[STEAM] Mistfall Hunter is more Dark Souls than Arc Raiders, thanks to infusing its extraction shooter structure with RPG vibes

[Steam 0]

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. And while it's not the game's only idea, it's pretty darn close. There's a tense and moreish experience to be had here, but one that currently struggles to stand out from its influences. Though I suppose having a user interface that's about as friendly as a swarm of angry wasps is one way to stand out…

If your least-favorite part of

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was being able to lock onto your enemy, then boy is

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the game for you. Everyone else will probably spend their first hour with it inventing new curse words as they attack empty areas right next to monsters over and over. Otherwise, Soulslike veterans will mostly feel right at home.

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, then dive into a world of brutal combat, limited heals, awkward jumping and flavor text on items you have no time to read because something is busy killing you.

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(Image credit: Skystone Games) Fast facts Developer: Bellring Games
Publisher: Skystone Games
Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X
Release date: July 20, 2026

After a preparation phase I'll moan about later, you take a boat ride to one of two areas for some monster-slaying and loot-snatchin'. You've got limited time to explore before the gyldenmist, a gold-plated take on

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's deadly storm, closes in. You might not even live to see that, as the map is full of rank-and-file monsters, elite beasts, and some very ****** bosses.

Treasure is everywhere, as are simple missions that are assigned to you by the ****** crow who also serves as the game's not-always-welcome narrator. You want to kill enough enemies to rack up experience points, find the best loot possible, maybe tackle a mission or two, and then escape alive so it wasn't all for nothing.

Complicating matters is that there are other players somewhere on this map with you. Spot each other, and you might just jump up and down (the universal multiplayer language for 'please don't hurt me') and break out the wave emotes. But it's far more likely you'll engage in a brutal fight to the death, considering how high the rewards are for killing another player. Even if it turns out they were carrying nothing but crap, you'll still get a good chunk of XP for it. Mistfall Hunter clearly isn't trying to be the next

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. It incentivizes you to play mean.

You rang?

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(Image credit: Skystone Games) Oh, and turning invisible must be incredibly exciting, because my heart goes wild. If there's an invisible player nearby, you'll hear a booming heartbeat getting louder and louder the closer they are. It's a clever way of balancing invisibility without nerfing it completely.

I also get the ability to summon a swarm of crows, and once I sink a talent point into it, my ******* of crows will also stun anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the swarm. Outstanding. It's great to see a skill tree full of clever toys I actually want to unlock and play with, which isn't always a given in this kind of game. It also means that even a disastrous run won't leave you completely empty-handed, as experience for kills isn't lost.

Hallowgrove, the opening area, is nicely varied, with different enemy types in each region, and lots of hiding spots and smartly hidden treasures. But, it's also all very seen-it-all-before. Grunts are just FromSoftware leftovers, right down to the way their corpses ragdoll upon defeat. Considering

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and its better imitators love getting creative with enemy design, it's disappointing. I play the

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because I'm excited and terrified to see what lurks around every corner. That diminishes way too quickly here.

Re-quest log

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(Image credit: Skystone Games, Bellring Games) The hub area is an absolute mess. Imagine

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's Majula, if it were bought out by

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. Shops, auction houses, blacksmiths, wineries, storage, a mystical tree, a mystical pool, a goddess statue, a… oh Christ, what is this for again? All the good work Arc Raiders did stuffing all this nonsense onto a few menu screens has been forgotten. It's a chore to explore, a relentless pack of exclamation mark icons screaming for your attention.

Navigating all this on PS5 is no picnic, either. Translating tons of PC inputs onto a DualSense can't have been fun, but there's a sloppiness to it that frustrates. 'Press the touchpad to open the map!' it says, but it won't let me open said map because it thinks I'm using the command for 'never show this tooltip again' that's also on the touchpad. There's a lot of 'hold R2 and up on the d-pad simultaneously' which will be familiar to anyone who broke their fingers trying to play

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on this machine.

At least Baldur's Gate 3 rewarded that finger-snapping nonsense with a stellar RPG. Mistfall Hunter is drowning in currencies, marketplaces, daily rewards, seasons, events, etc. You could argue this is all expected in our extraction games and it's certainly not launching content light. But, it's overwhelming and drowns out what little narrative there is. Mistfall is clearly more invested in the cynical hooks, like daily log-in bonuses, than in immersing you in its world or story.

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(Image credit: Skystone Games) Actions that should be simple are ridiculously convoluted. You can down a glass of wine before entering the fray to buff yourself (don't try that at home, kids). So you have to talk to the wine lady, confirm you want a standard glass, choose what buffs you want, confirm those are the buffs you want, and skip a cutscene of her pouring said glass. Every. Single. Time. "Why haven't you selected your glass of wine first?" asks the game when I try to just play it and skip this nonsense. It's enough to make one burn down a vineyard.

There's currently two areas to explore. The opening map that you do solo, and a far deadlier prison that you have to explore as a trio. There's also deadlier variants of both maps, but I'd say they were both struggling to hold my interest after about a dozen hours of play. The story and its world doesn't have enough to hook me in, leaving the extraction loop to do all the heavy lifting.

That might be enough if you love extraction games and want to try a Soulslike take on it. The foundations are strong and with regular updates and a massive UI overhaul (let a girl dream), this could become something special. For the moment Mistfall Hunter is fun enough, but a bit of a Mist Opportunity.

Mistfall Hunter was played on PS5, with a code provided by the publisher.

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