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 it on release and it was a fun time with friends. A few years back Phoenix Labs was bought out by another company, and it was all downhill from there. It really is a shame, Dauntless was a neat game.