2019 was a slow year of video games for me. I didn’t play a whole lot of them. What did happen though was sort of an allegiance shift. For the longest time I’ve been a Sony fanboy (since 1998) but last year they got rid of PS Vita and PS3 games on the Playstation Plus platform and then most of their free selections of PS4 games were already on PS Now. Xbox had their Game Pass, which was cheaper than the expensive PS Now (back then)

So I jumped ship and joined the Xbox family in the fall. I love Game Pass and love that they have brand new games added pretty regularly (I see you The Outer Worlds). Sadly, the Switch has been played a little less, unless it is Diablo 3 season.

Last year, I was dead determined to find an MMO game that I was going to stick with and play for a long time. My fiancé is one of the biggest Destiny fans out there and I’ve dabbled a little with that game, and Destiny often comes to mind whenever I think of ‘forever games.’ I love the constant updates the game receives and the new missions and activities with each new season released. I wanted to discover (keyword discover) a game like that.

It wasn’t easy though. The whole process was trial and error.

It began with Final Fantasy XIV, I only played a little bit and it got very overwhelming too quickly. I might get back to it one day, but I wanted something simpler and easy to sit down and play.

The next game was Monster Hunter World. I love that game. It took me a long time to find a weapon that I was comfortable with. I used the heavy lance but I wanted to move faster. I then switched to the hammer, which was a little better but I would run out of stamina quickly. Then I discovered the insect glaive and the game opened up to me. Being an acrobat while fighting the gigantic beasts was enjoyable and looked cool as hell. Sadly life happened though and I fell off that train. Plus I was afraid that when I would reach Iceborne, the game would run out of content.

At this point, I which transitioning between PS4 and Xbox One. PS Now had become cheaper and so I got both services. The next game I tried was Black Desert Online.

I always wanted to play BDO because of the immersive character creator, where you can find yourself lost for an hour creating the tiniest details on your character (I can say that I fell victim to that). I also did some research on this game, seeing how much time people put into the game. However for this game, my results left me a little discouraged. When inquiring about the length, I ran into some message boards where BDO users were asking each other “How long did it take before this game stopped being fun.”

I did try the game out though and it followed the similar issue with Final Fantasy XIV. The game had me do a simple task but I had to wade through a menu that had about 40 different selections. I did enjoy the combat though, it was a quick button masher and it was simple to execute. I was lost in the story though and quickly put it down.

This is where the Switch quickly comes into play. The next week Nintendo announced Dauntless so I picked that up. The game didn’t handle that well on the Switch and then I realized that the game is on Xbox One. I quickly fell in love.

How do you describe Dauntless? It plays like Monster Hunter, has a Fortnite style and it doesn’t make you feel like shit for losing a battle. I’ve read articles where people call it Monster Hunter-lite, which I will agree to that. One negative thing about the game is the plot, it’s very sparse, but you’re killing monsters. What more do you need?

There are many weapons to choose from (not as much as Monster Hunter) and you learn to choose which weapon works best for each monster. From my time playing I switch between the Strikers (fist weapons), the Repeaters (dual pistols) and the War Pike (insect glaive minus the vault jump). I haven’t used the other weapons much and I still haven’t beat that mission that has you using EACH weapon to slay a beast. I’ll get it done eventually.

Gameplay has you joining randos (other online players), as you kill the beast. Your armor has specific strengths and weaknesses. Each monster has a specific element and so there is some strategy to what you equip. Go venture to fight a fire beast with ice armor and a fire weapon, you’re fucked. But go venture to fight a fire beast with fire armor and an ice weapon, then you’re surely going to be victorious, that is if the other people of the group know how to play the game.

Be prepared to lose a lot of battles due to bad human partners.

Dauntless has the grind of Monster Hunter without all of the item management, which I didn’t have a lot of time for. I wanted something that I could pick up and play. One thing that drew me to the game though was that there is constant content updates and new things to do (forever game). It’s distributed by Epic Games, Fortnite creators, so I would expect something similar to that. Phoenix Labs did an excellent job with creating something that holds my very short attention span.

Going back to Epic Games, there are micro transactions, which was a big fear of mine because once you start, it’s hard to stop with the shopping. I have bought a few cosmetic items and the Battle Pass is a great way to get some cool emotes and shaders for your character.

Dauntless doesn’t tell you how many hours you’ve put in, which is both a good and a bad thing. Part of me is curious but the other part is like, prepared to be shocked when you see that number.

I will continue to play Dauntless, the game hasn’t gotten boring. I have stopped doing the missions because I want to complete the Battle Pass. I haven’t upgraded my armor in quite some time, but that’s completely fine. I can’t wait for the next season to start and see what new cosmetics I can buy for my character. This season’s selection for armor cosmetics was boring, so at this point I’m afraid that next season’s selection is going to be great.

Send help, and hell, join me in killing monsters.

Xbox username is LifeAfterTodd.

Epic account is GreggZeppelin.

Thanks for reading!