My archer’s scattershot slams a volley of arrows into a tight room that is fraught with the clanging of battle. One lands, forcing an enemy knight to retreat. Another brushes the robes of a sorcerer who is hacked to death before he can heal up. The others fail to find a living target, dropping to the ground like our fallen foe, whose body now rests motionless, stripped down, arse pointing to the heavens.
The haphazard approach defines Mistfall Hunter, Bellring Games’ first release, which throws many popular gaming trends at the wall and forgets to drill down into which should stick before implementing them all. You’ve seen these systems, characters and battles done many times – often better. But the mud pie strategy doesn’t completely condemn a game that clearly has potential to do well long after release.
The premise is an SEO wet dream: a dark fantasy action RPG extraction game with Soulslike elements, PvPvE combat, and a Fortnite-styled storm eye that slowly constricts the map. There’s endless looting, camp upgrading, a forge, and lots of words that replace i with y to make sure you know your base sits in a Norse setting of warm pelts and lizardfolk.
The old gods have fallen and you’re tasked with scavenging precious ‘Glydenblod’ in a Temu Ragnarok. It’s a loose story that is little more than a springboard to get you into Mistfall Hunter’s two maps: Hallowgrove and Brandrgarde. While you can explore the first map in solo and trios, the latter was only available for triple-ups at launch. Luckily, the devs have responded to their audience and will soon allow single players to step into what amounts to 50% of the offering. Strangely, any duos play is still omitted.
It’s clear the entire game has been designed with trios in mind. Both maps are intricate, with decent verticality, and trails that push you into the laps of human-controlled hostiles. These bottlenecks don’t work well in solo play, as some classes are obviously favourable in one-on-one situations, which tend to miss the interesting tactical clashes that appear in threes.
Bellring has opted for some brave combat choices that may initially seem alien, but serve the game well. The most prominent include none of the six classes being able to consistently sprint or lock on. While that elevates the jankiness, it also places an emphasis on movement, distance control, and players understanding their specific role within their trio.
That means Mercenaries, with their all-round melee skill and abilities, need to prop up the heart of the battle. Withered Knights, who serve as tanks, should hold fast on the frontline, pressuring enemies with their pokey polearms, shields, and parry potential.
Sorcerers excel when providing mid-to-long range firepower, conjuring up elemental spells that ravage the battlefield with fire, tornadoes and cracks of lightning. Those who opt for the Seer can become a Reverent or Blasphemer, effectively selecting between healing or aggressive control archetypes. Blackarrow archers are best for those who wish to pick their shots, tenderising threats from afar and occasionally shouting ‘It’s like Legolas’ when things get exciting.
The bane of the pack is the Shadowstrix, which in Mistfall’s early days, is proving dominant when controlled by any half decent player. These are your rogues, whose big advantage comes from being able to turn invisible, close distance, and escape with minimal stamina loss.
Shadowstrix players can also stunlock enemies with their dagger or dual blades, causing frustration in otherwise well-balanced engagements. Encountering three of these bastards is enough to warrant consuming a mimic item and living the rest of your days as an unbothered ceramic pot. Party restrictions are desperately needed.
The Shadowstrix also amplifies an issue that continues to be hounded in the game’s global chat functionality. Your field of view is essentially that of a backpack, as the camera clings to your character, remaining tightly bound when trying to sweep either direction. It’s particularly difficult to track what’s going on when a Shadowstrix player breaks through the lines. Other melee battles can also be reduced to just swinging and hoping, which is a shame, because the combat shines when both teams are equally skilled and playing a better balance of classes.
It’s not uncommon for PvP fights to last minutes. The outcome is often defined in split-second decisions, with any momentary lapse in concentration punished. Do you expend stamina to land the final blow, leaving yourself open if you miss? Can you trust your archer to land their shots while you watch the cooldown tick away on your most potent skill? Are heals incoming? There’s a surprising amount of thinking to do on the fly.
Each player has a genuine impact, meaning skill-based matchmaking will be an important addition to the longevity of the game, as it’s currently a mixed bag of fully-levelled assassins and vagabonds who might as well wield a bag of potatoes. There’s a strange alchemy when it comes together; combat is loose, but there’s real fun in learning new skills and working out how they fit in with the wider makeup of the group.
That doesn’t necessarily transfer across to the PvE moments. Both maps are filled with monsters to slay, but most are mundane fodder right from the start. The undead are slow, harpies are easy to overwhelm and many just ignore you. Bosses are far more robust and genuinely challenging as you head towards the level 12 character progression cap, unlocking Chaos and Cataclysm modes in the process, which function as harder runs for each map.
Increased challenge doesn’t necessarily mean more jeopardy. Mistfall is incredibly lenient on players who fail to extract, especially if they spend a little time working the economy between runs. The initial shock of losing everything subsides when your corpse washes up in the Windrest base and you’re immediately handed freebies to get you back on your feet. Then there’s the auction house, which provides an easy and consistent income if you engage with it.
My downtime routine typically goes like this: deposit every upgrade material into the auction house, matching the lowest resell price. Then head to the shopkeeper, who sells six health potions extremely cheap. Snap those up, building a bank of vitality for future runs. Now head back to the auction house, claim the dosh for items already sold, and list some more.
It doesn’t take long to build significant reserves, opening up any gear, weapons or other useful items that you might need. Pip, the camp’s wheeler dealer, also offers daily gifts that will soon stack endgame items in your inventory. By level four, my archer donned fine armour and had a legendary bow stashed away.
If it initially seems backwards to cash in all your resources, then heed this: you can autofill what you need for each camp upgrade at the touch of a button, buying everything from the auction house without needing to forage. Get the money, save your legs, enjoy shiny new things. It’s a broken economy in the player’s favour, which is great for a dopamine hit, but does mean the stakes are lowered out in the wild.
Losing your gear only really amounts to returning home and buying it again once you’ve got used to selling everything you don’t need. Soekja, the annoying white crow that acts as your postman, will even deliver combat bags for free, allowing you to equip entire loadouts for your next journey with pretty much zero expense. The entire system is a godsend for players who find brutal extraction games too stressful.
Perhaps more tense is trying to navigate the game’s bloated UI, summed up by tutorial notes overpowering the screen. Menu traversal is exacerbated by the mess of challenges and incentives to wade through, many of which have their own currencies that want you to spend real cash.
You’ll be clicking through things without really needing to read or listen, with an explosion of objective markers to satisfy, and forgettable characters to interact with. Your part in the world feels tiny, so most conversations are nothing more than skippable exposition that is holding you back from hitting a traditional medieval emote over a slain opponent.
Restrictive moments puncture through gameplay away from your homestead, too. A fine example is the inclusion of the Gyldenmist circle, which seems out of place in a game where skirmishes can be attritional. Prolonged battles ending because combatants are forced to scuttle away to escape is an annoying way to see a good thing cut short. There’s no need for it in a format that isn’t last-player standing.
Many of Mistfall Hunter’s ideas trample on top of each other, when more time should have been spent on fundamentals. Simple things, like music and atmosphere, are lacking as you wade through each map. More thought also needs to go towards solo players, who are unlikely to experience the game’s best moments, and may well drop it altogether after a weekend. More loot, and character customisation options, are desperately needed to stop everyone looking like a knock-off Geralt or extra from the Warcraft movie.
As such, Mistfall Hunter cosplays as too many different things to find its own identity. Bellring’s checklist design does too much, nullifying the impact of a game that has real potential to find a huge audience. The developers need to back themselves more. An increase in the courageous energy that led to bold combat would go a long way. Right now, just like my arrow shot at the beginning, the effort is too hit and miss to be completely effective.
