Phoenix Lab has invested a lot of money for the last two years with the hope for releasing Dauntless. Being developed by legendary names such as Blizzard, Dauntless is trying hard to compete with Fortnite or the giant PUBG. Dauntless fully showed up early this week when it pushes to the two most favorite consoles Xbox One and PS4. And supposing that its’ server problems get under control, it can begin to catch up through some signs.

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Above: A Monster Combat Scene in Dauntless (not bad, huh?)

Obviously, summer is the busiest time of the year for game companies, especially for new multiplayer titles to come out, and old multi games to further expand. You can imagine, are there any better ways to spend the long, lazy days of summer than enjoying the world of multi games?

As far as I could recall, my summer games were all around top-notch multiplayer games. Back in 1997, I spent hours on X-wing vs TIE fighter using the poor quality 56k modem. 2002 was the time when I had to work late really often, since I spent the whole day on WarCraft 3.

Recently, it is summer that the most-favored multiplayer games appear. Rocket League was an example. It showed up in July 2015, which is perfectly timed: how amazing the game is, being available at zero price for PS+ subscribers. We all could see that the game appeared in the most peaceful time of producers’ annual release plan. Not just gamers, streamers and journalists as well all craved for something better for their games list, so a new phenomenon appeared.

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Above: Rocket League Racing Scene (beautiful, isn't it?)

One year later, Blizzard brought Overwatch to the community just before Memorial Day. Overwatch is so decent that Blizzard can release its product anytime during the year, yet Blizzard still chose summer. And with no major giants to compete with apart from The Division, Overwatch quickly became a favored title, which later dominated the gaming community for the entire year.

It's easy to recognize that, each summer normally features one to two multi games, which received a huge amount of attention from the community. In 2013, it was Dota 2 (enough, right?); in Summer 2014, it was Hearthstone with its first DLC and the sudden explosion of CCGs; in 2015, Rocket League was on the plate; in 2016, there were Pokemon Go and Fortnite. Battle Royale’s Fortnite was a huge success last year, and in March 2018, Drake popularly took part in Ninja’s stream. Thanks to the success in launching on Nintendo Swith (June), it was largely favored during summer

Soon, following the success of Pokemon Go, Niantic will introduce the all new real-world interacting game Harry Potter Wizards Unite. Of course, Niantic will expect the similar success to what happened 2 years back, when players rushed into Central Park searching for rare Pokémon. Similarly, Apex Legends is also potential to be summer’s favorite, only when it improves significantly for S2. Unlike Epic Games’ Fortnite, the Battle Royale title from Respawn slowed down due to the notorious release of Battle Pass as well as a long period of time between updates (it is still a good game in general though)

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Above: Aiming down the sight in Apex Legends (familiar enough?)

Back to Dauntless, its success really depends on the game’s capability itself. At the moment, many gamers with curious eyes, who has just got out of schools, are determining whether Dauntless is able to fill in their blanks this summer or not. It is possibly too simple for making a considerable effect. All things considered, battles and simple mechanics ain’t the ingredients for a decent endgame.

Yet, this is prolly the right moment for Phoenix Lab to have a gamble, when Dauntless shows up and compete against giant multiplayer titles. Earlier, Dauntless has to face with gamers’ current school years and spring heavyweight blockbusters. And it would risk being an opponent to Iceborne and Call of Duty if released at the end of the year.

Releasing in summer can’t be 100% success, yet it’s totally worth trying as a lot of gamers are both bored already and hence, hungry for a new meal, so as to help them get over a 3-month-summer vacation. We all have to wait to see whether Dauntless has a similar destiny to former summer-successful titles or not.

Imminent Big Games Release

Below is the list for primary game releases of the week from May 27th to May 31st, as follows:

  • Little Friends: Dogs & Cats [May 28, Switch]: We haven’t seen Nintendo brought us a “Nintendogs” or “Nintencats” game for a while, yet Little Friends can make our boredom of virtual pets insufficiency quite decently. You are in charge of some cats and dogs of your selection in a decent house at the suburbs, where they live together in harmony. You get it just right, cats and dogs live under a same roof. No major over-excitement (you know it). Everything looks calm and nice.

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Above: Taking Your Dog out in Little Friends: Dogs & Cats (not so decent)

  • Oxygen Not Included [May 28, PC]: Being in early access mode for quite some times, Klei's simulating game about space colonizing is finally ready to come to gamers’ devices (and suck out all the oxygen of their rooms). You are the commander of an Earth’s colony with full of interplanetary settlers, who are having the experience of being space volunteers. You know, where is all the fun without some “dangers” (strange viruses, bad atmosphere, terrible depression, extremely low temperatures, etc.?)

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Above: Oxygen Not Included

  • Trover Saves the Universe [May 31, PC]: The father of Rick and Morty, Justin Roiland, is offering an adventure using VR to save the entire universe. To be precise, you will have to save two cute puppies in order to be the savior of the universe, both of which had been taken by a space boss, who is using them as his pair of eyes. Trover Saves the Universe escalates the term “puppy dog eyes” to a whole frightening level.

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Above: Trover Saves The Universe