How about more cross-play Sony?
Just last week Dauntless, the new cartoon-looking Monster Hunter-like, hit a record four million player mark moving into the 1.0 version of the game. Today, they’re boasting six million: that’s a growth of two million players in five days.
Developer Phoenix Labs has confirmed to Destructoid that the six million player count is “double” what the game was at in its PC open beta, which makes perfect sense when you account for opening up a free-to-play title on both PS4 and Xbox One at the same time. The studio states that it has “worked tirelessly to expand player capacity, improve connectivity, optimize queue loads and iterate on player feedback.”
For players, a lot of its success has been attributed to the Herculean task of uniting PC, PS4, and Xbox One players under one roof. Amazingly, Dauntless is one of the few games on the market that plays nicely between the PS4 and Xbox One platforms, and like Fortnite, could serve as the harbinger of true cross platform play. Dauntless even shows player icons for each platform near their nameplate denoting their system of choice. Phoenix Labs says that a whopping 60% of all parties are cross-play dependent.
For years in generations past, Microsoft fought the cross-platform wave but has since relented, giving way for Sony to return the favor. Sony has given myriad reasons why they don’t feel like making cross-play a priority, from technical considerations to complete marketing jargon like “PlayStation is the best way to play.” Eventually after months of outcry and the uniting of Microsoft and Nintendo to allow for Xbox One and Switch cross-play, they said they would allow it in special circumstances, starting with a “beta” for Fortnite.
But Dauntless truly feels like the first time this whole arrangement is legitimate. You can’t hide the fact that people are playing together on different platforms when Phoenix Labs makes it so obvious on-screen. It’s an accomplishment that deserves a ton of credit, but the road to get there was long and arduous.
