Mistfall Hunter is a game I hadn’t really heard much about prior to seeing it at PAX West 2025, so it was neat diving into something that had all the visual elements I like completely blind.
Given the recent success of Elden Ring Nightreign, it isn’t surprising to me to see that someone has made a similar type of game, but Mistfall Hunter is so much more than a knockoff. Find out more in our Mistfall Hunter preview from PAX West 2025!
Sitting down to play Mistfall Hunter at PAX West was a somewhat surreal experience, mainly because while I checked out the game Matt watched and conducted an interview with the team while also making comments on the gameplay, so my attention was somewhat divided while I played.
I decided to check out the Shadowstrix class as I’m always interested to see how rogues are depicted in these types of games, and Mistfall Hunter does a pretty good job of staying true to my thoughts of the class.
The Shadowstrix can cloak themselves in shadow, becoming invisible to foes while also having the ability to throw a dagger and then teleport strike to it. In addition to daggers, the Shadowstrix is also proficient with other types of weapons, but none felt as “core” as the dagger.
Combat is fast and furious, though the lack of a controller made me struggle more than I’d care to admit. I’m super rusty with mouse and keyboard after years of being a dirty controller casual.
Still, I found my way around okay and managed to pull off some impressive looking kills and got my ass handed to me when I tried duel wielding swords and dancing around with careless abandon.
Indeed, Mistfall Hunter’s combat isn’t quite as tight as I’d like (but certainly not in a bad state for being in beta) but you’ll need to master resource management as well as carefully timing your strikes if you want to survive.
The core gameplay loop around Mistfall Hunter is that you play in a PVPVE closed environment where you’ll kill off lesser enemies to gain loot so that you’re not completely helpless if and when you stumble across another player who looks to put you down and make out with your spoils.
Players are dropped into a large map that progessively gets smaller thanks to the now all-too-familiar ring that closes in, forcing players into smaller areas for maximum chaos.
In this game, the ring is called the Gyldenmist, and you have to kill an enemy that spawns after the ring closes a few times in order to grab an item that allows you to create an escape portal before the ring completely closes off.
Truthfully, I wasn’t super excited to learn that Mistfall Hunter is an extraction based game, but it worked surprisingly well and felt more fun than what we’ve seen in other genres.
Escaping with backpacks full of gear means that you can give your characters a quick advantage by spawning in with items instead of having to scour and pray that you spawned in at the right spot.
We’ll see how this pans out once the game is actually released, as there’s a good chance the “sweaties” will have an overwhelming advantage by no lifing until they are almost unkillable at the start and thus straight up griefing new players out.
As any fans of competitive multiplayer games knows, these games live and die by the community, so hopefully there will be some balances in place to keep oppression light.
I wouldn’t necessarily call Mistfall Hunter “my type of game” but I did enjoy the time I spent with it and I will be interested to dive back in once I get a chance to see how the community evolves around it. For now, you can sign up for the Mistfall Hunter beta on Steam by going to the game’s steam page and requesting access.
Mistfall Hunter is set to release sometime in 2025 for Windows PC (via Steam) and Xbox Series X|S.
