Mistfall Hunter Is a Strange Combination

 It was inevitable that after I enjoyed playing ARC Raiders so much that I would wind up looking for another extraction game to get into. I didn't really expect to find one that would grab me quite as quickly as Mistfall Hunter.

 Mistfall Hunter is a strange combination of things. It is an extraction game, but set in a grim fantasy setting where you're running around with swords, bows, magic, and various other fantasy weapons. It is also borrowing ideas from Souls-like games, which makes for an interesting combo. And honestly, it works. At least, most of the time.

Another heartlessgamer is born

 The first thing that stood out to me was the combat. I went into Mistfall Hunter expecting something that would feel like a slower, more RPG-focused extraction game. What I got was a combat system that actually makes fighting things fun in its own right. There is a lot more going on than simply clicking on an enemy until one of you dies. Positioning matters, timing matters, dodging matters, and blocking or parrying can make a huge difference. Different weapons and abilities give you different ways to approach an encounter, which is especially noticeable when fighting other players.

 One of the things I enjoy about extraction games is that every encounter has a little bit of tension attached to it. You aren't just fighting because the game told you to fight; you're fighting while knowing that everything you're carrying could disappear if you end up eating dirt. Mistfall Hunter takes that feeling and combines it with fantasy, up-in-your-face, combat, creating some surprisingly tense encounters. When you hear someone nearby, you know they're there, they know you're there, and you're trying to decide whether you want to engage, sneak around them, or just get the hell out of there with whatever loot you managed to collect. That's the good stuff.

Some amazing set pieces

 The basic loop is pretty straightforward: go into a map, kill things, loot things, try not to get killed by other players, find more loot, and then get out. It sounds simple because it is, but that simplicity is part of the appeal. I found myself doing the same thing here that I did in ARC Raiders, going into a match with one particular thing I want to accomplish and then getting distracted by something else along the way. Maybe I need a particular resource, then I find some interesting loot, then I see an enemy I probably shouldn't fight, then I fight it anyway, and then suddenly I'm trying to figure out whether I can make it to extraction before somebody decides my inventory belongs to them. That's the sort of gameplay that makes extraction games work.

 This is where things get a little more complicated. I liked Mistfall Hunter at first and was having fun with it, but the longer I played, the more it wore me out. For one, the game has a lot going on. There are classes, abilities, talents, equipment, crafting, progression systems, different currencies, and all sorts of other things to keep track of. Some of it is interesting, but a lot of it feels like complexity for the sake of complexity. Eventually, I just got bored of having to deal with the extraction pieces over and over again. The constant cycle of looting, managing inventory, and dealing with all the surrounding systems started to feel like a chore rather than a game.

Ring a ling a ding dong its time to go

 But I liked ARC Raiders so much!  Well Mistfall Hunter is not ARC Raiders

 I think this is probably the biggest thing I needed to keep reminding myself of. I came into Mistfall Hunter looking for another extraction game because ARC Raiders has gotten its hooks into me, but Mistfall Hunter is not ARC Raiders. And that's probably a good thing. Where ARC Raiders is built around shooting robots, scavenging a ruined world, and the constant possibility of running into another player, Mistfall Hunter is much more focused on combat itself.

 The slower pace works surprisingly well with the melee combat, and it makes encounters feel completely different. In ARC Raiders, I'm usually thinking about angles, cover, weapons, and positioning. In Mistfall Hunter, I'm thinking about attacks, dodges, stamina, abilities, and whether I can actually survive the guy standing ten feet away from me who has a way bigger sword than I do.

 That combat and the tense PvP were easily the highlights of the experience, which is honestly why it feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Mistfall Hunter would have made a great arena-style fighter game with a more permanent progression system that wasn't tied down to extraction mechanics. The core melee combat and player interaction are strong enough to carry an entire game on their own without needing the extra baggage of extraction.

A boss enemy (which I never could defeat in my time playing)

 I played for a bit, but I've ultimately stopped playing because the extraction loop ran out of steam for me. The combat is fun and the PvP can be genuinely intense, but the surrounding extraction mechanics and bloated progression systems eventually wore me out. It was worth checking out as something to play after ARC Raiders, but once the novelty of the combat wore off, the extraction fatigue set in for good.

Sailing away...

Note: this post was edited with the help of AI (Google Gemini). The thoughts are my own.  The grammatical correctness and em dashes (—) are the AI.

Packers beat Panthers; score 27

 The Packers beat the Panthers and I can confirm it was a game played.  Not a pretty W but a W none the less so I'll take it.  Also I get to bring back an oldie but a goodie for the meme.

 

Brewers are WORLD CHAMPIONS

 The Milwaukee Brewers are the 2026 World Series Champions.  42 years in the making.  What a season!  For Ueck! 

 

Packers lose to the refs Lions get the W

 The NFL refs once again defeated the Green Bay Packers as they continue to set a record on roughing the passer phantom penalties.  Unfortunately due to an odd turn of events the Detroit Lions were granted the win.

 

 

First Impressions: The ArcheAge Chronicles Demo

 I spent some time checking out the ArcheAge Chronicles demo recently, and walking away from it left me with a pretty mixed bag of thoughts.

Here we go again...

 On the bright side, the world is genuinely beautiful, and I did enjoy exploring it. But the world design runs into a bizarre pacing issue where it feels far too cramped. You run a few feet, and there's a camp. You run a few more feet, and there's another camp. You take a couple more steps, and suddenly you're stumbling into a giant point of interest. It robs the world of a natural sense of scale when major landmarks are practically stacked on top of each other.

