Mistfall Hunter's demo is an extraction soulslike that plays more like God of War than Elden Ring

Bellring Games dropped a playable Mistfall Hunter demo for Steam Next Fest, pitching it as a dark fantasy extraction ARPG with obvious soulslike DNA — shrine maiden equivalent, deliberate combat, inspirations worn proudly on the sleeve.

In practice though, Mistfall Hunter plays less like Elden Ring and more like a slower God of War 2018 — over-the-shoulder camera, methodical movement, claustrophobic rooms and corridors. There's no lock-on system, which turns out to be a deliberate design choice: the whole game is built around positioning. Most attacks lunge forward, pushing you to play footsies and chain abilities together. That also makes PvP feel more readable than the lag-heavy backstab lottery of a typical soulslike. The extraction loop is standard — drop into a zone, kill monsters, grab loot, and escape through a portal by activating a shrine and hunting down a bell goblin. Dying means losing everything you carried in. Gear, armor, consumables, and crafting materials are all on the line.

What separates Mistfall Hunter from the pack are the secondary systems: skill trees, unlockable class-based abilities, and a perfect block mechanic. Meta-progression goes beyond just gear, which gives it more long-term hooks than a typical extraction game. Combat feels weighty and competent, if a touch slow — shield slams and melee carve-ups against NPC zombies have real impact, though the baseline difficulty is forgiving enough that it's hard to judge the ceiling just from the demo.

SteamDB already shows around 16,000 players and climbing, which is a solid early signal. Mistfall Hunter seems positioned to pull in soulslike fans burned out on PvP jank, Nightreign players who wanted FromSoftware to add competitive modes, and extraction shooter veterans tired of guns. Whether it can hold that audience past the demo is the real question.