this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2025
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127
Phoenix Labs (creators of Dauntless and Fae Farm) just laid off most of their dev team (files.catbox.moe)
submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
18 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

If anyone was following this fiasco, they basically launched Dauntless on Steam with a major update that completely wrecked the game and removed much of its content. Dauntless was already struggling and went in weird directions during development but this was the final nail in the coffin, and the company seems to have totally gone under.

Source: https://reddit.com/r/dauntless/comments/1ibfvaq/studio_update/

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[–] [email protected] 99 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

Fuck Forte.

Phoenix was the best place I'd ever worked until they came along. Fucking bitcoin bros destroyed everything because they didn't understand the games industry.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Woah, you worked there? Got any stories on how things went down?

[–] [email protected] 55 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Many. Unfortunately I also can't talk about them, yet.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 months ago

That sucks, I hope you're doing alright after the layoffs. Hopefully things improve in this industry...

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

You can blame crypto bros but the original owners sold out. Once a studio has been swallowed up by a conglomerate it is only a matter of time before it turns to shit.

The owners might have had no choice though because they took a ton of venture capital funding.

I’ve realized that it’s best to just avoid any company that takes VC because they will inevitably fuck everyone over.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I wish I could get more into this, but yes there were some major missteps during the covid/post-covid "stocks are crazy high, money is free!" period. After that there just wasn't really a way to recover.

Unfortunately it's pretty hard to avoid VC money, the tech industry runs on it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

It’s hard but not impossible. You’ll make less money but have much more stability.

After multiple layoffs I started freelancing. The autonomy and multiple streams of income has been great for my mental health.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I think the issue is more that VC's prioritize draining money out of what they acquire instead of continuing with what works for longer term gains.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

If you worked on Dauntless, just want to say I appreciate your part! Only played it for a while at release because the grind turned me off but it's been sad seeing news pop up of how it has been going downhill. Was such a fun game.

Sucks that good game devs get laid off because the leaders are asleep at the wheel unless it involves monetization.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 months ago (3 children)

It's a shame, because I liked it more than Monster Hunter, but it's always online, so it's inevitable that eventually it stops making money, and the next step is that it disappears forever.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 months ago

That's the point where I link the stop killing games initiative which tackles that exact issue.

https://www.stopkillinggames.com/

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago (2 children)

I tried it at one point before trying any Monster Hunter games, and I found it really boring. I was legitimately getting drowsy when fighting the second monster and found it much easier to just chug a potion, rather than try to dodge its attacks. Monster Hunter World, on the other hand, was exhilarating from the first large monster you hunt. So... did Dauntless get better as you progressed?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (1 children)

It just got into the core fight, upgrade, fight loop way faster, without any of the tedious mechanics that I didn't like from Monster Hunter, that I find boring. I played right around its launch on Epic, so who's to say if we even played the same game, with the way these games can change over time?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I played it back when it was free before Monster Hunter Worlds came out, and it was great then!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

Sorry you were downvoted for having an opinion.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I played it on release and it was a fun time with friends. A few years back Phoenix Labs was bought out by another company, and it was all downhill from there. It really is a shame, Dauntless was a neat game.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

Not really surprising after they destroyed what was left of the game and its community with the most recent update. I'm really not sure why anyone thought that was a good idea

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I played Dauntless hardcore in the beta. My team and I really enjoyed it and it was going to great but it went to Epic we never gave it another thought. A real pity because the combat was fun. IDK how it evolved but the chainblade started out really enjoyable.