I’ve never got into a Monster Hunter game, but I love the idea of not just fighting enormous beasties, but cooking restorative meals and hanging out around campfires beeforehand. That’s what I’m hoping for from Dauntless [official site], a four-player co-op action RPG coming in 2017. There’s an announcement trailer below.



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Monsters, check. Hunting, check. Pals, check. There’s crafting, in that you can forge your own weapons and armour. But I don’t see cooking. This is a shame, because while I’m bound to be bad at dodge-rolling and timing combo attacks, I bet I could make a mean broth.

Dauntless is set in a world that has been shattered, its geography being separated into floating islands. The monsters you’re fighting are Behemoths, and you’re fighting them because they’re consuming what little of the planet remains. One of the things I like about Monster Hunter is that it has a little of that Shadow of the Colossus, forlorn-about-killing-something-beautiful to it, and I wonder if the justification for killing Dauntless’s bads means it won’t create the same feelings.

The announcement press release makes explicit mention of Monster Hunter as an inspiration but also Dark Souls, and World of Warcraft. The game is being developed by Phoenix Labs, a new studio founded by former BioWare and Riot Games developers – because both those developers employ so many people that basically you can say the same about any newly founded studio.

If you want more info, you can sign up on the game’s site for a newsletter and an opportunity to get into the inevitable closed beta.