Dauntless Shutting Down for Good Following Layoffs

Dauntless, the free-to-play monster hunting game that launched in 2019, is set to shut down in just a few short months. Near the start of 2025, developer Phoenix Labs announced that it had laid off the majority of its staff. As a result, the future of Dauntless remained unknown, with some fearing that the worst could lie ahead for the title. Now, those fears have been confirmed as Phoenix Labs has announced plans to shut Dauntless down entirely at the end of this spring.

In a post shared on the official Dauntless X account, it was revealed that the action RPG will reach the end of its life on May 29th. Upon this date, Dauntless won’t only reach the end of its development, but the game will see its servers shut off, rendering it unplayable in the future. Leading up to this time, Phoenix Labs also stressed that it won’t be pushing out any further updates or content drops of any sort.

“Dauntless is shutting down on May 29, 2025,” the statement read. “Dauntless will receive no additional content or updates. Dauntless will no longer be available to play on and after May 29, 2025 at 11:45PM PST. Thanks to all for being a part of the Dauntless journey.”

While Dauntless reaching this end is saddening, it’s not necessarily surprising. When Phoenix Labs released the game initially in beta in 2018, it was meant to serve as a free-to-play alternative to Capcom’s Monster Hunter series. Dauntless was initially a success and remained so for multiple years as it continued to receive new content. However, over time, player counts for the game began to dwindle and maneuvers by Phoenix Labs to bring in new players, such as releasing on Steam, didn’t pan out as anticipated.

Ironically, news of Dauntless shutting down comes on the same week that Capcom is preparing to release its next Monster Hunter game, Monster Hunter Wilds. So while there will be no dearth of monster hunting titles for fans, Dauntless will no longer be attempting to go toe-to-toe with Capcom’s mega-popular franchise.