HUNGER Tech Test Impressions - Hunt: Showdown’s Spiritual Successor

HUNGER is an interesting game — yet another entry in the increasingly crowded extraction shooter genre.

It's made by the core team behind Hell Let Loose, who've rebranded as Good Fun Games; this is their first title under the new studio.

I had the pleasure of getting into tech test 3 on its last day, and after a full day of work and last-minute adulting, I hurriedly tried to cram in as much playtime as I could.

Set in Napoleonic France after a zombie apocalypse, HUNGER aims to bring a more narrative approach to the extraction shooter formula.

The game drips style — solid voice acting, confident art design, and music and menus that have clearly been crafted by a team with a strong vision. Its closest analog is Hunt: Showdown, but unlike Hunt, HUNGER's developers are clearly aiming for something with deeper roots in its systems, gameplay, and features.

The visuals are also evocative of Hunt, but with more vibrant splashes of color — the characters and NPCs are more stylized and less realistic, though Hunt still has some genuinely stunning character designs of its own.

HUNGER also uses Nvidia's Lumen lighting tech, and like Dune: Awakening (which uses the same tech), the results are striking. It's wild seeing real-time shadows from trees and buildings cast across your character and weapons as you move through the world.

Movement, unfortunately, feels clunky. I'm a bit spoiled by Marathon's buttery-smooth feel, so I'd love to see more polish here. Despite that, gunplay feels great, and the melee combat is evocative of the Chivalry games, but more nuanced.

I think melee is what will really set HUNGER apart — no one else in the genre is taking this approach. Even better, I think players who are genuinely good at melee will outperform peers who'd rather "pew pew" their way out of trouble.

The guns in HUNGER are good but unwieldy, and while many are real-world facsimiles of Napoleonic-era firearms, there are some artistic liberties (one appears to be a chained Caldwell Revolver similar to the one in Hunt). Some can fire multiple shots, but the basic gist is: if you miss, it comes down to close-quarters combat.

And they nailed the melee. I didn't have enough time to fully figure out how the reticle "hints" at where your swings will land, but close-quarters combat still felt very satisfying — I especially liked that the mouse wheel is used for overhead swings versus jabs.

Most of all, I loved that, like any good extraction shooter, skill trumps gear. In the fights I got into, I was usually ambushed or out-geared, but because I had a better grasp of melee combat than my opponents, I won once blades were drawn.

Another huge difference is map size. The standard maps in Hunt: Showdown or even Marathon feel like maybe an eighth the size of HUNGER's — another clear sign this is the Hell Let Loose team, whose maps were also enormous. Despite the scale, small villages, hamlets, and forts are scattered throughout, and the terrain rolls, twists, and dives into ravines and cliffs just like real landscapes.

What I liked most about the map design is that the landscape divides players physically without ever really offering safety. Sometimes your back is against a wall — or a cliff. 😂

To survive, you have to get creative (and brave) about getting down, or stand and fight.

I loved it.

The verticality of the structures and terrain created some genuinely nerve-wracking moments — I felt genuine unease moving through canyons, knowing anyone above me would have a huge advantage if they spotted me. It was great.

Closing out, I'm excited to see this game hit Early Access, and even more excited for 1.0, when the story gets fully fleshed out and realized. We’ll see if the team can stick the landing, but based on their track record, I’m confident they will.

Anyhoo, that's it for now.

Stay frosty.

Author’s note: No affiliate links here. Every game I mentioned got linked because they SLAP.