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Created by former Vigil Games employees (including the firm’s founder) and heavily influenced by both Left 4 Dead and Diablo, Hunt is a randomly-generated third-person shooter that is more interesting than it first appears.
Set in the 18th century and pulling from a wide range of myths and legends, up to four players can team up to romp around, killing vampires, zombies, and other beasts. The level I saw (hands-off, sadly) was set in and around a southern bayou, with the monster hunting team fighting through swamps and shacks towards their objective: the end boss, a nightmarish witch that is superficially similar to Psycho Mantis in Metal Gear Solid, or a certain ghostly opponent in Bioshock Infinite.
The bosses are the main attraction, and everything leads up to them. The levels are different each time, and there’s an emphasis on tailoring your loadout to the potential challenges ahead. Hunt may be a shooter on the surface, but the dev team is promising a strong RPG element on top, including substantial customisation. Speaking of shooting, given the time period Hunt’s weapons are slow, powerful, and cumbersome: the shotgun on show was breach-barrel, meaning it can only store two shells at a time, and the single-action pistols need to be reloaded one bullet at a time. Players, it seems, will have to work in harmony to prevent them from getting overwhelmed.
If they do get downed, then they’ll be out of the action for a little while before respawning in a manner that’s a little different to just teleporting back into the fight. Trapped in coffins, hanging from ropes upside down, or tied to chairs were some of the examples. Like Left 4 Dead, the other players need to rescue their fallen comrades. Unlike Left 4 Dead, all four hunters need to be standing to complete the level.
What I saw was interesting: the combination of low-tech weaponry, powerful adversaries and a need for tight teamwork appeals in much the same way as Valve’s classic zombie games do, and the ability to pull in mythological enemies should keep it varied. If the random generated stages hold up this could be an interesting shooter in a sea of military bang bang-a-thons.
