Most of the news that’s come out of Dauntless developer Phoenix Labs has been pretty dire-sounding, particularly since the studio suffered two rounds of layoffs and saw its CEO and COO resign for “personal reasons.” Meanwhile, the team working on the creature hunting RPG had put all of its eggs into a Shattered Isles revamp update basket due this summer, which brings changes to practically every facet of the game.
So, with all of that context in mind, and the summer season now upon us, whatever happened to Dauntless? If monthly dev blogs are to be believed, the Shattered Isles update is still being worked on in earnest.
The last write-up for 2023 came at the end of last November, with a look at updates to the game world that include a new defense score mechanic, additional smaller creatures, refinements to world events, and the addition of legend hunts. After a two-month span of silence, dev blogs resumed in January with information on weapon and gear updates, followed by a closer look at legend hunts and a new behemoth in February, updates to loadouts and progression systems in March, and most recently a look at island-specific updates and details of harder aether surgedislands at the end of May. In between it all, the game engaged some seasonal and smaller events.
Of course, none of this answers the question of whether the Shattered Isles update is going to make its initial summer 2024 projection; the only clue that’s given is from the January dev blog that states a release for “later this year,” which seems to suggest that this major overhaul won’t meet its initially proposed window. Still, if we’re to take the studio’s word at face value, there’s been a lot of work done so far.
