Dauntless Interview

Now that Phoenix Labs’ co-operative action-RPG Dauntless is open to anyone who’s up for some Behemoth slaying and the initial launch day chaos has subsided, we can check out this PCGamesN interview with a couple of developers that focuses on the people playing the game and how they can affect it. For example, here’s a bit on how the developers plan to make Dauntless a more PC-focused experience:

“We definitely wanted to bring a more PC gaming experience to the genre,” Houston says. “One where the rate of change and iteration can be very high, so we can keep the game very tightly balanced and have new content very rapidly. We also wanted to make it a more accessible experience – one where your role in the world matters.”

Houston’s favourite point of reference is the opening of the Gates of Ahn’qiraj in World of Warcraft over a decade ago. A server-wide world event with several phases, it culminated in a ten-hour long war at the Scarab Wall.

“Players had a real impact in the world,” Houston reminisces. “And I want to go even further than that, where the decisions that players make have a very permanent change on how the game unfolds. I want to bring a lot more meaning and story to the experience.”

“Hopefully Dauntless is the story of your player,” Clifford adds. “And while you are one of many players, the collective you as a community will help, with feedback, drive the development of the game.”

At Boston’s PAX East in April, Phoenix Labs met three strangers garbed in feathers and fur, all wielding blunt weapons: their first community cosplayers. “We were not expecting them at all,” Clifford says. “It was super crazy and humbling at the same time.”

Shortly afterwards, the studio’s level design team commemorated the event permanently with three NPCs in Ramsgate, Dauntless’s social hub.

“Their minds were completely blown,” Clifford says. “That kind of permanence and agency in the game world is something that we want to continue for months and years to come.”