Big Changes Coming to Dauntless

This is the timeline Phoenix Labs has suggested, some of it is my own assumptions, and may or may not happen this way. Things don’t always release when expected. They responded to criticism in the letter with, "As we’re a relatively small team, we’re only able to work on so many things at any given time."

TLDR

• Transparency and Communication - playtests, Reddit AMAs and "state of the game" posts, and roadmap updates

• Addressing Problems - power creep, low-life meta, making the weapons more equivalent (specifically buffing war pike and wound damage), and revamping trials

• New Content: Dauntless Reforged - new hunt type (stay and slay), 17 reworked islands and 1 new island, gliders, and island events

• Removing and Changing Content - patrol and pursuit hunts will be removed, slayer's path progression will replace mastery, "class XP and prestige rework", and gear leveling rework

So What Changes are Coming and When

This is the timeline Phoenix Labs has provided and may or may not happen this way. Dauntless has a bit of a history of not releasing things when they're announced. They responded to criticism in the letter with, "As we’re a relatively small team, we’re only able to work on so many things at any given time."

November and early December 2020

• more specific information about Dauntless Reforged and what changes will look like

• new hunt pass

• Ramsgiving event (not confirmed)

December 2020 - Dauntless Reforged

• patrol and pursuit hunts will be replaced with Hunting Grounds (stay and slay)

• reworking islands and creating a new one to accommodate more behemoths and glider functionality

• adding gliders (probably customizable)

• adding island events (like fighting waves of lesser behemoths)

• slayer's path progression replacing slayer mastery (skill tree for more customization)

• "class XP and prestige rework" (I think this means they are making weapon mastery a skill tree too)

• gear leveling rework (assumed to include changes to elemental bonuses)

Coming in 2021

• power creep changes (potentially getting rid of or reducing lantern capacitor power increases from escalations)

• fighting the low-life meta with new cells like tenacious (not Cells 2.0)

• trying to add more effective builds including improving wound damage and the warpike

• revamping trials (no info yet)

• new frost behemoth

Citations:

Phoenix Labs. (2020). Dauntless Roadmap. Retrieved October 23, 2020, from https://playdauntless.com/

Houston, J. (2020, October 27). A Letter from CEO and Co-founder Jesse Houston. https://playdauntless.com/news/letter-from-jesse-q4-2020/.

All images are from the Dauntless website and are only meant to serve as placeholders. The final appearance of these features is not being portrayed.