Hunger: The Extraction RPG That Might Finally Get It Right

The team that built one of the best WW2 shooters ever made is back with something completely different. And from everything I've seen so far, they might be cooking something special.

I need to be upfront about something. I haven't played Hunger yet. I haven't gotten into the playtest. What I'm working from is streamer footage and community impressions. A lot of hours watching people play this game over the last two weeks. So this isn't a hands on review. This is me telling you what I've seen, what I think about it, and why this is my most anticipated game right now.

That said. What I've seen has me more excited for this game than almost anything else on the horizon.

The Team Behind It Matters

For a while, most people including me assumed Hunger was going to be something closer to Hunt Showdown. Napoleonic Europe setting. PvPvE. Guns and melee. The comparison made sense on paper. But what the playtests have revealed is something very different.

The team formerly known as Black Matter, now operating as Good Fun Corporation, built Hell Let Loose. One of the best if not THE best World War 2 shooters ever made. That game was rough at launch. Frame rates in the 20s. Server issues constantly. But underneath all of that was a game so good that the community stuck around through years of technical problems because the core experience was worth it.

I have massive trust in these developers. Not blind trust. Earned trust. HLL proved they understand how to build something that feels authentic and rewards teamwork. A game that respects the player's investment of time and energy. They also proved they listen to their community and iterate based on real feedback. That track record matters when you're asking people to invest in another early access project.

Not Hunt Showdown. Think Dark and Darker With Quests.

This is the part that surprised me watching the streams. Hunger isn't the fast paced bounty extraction game that Hunt Showdown is. The vibe is closer to Dark and Darker in how the early character experience plays out. You're in a quest hub. You're gearing up. You're heading into dangerous zones to loot, fight, and extract. The pacing is more deliberate. The stakes feel heavier.

But where it diverges from Dark and Darker is in the RPG depth. This has more of that MMO extraction feel similar to Tarkov. Quests are a heavy piece of what you do. Gear progression matters in a real way. Your character unlocks power spikes as they rank up with over 100 talents to choose from across deep mastery trees. Each of the playable characters has unique passive and tactical abilities alongside ultimates that change how you approach every expedition.

The atmosphere is where Good Fun is flexing hardest. Plague ravaged Napoleonic Europe. A bacterium of unknown origin has twisted the land into something between historical fiction and cosmic horror. The world looks amazing. Run down buildings. Decaying landscapes. The art direction sells the fantasy of a continent that's been consumed by something worse than war.

I would like to see them push the atmosphere even further though. Fog rolling through the streets. The sound of crows overhead. Rain hitting the cobblestones. The visual design is strong but those final atmospheric touches, the sensory details that make you feel like you're actually standing in a world that's dying, would take it from looking great to feeling oppressive in the best way.

The Questions That Need Answering

There are some real concerns that the community is already discussing and I think they're worth raising.

Power progression in extraction games is always a double edged sword. The deeper the progression system, the harder it becomes for new players to compete with people who have been grinding for weeks or months. From what's been shown Hunger leans heavily into that progression model. Your character gets meaningfully stronger as you level up. Gear matters. Talents matter. Passive abilities stack up over time.

And reportedly this game does not plan on having seasonal wipes. Thats a significant decision. In games like Tarkov, wipes serve as a great equalizer. Everyone starts fresh. The playing field resets. New players can jump in at the start of a wipe and compete on relatively even footing. Without wipes, you're asking late joiners to grind through the ranks against established players who already have their builds optimized. That's how MMOs work and plenty of people are fine with it. But in the extraction space where you lose gear on death, the gap between a new player and a veteran can feel insurmountable.

There are also balance questions that need time to sort out. I noticed watching streams that one character has a passive reducing incoming ranged damage by 15%. Another character has a passive that straight up ignores 100% of damage on a single incoming shot. When you put those next to each other the difference in a 1v1 is massive. The full damage block on one hit feels so much stronger than a flat 15% reduction that it makes the mitigation passive look worthless by comparison.

Now maybe over the course of a longer fight the consistent 15% reduction saves you more total health than a single blocked shot. Maybe in group PvP the math works out differently. But on the surface it's the kind of imbalance that makes people feel like their character choice is wrong before they've even had a chance to learn the systems. More playtesting and balancing passes will sort this out but it's worth flagging.

The Melee and Ranged Mix

The combat from what I've seen is a blend of methodical and frenetic. You've got period appropriate firearms. Rifles, pistols, hand mortars that lob explosive glass grenades. When the ammunition runs dry or someone closes the gap, you switch to melee. Axes, maces, shields. The transition between ranged and melee looks fluid and the fact that both feel viable gives the combat a rhythm that most extraction games don't have.

Most extraction shooters commit fully to gunplay. Hunger is betting that the melee component, the Napoleonic era weaponry, the slower reload times, the need to close distance with a blade, will create moments that feel different from anything else in the genre. From the footage I've watched, that bet seems to be paying off. The fights look tense in a way that modern weapon extraction games don't always achieve because every engagement has that "do I reload or do I pull the axe" decision baked into it.

Already Ready for Early Access

I'll say this even without having touched it myself. From everything I've seen, Hunger looks like it's already in a state where early access would be justified. The core loop works. The combat has weight. The progression systems are deep. The atmosphere is there. The quest structure gives you reasons to keep going back in beyond just looting and extracting.

I'm genuinely not sure what they could add between now and the actual early access launch that would fundamentally change the game to need the wait. Trust the process I guess. But whatever they're polishing, the foundation underneath it already looks solid.

This Could Be a Real One

The extraction genre has been littered with games that had potential and never found their audience. Dungeonborn. Legacy: Steel and Sorcery. Even Dark and Darker has had its struggles with legal issues and player retention. The space is hard. Building a game that's deep enough to retain hardcore players without being so punishing that it pushes everyone else away is one of the hardest balancing acts in game design.

But Good Fun has something most of those studios didn't. A track record. A community that already trusts them. And a setting that nobody else is touching. Plague ravaged Napoleonic Europe isn't just a cool backdrop. It's a mechanical differentiator. The weapons, the combat pacing, the atmosphere, all of it flows from the setting in a way that gives the game an identity the genre desperately needs.

I can't wait to get my hands on this one. Hunger is the extraction game I've been hoping somebody would make. Less casual than the recent entries that have tried to broaden the genre. More RPG than the shooters that dominate the space. And built by a team that already proved they can make something that lasts.

Early access can't come soon enough.