Entering the final story instanced area; the game does look great!

 There has been a lot of debate in the community over whether ArcheAge Chronicles is actually an MMORPG or just an online action RPG, especially given how developers have talked about steering away from traditional massive faction wars of the original ArcheAge. Coming into the demo, I half-expected a stripped-down, session-based MMO-lite experience. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to find it feels much more like a normal, living MMO with plenty of other players running around you out in the open world rather than being bottlenecked into specific instanced hubs.

MMO-lite?  Plenty of players are around you in the open world.

 The UI design needs work, starting with how disconnected the menus feel from the actual gameplay. Inventory and character management screens pop up in a way that takes you entirely out of the experience, breaking the immersion. I much prefer the style New World used, where menus open up as overlays or transparent windows while you can still see your character active and moving around in the world. It keeps you anchored in the environment rather than staring at a static, isolated menu screen.

 Quest design is equally frustrating because missions tend to randomly appear out of nowhere without any clear indication of where you are supposed to go or why the quest triggered in the first place. It undercuts your sense of direction and purpose. On top of that, it is far too easy to accidentally pick up a quest item without realizing it, meaning you stumble into objectives entirely by accident rather than through intentional exploration or narrative progression.

The classic random chance at an upgrade system; can we please move on from this exact UI being in every single game that comes out of the east?

 Then there are the fundamental mechanics. First off, get rid of having to hold shift to sprint and just make sprinting automatic. The combat itself feels too floaty and lacks grounded weight, especially considering the massive size of the enemies and their attacks.  The combat works but doesn't have a sense of impact.  Combat doesn't detract from the experience but could use some continual improvement through the early access life of the game.

 Character building and classes also left a lot to be desired. Even accounting for the demo being limited, everything felt kind of samey. While there are big skill trees, melee weapon types lacked distinct styles and every two handed melee weapon seemed to share the exact same sprint-up leap attack followed by the same basic left-click combo, and magic and ranged didn't offer enough unique flavor either.

 On top of that, the lack of character clothing options combined with rigid class and gender locks made everyone in the game feel and look samey. While I don't hate an outfit-versus-armor system in theory, seeing a character in a dress apparently wearing super heavy armor underneath is misleading. Outfits really need to match their underlying stats in some way. And I would love to see a human using a shield and axe instead of being forced into that big, bulky male character model whenever you pick up heavy frontline weapons.

A cut scene of sailing into the end of demo area; unclear if in the future we'd get to navigate with ships ourselves like the original ArcheAge.

 Overall, the gorgeous world and exploration made it fun to check out for a bit, but the combat weight, cramped world pacing, and messy UI mean the full game has plenty of kinks to work out if it wants to keep my attention.

 Some more screenshots to enjoy:

A useful "what are the chances of something dropping from this loot bag" message but annoying when you have twenty bags to open and have to see this every time.  Also these are loot drops and not purchased bags so why do I need to see this message?

A cool looking statue

Lots of ruins packed into this area and classic random NPCs just living out their eternity at the top of them

Underwater areas are well detailed.  A nice addition but not sure how necessary as it's unclear how much underwater content we'll see.

The game has gliding.  I used it a couple times but didn't find it all that interesting.  I think the game would have been fine without it.  I am sure they will go out of their way now to give places/reasons to glide.

Fishing!?  Alas you cannot complete the quest for the fishing rod in the demo so we'll have to wait and see if they add it later on.

A New World outcast and I am right at home gathering a bush of berries.

The world map slowly uncovers as you explore; about 1/3 of the explorable area from the demo is in this screenshot.

Oddly while you get to pick out an outfit at character creation like the one I chose here you don't get to keep it and reset to the default outfit when you start out.  Unclear if that was a bug or not in character creation.

You can chop down most trees in the game but it is nowhere near as satisfying as chopping down a tree in New World Aeternum.

Yarrr! A pirate's hat outfit reward from the last boss of the demo.

Somewhat final drip at the end of the demo; minus my pirate hat.

Crafting at the cauldron.  These are placed everywhere along with berry bushes right next to them to harvest and make potions.  Felt out of place but the crafting process was fine.

Packers Beat Cowboys

 Not much to say here.  Packers are 4-2 and whooped the Cowboys.  Feels good to be a Wisconsin sports fan lately.

 

Brewers are going to the World Series!

 For the second time in my lifetime, and the first time I am not in diapers, the Milwaukee Brewers are going to the World Series!

 It is probably no surprise, given my long history of Green Bay Packers posts, that I would also be a Milwaukee Brewers fan. As a teenager, I used to head down to Milwaukee and write up game summaries for my Sports Lit class. My dad is a lifetime fan, too.

 And now, after what felt like a decade of being so damn close over and over again to being the team to beat, the team primed for the World Series, the Brewers finally did it. In convincing fashion, no less, by sweeping the half-billion-dollar Dodgers 4-0 in the NLCS.

 The Brewers have saved baseball!

 

 

Packers defeat the Bears; thanks Obama

 The Green Bay Packers put a whoopin' on the Chicago Bears.  Thanks Obama!

 

Packers are the best team in the league! Bears still suck!

 It's been a rough week for Bears and Chicago sports fans.  Ditka?  RIP.  Chicago White Sox's season?  RIP.  And the a cherry on top the Bears proved they still suck.  Packers are the best team in the league!  Seriously though; sorry for your losses Chicago fans.

 

Packers... wait... they won? Nice! the Bucs

 The Green Bay Packers, despite every attempt not to, beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.  A classic indeed.