations here still hold. The graphics and audio are also in pretty much the same state, which is to say they’re in a good place.

The controls feel fluid and natural. Lag can be a little bit of an issue at times and stuttering is especially noticeable in town (where thankfully it doesn’t matter much). I’ve tried combat with both mouse and keyboard and controller, and though I prefer the latter, both are comfortable and perfectly workable options. Unfortunately some of the menus and NPC interfaces don’t play particularly well with controller, so you’ll probably be using your mouse a bit either way.

Combat feels good. It seems to me to feel faster than Monster Hunter, perhaps in part because stamina recovery is more generous in Dauntless. I haven’t tried all 4 of the weapons yet (axe, hammer, sword, chain blades), but the axe and sword feel satisfyingly different. The axe is, of course, ponderous and powerful. Primary and secondary attacks translate to vertical and horizontal swings, and your “special” is a large powerful smash.

The sword, on the other hand, is much more balanced. Its fighting style is much more about speed and getting in more attacks. You’ve got fast, weak swings that you can chain into a combo but are also easy to roll out of to avoid your enemy’s wrath, and also slower more deliberate attacks that are harder to cancel, but deliver elemental damage when using an appropriate weapon.

The chain blades, from what I’ve seen, are a “ninja” weapon focused on mobility and speed with a few cool, quick combos of both long and short range. The hammer is slow and powerful, like the axe, and also has a gun attached to it. Why not? I’ve also read that there’s a planned fifth weapon, something ranged, that will be available by open Beta.

The monsters themselves, called “behemoths,” are also well done. The art style of the game (I thought of League of Legends and Heroes of the Storm, so some institutional knowledge and inspiration is apparent) lends itself well to the not-quite-realistic but also not-quite-cartoony feel of the characters and beasts. The screeches and calls of the behemoths are a nice touch. The battle damage that they incur as the fights progress is also quite visible and satisfying.

As in Monster Hunter, one must face off against a monster several times before becoming really proficient at fighting it. Each one has unique tells and attack patterns. Each monster also seems to have more difficult variations that come with different color palettes as well as more challenging fighting styles.

All this is great, especially for a closed Beta. But there are some areas that really need work if Dauntless is to take on Monster Hunter World early next year.

First, the GUIs and menus need a lot of attention. Armor and weapon stats are not easy to understand. They’re not really explained, and they’re not well represented visually. It’s difficult to figure out what your armor or weapons are doing for you – something you should be able to quickly surmise from your Loadout screen.

Also I know the developers want to include “RPG” elements to the game and maybe some kind of story. I think this is a mistake. Most of us who play these games just want to fight big boss monsters and make armor from their hide! We don’t want a story. Or if we do, we want to make our own! That said, if they’re going to go that way, they need to cut out the stupid “run-around” quests. I mean, there are “quests” that consist of talking to an NPC who tells you to go talk to another NPC at the other side of town. And it’s not like you get any kind of reward for talking to the first guy. Pointless!

The matchmaking system also needs work. Currently you can solo hunt, or you can queue up to “group hunt” a monster. After a couple minutes, though, if the system is unable to match you with anyone, you get dumped into the hunt alone. This can happen when you’re trying to hunt something you’re not strong enough to fight by yourself, and it’s frustrating. And the frustration is compounded by the fact that there’s no way to abandon your hunt right now; you have to log out and log back in.

This is all very fixable stuff, and I look forward to seeing what they do with the game. As it stands now, it’s got its foibles but is also quite enjoyable. My biggest hope is that they don’t do a full character reset. They’ve said they don’t intend to, but it could possibly become necessary. We’ll see. But I’d really like to keep my owlbear hat.

-Bushi