Nearly five years after Dauntless first launched on consoles and the Epic Games Store, the free-to-play co-op ARPG finally launched on Steam on December 5, although things haven't gone particularly smoothly since then. Less than a week after the Steam launch, the Steam reviews of Dauntless are already in "Overwhelmingly Negative" territory, with SteamDB citing just 19.21% positive reviews. The negative reviews seem to stem from the changes the game's developer, Phoenix Labs, made to the game when it was launched on Steam.

As part of the new Awakening update and launch on Steam, changes were made to a few key gameplay mechanics, and those changes have not been well received by the community. Additionally, progression has been reset for all players, new and old, forcing players to replay quests they've already completed and re-level weapons they had already mastered. The Awakening update also introduced Canisters, a sort of loot box monetization system that offers in-game cosmetics and can only be accessed in the season pass or by purchasing Platinum, the game's premium currency. Basically all of the posts on the Dauntless subreddit after the update are complaints about the changes to the game's mechanics or about players feeling slighted over the deletion of past progression. Players are also upset that the removal of a swathe of weapons has negatively affected build diversity and made players feel like they wasted their time thoroughly learning the game's mechanics and tuning builds. The developer seemingly tried to mitigate the removal of these weapons by adding new abilities, but that doesn't seem to have been enough to compensate for the decreased build diversity. Yet more complaints stem from apparent performance degradations on both PS5 and Xbox Series consoles. Worse still, those same performance degradations appear to be quite random, with some players saying that their performance has remained the same throughout the update.

A class action settlement with Epic Games, Inc. ("Epic") has received preliminary approval from the Superior Court of North Carolina, Tenth Judicial District. Under the settlement, all U.S. players of Fortnite: Save the World and Rocket League who bought a random item loot box in either game before Epic Games discontinued them will receive certain benefits immediately and automatically. The settlement also provides up to $26.5 million in cash and other benefits to U.S.-based Fortnite and Rocket League players to resolve claims arising from players' purchases of Fortnite and Rocket League in-game items.

Beginning today, Epic will deposit 1,000 V-Bucks, the Fortnite virtual currency, or 1,000 Rocket League Credits, into the accounts of U.S. players who bought a random item loot box. These deposits will be automatic and players do not need to do anything to claim them, though it may take a few days for all eligible players to receive them.

Additionally, players who believe they were harmed or damaged by virtue of their in-game Fortnite or Rocket League purchases and meet certain criteria can file a claim for a cash payment of up to $50 or a virtual currency deposit of up to 13,500 V-Bucks (in Fortnite) or 13,000 Credits (in Rocket League). Legal guardians of players who are minors that made in-game purchases without parental permission can seek partial refunds of up to $50, but must agree to the closure of their child's Epic Games accounts.

A U.K. House of Lords empowered committee called for video games with loot crates (aka loot boxes) to be classified as games of chance and "immediately" brought under the country's stringent gambling regulations under the Gambling Act 2005. "If a product looks like gambling and feels like gambling, it should be regulated as gambling," the committee says in its report, cited by the BBC. "The government must act immediately to bring loot boxes within the remit of gambling legislation and regulation," stated one of its members.

The report has sparked a debate in the U.K. about whether the Gambling Act 2005 is up to the task when dealing with contemporary and new forms of gambling, especially one with potentially billions of Pounds in market size. Lord Michael Grade, chair of the committee, in an interview with the BBC highlighted how several other countries already identify loot crates as a form of gambling as "they can see the dangers" which is teaching "kids to gamble." He argued that the Gambling Act can regulate video game loot crates without needing any legislation in the way of amendments.

We've been covering the loot box controversy for a while on TechPowerUp now. Independently of which side of the fence you're on - that loot boxes are akin to gambling and thus unethical in some of their implementations, or just cold to the entire issue - it's likely good news for everyone that these so-called "surprise mechanics", as they've been called, will now see their odds being disclosed by console makers and publishers.