While there is no shortage of soulslikes for those waiting on FromSoftware’s next hit, and there are plenty of extraction shooters for those burnt out on Arc Raiders, finding a Monster Hunter-like is a bit more difficult (especially after Dauntless’ shutdown). There’s just something undeniably cool about tracking a monster, doing real battle damage to it by chopping off limbs to remove options from its attack pool, and chasing it down to finally secure the kill. Monster Hunter is essentially a series of drawn-out, grueling boss fights, and it’s immensely satisfying at every turn because of that. Fortunately, come 2027, a true Hunter alternative is on the way in the form of Steam’s Elderfeast.
Like this Steam game’s name suggests, it hones in on a side feature of the Monster Hunter series: cooking. Instead of players using bits and pieces of the creatures they kill to create armor sets and upgrade their weaponry, they’re cooking food with the tentacles, carapaces, and other otherworldly limbs they’ve collected. Monster Hunter fans will know all about food — eating before a hunt is second only to sharpening weaponry in terms of the boosts it provides — but players actually becoming chefs...
