Strip Monster Hunter down to its core components and remake it as a free-to-play (but not pay-to-play) online game, and you get something very close to Dauntless. It takes most of the best parts of Capcom’s cult franchise and repurposes them in a way that’s accessible, fun, and comes with a lot less baggage. What it lacks in depth from all that complexity, Dauntless’ streamlined approach more than makes up for it by offering something different.

The trick is simple: you’re a Hunter, and you slay big, nasty monsters called Behemoths. That’s it — basically all you have to do is kill. The lack of a proper story beyond the extraneous text blocks at the beginning and end of the missions that evoke little empathy was disappointing at first, but I quickly forgot about it. Then again, storytelling has never been a selling point of other games in the genre (such as Monster Hunter itself or God Eater), so I can’t say I’m super nostalgic about it. Every NPC in Dauntless is either a merchant in the capital city or a quest giver, rather than a source of lore-heavy dialogue. So when you’re not tweaking in menus, you’ll be out in the wild chopping off tails, dodging fireballs, and taking down giant beasts. It’s super focused.

Dauntless is all about constant progression. For each monster you defeat, you receive a ton of crafting materials, such as hides, feathers, and scales, which you can use around town to create weapons and armor based on the same monster. You must harvest fire-based creatures to craft fire weapons to defeat ice monsters, and ice monsters to craft armor strong enough to withstand the ice attacks of even stronger monsters. Each enemy has distinct strengths and weaknesses, so you can intuitively craft the right gear for the situation, which feeds into the “hunt, craft, repeat” loop for the next battle. While there aren’t a lot of different activities, the gameplay is excellent from moment to moment.

In addition to crafting better gear, there are mastery levels as a form of progression. The more you use a particular type of weapon or slay a particular type of beast, the higher your Mastery Rank in that particular area. The higher your proficiency level, the better gear you can craft and the better upgrades you can unlock. It’s a system that rewards engagement, and, pleasingly, you’re not penalized for not spending money on Dauntless’ optional (and mostly superficial) microtransactions.

Each of the six weapons in Dauntless feels unique and powerful. There are slots for items called cells, which you can use to improve them and customize them to your liking. The sword is well-balanced as a great starting weapon, but the flashiness of the warspike makes it an exciting weapon for extending combos. The only dual-wielding melee option, the chainblade, is very fast and efficient, while the repeater rifle offers mid-range handgun-style versatility. The hammer is the slowest of all, but does a ton of damage. The axe sits somewhere between the sword and the hammer as a giant bladed weapon good for slicing and dicing.

Of all the weapon types, the warspike was my favorite because it felt the most unique compared to what I’ve tried in other monster hunting games over the years. It has a decent range for a melee weapon, and can attack very quickly to fill up a special meter, or attack slowly for powerful slashes that destroy monster parts. His combos and fighting style are the most subtle and difficult weapon option, but once you get the hang of it it’s very pleasant. It also looks cool thanks to the cinematography and visual effects.

Dauntless’ monster designs are often a combination of fantasy creatures and more down-to-earth real-life animals, like the Embermane, which looks like a rhino-lion hybrid, and the Shrike, which looks a lot like the Owlbear from Dungeons & Dragons. While not as otherworldly as God Eater’s bombastic beasts, or as realistically designed as Monster Hunter’s dinosaur-like creatures, Dauntless has its own unique style that I’ve grown to love over time. The bright, contrasting color palette is easy on the eyes, and each monster has tons of personality. The boar-like Quillshot’s habit of charging sideways and stabbing me with the spikes on its back kept me on my toes, and the fearsome, fierce Hellion’s surprising speed constantly caught me off guard.

Learning attack patterns and perfecting your dodge roll is just as important as knowing your weapon combinations. Dodging makes you invincible for a short period of time, and allows you to actually roll towards and through enemies during combat. But because so many of the weapons are huge and have deliberately winding movements, timing your attacks to avoid getting stuck in an attack animation as the behemoth charges towards you is paramount. Every fight has a great rhythm of planning and execution.

Microtransaction Reaction

Dauntless uses a Hunt Pass as a form of progression. It’s a free-to-play system where you unlock rewards by completing challenges, similar to Fortnite’s Battle Pass. If you pay $10 to upgrade your Hunt Pass to Elite, you unlock even more rewards as you level up, including awesome skins, useful (but not essential) in-game items, and other customization options. Other optional microtransactions from the

store include purchasable dyes and emotes, boosters that increase the loot you earn, weapon and armor skins, and potions that increase your hunting stats. Luckily, none of these felt annoying at all, and the perks in the Elite Hunt Pass itself were actually enticing enough to upgrade. This way you can access all the rewards you’ve already unlocked, or pay extra to unlock them all right away. The thing is, I never felt like I needed this system, or that it detracted from the progress I’ve made hunting monsters and improving my gear and mastery levels.

While Monster Hunter’s slow, methodical build-up to a big expedition is a key part of its appeal, Dauntless trades all of those extra layers for something gentler and more accessible. Gone are many of the bells and whistles, no more cooking meat, setting traps, tracking creatures, or spending time staring at loading screens between map zones while hunting. Instead, you’re dropped into one of three very simple biome types (either temperate, frozen, or arid) and have to search for monsters. Some of the other things I missed out on, as some environments can feel hollow if you don’t find monsters right away, but it’s a worthwhile trade-off to make the hunt more enjoyable overall.

Every time I logged into Dauntless (assuming I wasn’t caught up in the hour-long queues that occurred during release week, which thankfully have mostly been fixed), I was often dove straight into matchmaking for a hunt within a minute. . Most hunts are over in under 10 minutes, with you quickly returning to your base to quickly craft something before heading out again. Die-hard Monster Hunter fans will miss the more complex features they’ve grown to love, like tracking and capturing monsters and exploring multiple zones to find the right wildlife for each hunt. But the more streamlined experience removes a lot of the friction that could otherwise slow you down, making the genre much easier to enjoy.

Technically, you can play Dauntless privately without matchmaking, but it still requires you to be online, so we don’t recommend it either way. If you go down or die during a hunt (which is highly likely if you’re playing solo), your rewards are significantly reduced and you have nothing to gain except tormenting yourself with an artificially inflated difficulty that makes every battle last three times as long. Plus, the multiplayer mode is a lot of fun. Killing monsters together is much more rewarding in person, and with the variety of weapons, armor, and color dyes, it’s nearly impossible to see two players looking the same.

Verdict

Dauntless does a remarkable job not only with its insanely fun and accessible monster-hunting action, but also with its seamless cross-platform multiplayer and unobtrusive free-to-play mechanics. By stripping away much of the complexity of the support systems from games like Monster Hunter, you’re left with a core that’s incredibly fun for short or hour-long sessions, even if it does occasionally lack depth outside of combat and crafting.