Steam Review by John Pruitt and Matthew O’Toole
John’s Perspective:
Have you ever wanted to traverse the seas for king and country, charting courses into the great unknown? Have you ever feared an expedition gone horribly wrong like in The Horror? Well, luckily for you Victorian Horror enthusiasts, we have Dread Hunger at our fingertips (or what’s left of them after the frostbite)! Dread Hunger, by developer Dread Hunger Team and publisher Digital Confectioners, is a coop objective-focused adventure title that attempts to strain even the most well-forged friendships, oftentimes ending in cannibalism. The competitive aspect, my favorite aspect, pertains to players whose role is sabotage the expedition. A perfect roleplay experience would encapsulate themes from The Thing, Among Us, and the aforementioned The Horror series. Those mainly of paranoia, isolation, and self-preservation.
We start off our voyage from London and take part in a multi-segment journey to the Northwest Passage. We get the opportunity to play as multiple roles, including the soldier and the Inuit archer. The developers lead us through objectives that keep the ship moving. We learn about concepts that drive the expedition forward, like how the captain steers the ship and the engineer need coal to fuel the engine. You can see there is also a cook, a doctor, and a soldier. There are enough roles for up to 8 players to take part in the scenario. Everyone has a health, stamina, and hunger meter that need constant attention. The hunger part of Dread Hunger is no joke. If the situation is dire enough, you may need to eat your friend to survive. I recommend a nice chianti and a side of fava beans with his liver.
You will notice as the missions progress that your team’s chances of success are predicated on the failures of the expeditions that came before you. It is necessary to rummage through the remains of the fallen to collect resources, such as coal, meat, wood, ingots, and much more. Crafting tables help you make tools like a pick axe for mounting ice walls. If the ship is damaged, you may need to craft some nails and lay down planks to plug the holes. All the while, there are dangerous creatures out there in the frosty wasteland. Cannibals are out there, and they’ve been driven by madness and hunger. They swarm like something out of Left 4 Dead. It all combines together in a magnificent manner to enthrall the player into the bleak setting and involving gameplay. – John Pruitt
Matt’s Perspective:
Since John and I were smart enough to gnaw each other’s’ legs off and not our arms, we were able to break apart our thoughts on the game while only bleeding out at a 50% rate! What really struck me well about Dread Hunger was its atmosphere and environments. Everything has an almost Team Fortress 2 art style, but this more colorful tone enhances the game rather than make it too cartoony. It also helps separate it from something grittier and more realistic such as The Horror while also retaining a lot of its DNA. It certainly helps that you could almost imagine the series as a prequel in a way, as you can imagine that the remnants of previous voyages you encounter across the world scape are the remains of the show’s doomed expedition.
Cannibal enemies aside, what you have at the core of Dread Hunger is that Werewolf/Mafia styled game of deception and paranoia that has become so popular in the last few years due to the explosion in popularity of Among Us. It works very well and offers a lot of fun, so fans of the genre should not be disappointed. Switch out sleek space stations, space suits, and the cold of the void for wooden ships, iron men, and the coldness of the arctic, and you have yourself a recipe for fun (also disaster and probably human flesh kebabs!)!
Overall, Dread Hunger is another excellent entry in the paranoia multiplayer genre, which offers a little bit from the best of multiple shows and games in the genre that combines into a very warm and bloody stew. My question isn’t whether or not you will play it, my question is, who are you eating first? – Matt O’Toole
Graphics: 9/10
Audio: 9/10
Gameplay: 9.5/10
Overall: 9/10
Dread Hunger is available for $29.99 for PC via Steam.
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I like to think of myself as the average Joe who grew up alongside video games. I have fun playing strategy games, RPGs, shooters, sandboxes, the whole shebang! Every game provides an experience whether it strikes you as profound, mundane, or someplace in between. I'd like to weigh in my two cents before you spend a single penny.
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