Dauntless

Dauntless launched into beta in May 2018 from Phoenix Labs, a studio of ex-Riot/BioWare/Blizzard/Capcom devs with 6,000 collective hours in Monster Hunter games. The pitch: free-to-play Monster Hunter on PC/consoles with cross-play, Pixar-like art, and hunt-focused gameplay. The game featured a unique "Danger Meter" that replaced Monster Hunter's shared death limit—damage, KOs, and time increased danger, and hitting 100% meant team wipeout on the next death. Critics at E3 2017 noted Dauntless was "more than a Monster Hunter clone," with innovations like ranged-attack hammers and streamlined progression. The May 2019 Epic Games Store launch brought PS4/Xbox One versions with full cross-play, and the game hit 3 million players despite Monster Hunter World initially dipping its playerbase. StreamerHouse's 372-viewer peak in 2017 came during early beta hype, when the game was fresh and Monster Hunter World hadn't yet launched on consoles. By 2023, everything changed: Phoenix Labs was acquired by a blockchain company, and by January 2025 most of the dev team was laid off. Servers shut down May 30, 2025, ending Dauntless after seven years. The tragedy is that Dauntless was good—accessible, cross-platform, genuinely fun—but it couldn't survive corporate acquisition by crypto grifters who saw it as an NFT vehicle instead of a beloved co-op game. RIP.