[STEAM] Hunger Brings a Horror RPG Twist to the Extraction Shooter

[Steam 0]

The year is 18… something. Not that years matter anymore. Not since the End. What’s left of Napoleonic Europe is ravaged by the Hunger; people twisted by the Bacterium ******** into foul, zombie-like creatures. All anyone can do in these plagued lands is survive. And complete quests. And find amazing loot. And escape to live another day. That’s life in Hunger, the next game from the developers behind ***** Let Loose.

Launching in early access on PC in 2025, Hunger is a grimdark take on the extraction shooter. If you’ve seen the debut trailer we exclusively revealed recently, you may have already drawn parallels between it and Hunt: Showdown – both share a filthy, earthy aesthetic that ground their fantastical ideas in historic reality. But Hunger is mechanically very different from many extraction shooters you may have played.

“We think players will probably feel that the most unique aspect of Hunger is our replacement of the usual gear progression gameplay loop with something more akin to an RPG like Skyrim or Cyberpunk 2077, where you build a character over time and specialise them towards a certain playstyle,” explains Maximilian Rea, CEO at developer Good Fun Corporation.

Using Hunger’s progression systems you’ll take a character (chosen from a pool of heroes, each with their own backstory) on a journey from level one to 100, with each milestone unlocking abilities from a variety of ‘Mastery trees’. Each is devoted to a particular specialisation, from combat and stealth to skills that aid teammates. “We’ve found that these allow players to really build into a certain way of playing that ends up keeping the experience fresh and allows very extreme build variety,” says Rae.

The most significant difference between the team’s projects, though, is that Hunger also has a full melee combat system inspired by games like Chivalry and Mordhau. “When you swap from your rifle and draw your sabre, you’ll have a powerful and all-new combat system to learn,” says Rea. “Players may wonder how melee will be viable against ranged weapons, and we’re excited to show how that works in the future.”

Weapons and mechanics are only individual parts of combat, though – you need enemies to make it whole. As an extraction shooter the toughest foes are naturally other players, but between you and them are the Hunger. “They range from weaker, fast-moving, and fast-attacking Waif that scuttle across the floor like beetles, to the Brute—a ****** behemoth who chases you around while groping at the air,” Rae reveals.

These NPCs are more than just cannon fodder and distractions from your main objectives. “It's critical to understand that ******** the Hunger rewards both experience and loot,” emphasises Rae. “You can, of course, decide to avoid fights, but we want to ensure there are incentives to engage.”

With each Hunger variant having its own strengths, weaknesses, and ******* patterns, they will hopefully prove formidable opponents. The best extraction shooters use their AI enemies to inject tension, panic, and stress into encounters, and I’m looking forward to seeing how an unexpected Brute can throw a spanner into an otherwise well-planned extraction.

But before the extraction is the match itself, which in Hunger is built around completing quests. Each player in an up-to-three-person team is assigned their own quest, and once they have been completed the group can either run for the exit with the equipment they’ve secured or risk pushing on and attempting a new quest. Rae also notes that the map contains a number of other non-quest objectives and secrets that are worth seeking out: “You may decide to deal with a more challenging mini-boss style Hunger on the map. They drop great loot if you can take them down. Or you may choose to ambush other players in a certain location, or head to a small ***** nearby where you know there are specific resources to gather for your profession.”

After successfully escaping a match with all your spoils, you’ll return to the Chateau; Hunger’s home base and player hub. Rae says it “functions much like a capital city in a roleplaying game,” and is home to vendors that allow you to craft new items, access new orders, progress your character’s professions, and more. It sounds much like Destiny’s Tower, but Rae promises that it also features “robust progression” that is “driven entirely by the story and quests.”

The extraction shooter has proven an exciting genre so far because developers have interpreted its rules in such differing ways – the dungeon-crawling Dark and Darker is a stablemate with the alien-nuking Helldivers 2, and both only have base similarities with Escape from Tarkov, the accepted father of the genre. Hunger seems to be following that trend, at least as far as Rae’s descriptions of its ideas go. We’ve sadly only been able to see a few seconds of gameplay so far, but hopefully further looks and the eventual early access release will prove Hunger has what it takes to stand alongside – and, importantly, also apart – from genre titans like Hunt: Showdown.

Matt Purslow is IGN's Senior Features Editor.

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