Dauntless review — exciting combat hamstrung by repetition

Between borrowing the core gameplay loop of Monster Hunter and the free-to-play business model popularized by Fortnite, developer Phoenix Labs makes no secret of the influence behind Dauntless. It’s out now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC (I played the game on PC). A Switch version is scheduled to come out later this year.

On paper, an accessible action role-playing game with no cost-for-entry barrier sounds fantastic. And, for the first several hours, it is. Dauntless, which recently launched version 1.0 after a lengthy beta period, offers some incredibly satisfying behemoth-slaying gameplay. The problem is that it quickly becomes dull and repetitive, mostly due to a lack of gameplay variety.