Extraction shooters are, at this point, a dime a dozen. And for my money, you’ve got to really do something different to stand out in that increasingly crowded genre. That’s why I was eager to meet up with a couple of developers from the team at Good Fun Corporation so they could show me Hunger, their upcoming zombie-tastic Unreal Engine 5-powered first-person action-RPG that utilizes an extraction loop.
Yes, the developers specifically phrased it that way, as they seemingly aren’t looking to be thought of as just another extraction shooter. And in fairness to them, based on what I saw of an impressive early build (the team’s Early Access launch is still far enough away that they weren’t comfortable giving me an on-the-record release window quite yet), Hunger is going to be anything but another generic extraction shooter in the Steam pile.
Two things about Hunger piqued my interest immediately: its visual aesthetic and its actual visuals. Starting with the former, game director Maximilian Rea described Hunger’s look as “Renaissance gothic,” which seems like a fair way to sum it up. As you can see in the videos and screenshots in this article, Hunger mixes first-gen firearms with brutal melee weapons inside of filthy lived-in towns and glorious castles. And then, in terms of raw graphics, the foliage, lighting, and texture detail are all absolutely stunning. This is easily one of the best uses of Unreal Engine 5 I’ve seen so far.
But, you might ask, how does it actually play? Sadly I can’t answer that quite yet, as my demo was just a hands-off first look, but it does seem built to last. In short, the team tells me, they’re aiming for the simplicity of ARC Raiders with the complexity of Escape From Tarkov. You begin in the Outer Ramparts, a social, violence-free hub within the Chateau where other players and NPCs alike roam. Like Destiny, you can switch to third-person perspective here if you like (though in proper combat, you’ll always be in first-person). Here you can shop with Piro, a quirky shopkeeper who wears a weird metal mask and offers items up for sale on a tray that’s worn around his neck as if he’s some cigarette girl from the 1920’s. Or you can add or remove items from your stash by checking in with Louis, the Stashmaster who also doles out the occasional quest. Reynauld, meanwhile, is the Expedition Master. He’s missing parts of a couple fingers, indicating that he’s tussled with the zombies at least once, and talking to him queues you into an expedition (i.e. a raid).
The initial Early Access release will have three maps: Jacques Bridge, Sombre Forest, and Sarlat Farm. Each is one square kilometer, and each one has a big dungeon beneath it as well. Expect six weather varieties per map, including noon (clear), noon (fog), sunset, and sunrise. More dynamic stuff will be added post-release. Rea explained that they’re aiming for 50-60 hours of content here, and then you unlock the Cauldron, a new area of the Chateau. You will learn your profession there. There are six professions: three gathering (like Scavenging, which means you’re a purveyor of metals and materials; a Conservator who finds mechanisms and trinkets to make tools or guns; and the Naturalist, who gathers herbs and spices to make food, drinks, and medicine) and three crafting (examples here include Metallurgy, Gunsmithing, and Cooking). You can have two professions at a time.
The story of this map is that there was civil conflict when The End – the bacteria that led to the Hunger – began. As you play, there’s lore to find and extract with. Missives and Maps, as examples of this, are Common, Rare, or Legendary. And if you extract with a Missive you can read it back in the Chateau and get a quest’s worth of XP, and once you’ve found everything you can read the whole story of the game. The developers also plan to tell the story through NPC dialogue. “We try to infuse every aspect of the game with story,” Rea told me.
The Hunger all have different qualities and aspects, which means that going melee-only has the advantage of letting you be silent. Shooting, on the other hand, makes noise and invites more Hunger. The Bloater, as an example of one such Hunger, is a blob-like thing that explodes into a cloud of poisonous gas. Shambler hits, meanwhile, cause bleed damage.
There are a whopping 33 weapons between melee and ranged, from daggers, pistols, and rifles to maces and primitive machine guns. You can find exotic ammo for the guns that add additional damage effects to the bullets. And yes, there will be dedicated PvP experiences if you need to scratch that itch. Furthermore, there’s a Mastery Tree, and as you level up from 10-100 you get a mastery point. This includes four trees: Physiology, Survival, Martial, and Cunning, and the developers hope this ensures there are multiple ways to progress through the game besides PvP.
In fact, you can play solo or in duos if you want as well. “Being a solo or duo player isn’t a death sentence,” Rea said. “In fact it’s one of the quickest ways to progress in the game.” You’ll also unlock progression cosmetics as well when you level up, kill bosses, etc. And yes, there are cosmetics for every weapon and bag.
Hunger won’t be free-to-play, which hopefully helps ensure its design principles won’t be compromised by pay-to-win nonsense, and there definitely won’t be any battle passes. They did mention a “Support the Developers” edition that would include extra cosmetics for whatever it ends up priced at above the $30 the team is aiming for on the standard edition.
As to how long a session might last, Rea suggested that the low end of an expedition might be 30-35 minutes, hopefully ensuring that Hunger is an easy game to jump in for a little while with at night with friends, and then go to bed feeling accomplished and not feeling guilty for having hopped off of some live-service hamster wheel. If and when you die, everything you do contributes to XP gains, so the goal is for you to never have a pointless session. “If they’ve played for an hour, we want them to feel like they’ve meaningfully moved the ball forward for their character,” Rea said.
Hunger might still be a ways away, but from what I’ve already seen, it looks like the team – who also made Hell Let Loose – is cooking up something unique and worth keeping an eye on. We’ll have more on Hunger on IGN as development progresses.
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of both IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, as well as our monthly(-ish) interview show, IGN Unfiltered. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
