Mistfall Hunter Review — Beyond the Veil

Mistfall Hunter is a Soulslike extraction game that sends you into the bowels of a fantasy wasteland to fight and loot, gathering gear and treasures as the threat of boss enemies and other players puts a swift end to your run. The core gameplay loop is simple: pick a class, go into a public match, and complete quests that amount to visiting areas, killing and looting along the way. Calling the game a PvPvE version of Elden Ring Nightreign wouldn’t be a terrible comparison.

Normally, I would say that I’m not a fan of Nordic- or “Viking” mythology-inspired fantasy. Call me a contrarian, but I feel as though the setting and themes have been overdone, especially in gaming, with very little deviation or originality between the many adaptations. Mistfall Hunter, however, gets a pass from me, as the setting, Nordic-themed though it may be, feels pretty unique visually compared to many of the others I’ve seen. Huge, sprawling landscapes with fantastical geometry, the overall scale, and the unique use of color definitely help this setting feel more original than another vaguely fantastical northern world.

Where the PvP “Nightreign” comparison fails to hold up somewhat is in the game’s combat, which attempts to be somewhat souls-lite but is a far cry from an actual Soulslike. It lacks the deep, nuanced mechanics of a Soulslike game and instead serves as a beat-em-up style game with a few basic abilities. A basic dodge exists across all classes, and certain weapons come with a shield that allows you to block.

The combat, in my opinion, is very clunky. Animations and the weapons tied to them have odd hitboxes, and enemies don’t seem to stagger, or if they did, they did so so inconsistently that I can’t remember. PvP combat is almost entirely reliant on the use of hard CC abilities, like the ability to stun an enemy in place. These fights I found to be especially inconsistent, as I was either killing an enemy in seconds or getting locked into a long exchange I was hopelessly outmatched in. While at times these encounters could be fun, more often than not they felt cheap and always one-sided, with either the opponent or myself beating down on the other with little resistance.

Interestingly, the game has no lock-on mechanic. Instead, you are made to “aim” your attacks using the mouse or your controller. This isn’t unheard of in games of this type, but it can make animation- and hitbox-reliant combat very awkward. It can be argued that this is a skill test, that you’re supposed to know your hitboxes and animations and aim accordingly, but more often than not I was just in the face of my enemy and swinging wide, unmissable attacks anyway, so it just felt more awkward than anything.

The looting aspect of the game began to lose its magic when I realized that you are essentially, from the beginning, looting items to upgrade your camp. Much of the game’s gear, including high-tier weapons and armor, can be crafted at your camp, and the loot pool is almost exclusively full of items used to craft or upgrade camp stations, including the rarest loot and mission rewards. This quickly made the expeditions feel less like a dangerous treasure hunt and more like a chore, like I was just grinding for resources that would allow me to unlock the next grind… which I was. It essentially amounted to the same gameplay loop you would find in a mobile game.

It doesn’t take long for you to start to see the sinister mobile-game design elements in Mistfall Hunter. Beyond the grindy upgrade loop, the game also features real-world, hour-long waiting mechanics, such as when crafting items, as well as predatory monetization. This nearly $30 game features cosmetic skins that cost the same amount, and even more that are locked behind a gacha system.

Real-world time gates. Gacha gambling. A gameplay loop that revolves around grinding to artificially improve your hub area. Mistfall Hunter is essentially a predatory phone game that has found its way onto your Steam store.

Despite all of my complaints, I can see some merit in Mistfall Hunter. While the combat doesn’t feel great, it is serviceable enough that I didn’t get bored when I was fighting anything stronger than the average minion, which I could often dispatch without even paying attention, and PvP, though often one-sided, could at times be exciting, especially in groups. A lot of the looting is boring, feeling like a fetch quest, but the occasional item drop does make the process feel rewarding, especially in the maps exclusive to the trio mode.

Alas, that is one more huge complaint: much of the game is inaccessible to solo players, with the later-game content literally locked to matchmade trio games. You simply cannot progress if you play the game alone.

Mistfall Hunter is a live-service game. Therefore, it’s expected that it will continue to evolve, and that means there is a nonzero chance many of the things I dislike about it will eventually be patched out of the game or improved. It also means that the current state of the game feels more like Early Access, with a lot promised to come later, which is yet another problem, but I don’t want to make this review even longer.

However, my opinion of the game as it is is not very pleasant: it’s a subpar action extraction game that uses incredible graphics and fun character and monster designs to trick you into playing a predatory, grind-heavy, glorified phone game. I can see the merits of the game. I can even see some people having fun with it. For me, however, the game overstayed its welcome pretty quickly, and my initial interest wore off with little desire to give it another go.

Mistfall Hunter was reviewed on the PC. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Mistfall Hunter is available on Steam and Xbox.