Dauntless open beta is now freely available to all

Dauntless open beta is now freely available to all

Phoenix Games, the developer formed by a conglomerate of experienced developers from Riot Games, Blizzard, Bioware and elsewhere, has announced that the open beta for its new Monster Hunter-like game, Dauntless, is now available. Anyone can now sign up and become a slayer to help further the game's development and try to cut down as many behemoths as they can in a quest to level up gear and clear the floating islands of those strange beasts.

Set on a collection of floating land masses known as the "Shattered Isles," Dauntless sees players outfitted with a variety of heavy melee and ranged weaponry in order to try and take down a number of "Behemoths" which range from large, owl-like creatures, to even larger spikey beasties, all of whom have unique attack patterns and behaviors that must be learned and avoided in order to cut them to ribbons. Once slain, their bodily materials can be harvested and turned into better weapons and armor.

Rinse and repeat, it's the Monster Hunter way.

But in Dauntless, everything's a little more cartoony, a little more Overwatch-lookalike. There are also big damage numbers which appear everytime you hit the beasts, which is far less common in the aforementioned Capcom series -- only World has any kind of numbers -- and the game is a lot faster. The animations are more fluid and less stationary, making it a little more forgiving for newer players.

If you want to jump in and give Dauntless a try, just head to the signup page here.