Dauntless: Awakened is still on the way, Phoenix Labs confirmed in a new development update that also covered lessons they learned from the PC beta for the big update, a launch window, and what’s next.
That's right, there's a launch window and that is sometime before the end of the year. That's a specific as they are getting right now, but it is something.The team says that they fell short on managing expectations as well as messaging. So not only are they giving us a window when we can expect this big update, they're also vowing to be better with communication, including when things change.
The PC closed beta also let them learn some valuable lessons and inspired a number of changes and improvements to the core features and was instrumental in the decision to do focused major changes instead of making these updates incrementally. Areas that are getting major improvements are armor crafting and Cells. Beta testers showed that armor crafting was incredibly resource-intensive, and it was proving to be too difficult to let people try out different options and builds. The team also redid the crafting screen UI to show upcoming perks and give people an idea of what they're doing and what it's leading to.
As for Cells, armor is key to a build and uses Cells as a way that you will lock in perks, instead of being the source of those perks. You can then strategize around your armor's perks, but Cell distribution is also changing, letting you hunt down specific ones more easily, working with the changes in armor crafting to put trying different builds more in reach.
There are additional updates, including for events, a shop update concerning regional Platinum values, and confirming that they have no plans to include NFTs or blockchain elements.
As for what is next, the Phoenix Labs team is all-in on development to make this newly announced release window. They need to make sure everyone knows about it, so part of the efforts include getting everyone up to speed, and marketing efforts will be a very important part of that. We can expect more consistent updates, in line with their promise of better communication.
They've also dropped a mysterious hint:
“Rampant speculation and hype, especially as you figure out the hidden details in this blog.” Did you find anything?