Watch Us Play 'Dauntless'

We're back with another episode of the Tom’s Hardware Twitch livestream. In this session we travel to the Shattered Isles as we kill behemoths in Phoenix Labs’ Dauntless.

Our journey begins in the city hub of Ramsgate, where we’ll learn the basics of combat and take on quests. We’ll then venture outside the city walls in the pursuit of these massive and dangerous beasts. It’s difficult to fight these behemoths alone, so it’s best to work with a few friends or strangers if you want to survive.

When you slay a behemoth, it releases an aether energy, which is then placed inside a core. That core is transformed into a new resource called Archonite that you can use along with behemoth trophies and other items to create stronger equipment and weapons such as swords, axes, or hammers. You can personalize your gear with different colors and finishes for your armor or find new patterns for the flare, which you use to call on other players for help.

The game was initially announced at last year’s Game Awards, and since the reveal, 20,000 players participated in the Tech Alpha phase of development. Today marks the beginning of the Founder’s Alpha stage, and a closed beta is scheduled for September 1. If you want to play it now, you’ll need to get the Founder-tier pack ($80) to join the alpha. Access to the closed beta is significantly cheaper, with two tiers starting at $30. Just like Fortnite, Dauntless will be a free-play game when the finished version is released sometime this year.