If anyone was following this fiasco, they basically launched Dauntless on Steam with a major update that completely wrecked the game and removed much of its content. Dauntless was already struggling and went in weird directions during development but this was the final nail in the coffin, and the company seems to have totally gone under.
Source: https://reddit.com/r/dauntless/comments/1ibfvaq/studio_update/
I played Dauntless hardcore in the beta. My team and I really enjoyed it and it was going to great but it went to Epic we never gave it another thought. A real pity because the combat was fun. IDK how it evolved but the chainblade started out really enjoyable.