Missive XVII - HUNGER Closed Beta Wrap-Up

Hello Living, First of all, a big thank you to everyone who participated in the HUNGER Closed Beta! As a team, we're absolutely thrilled that so many of you jumped into the game and, perhaps more importantly, that so many of you stuck around and continued playing throughout the test. There were a number of ways we measured the success of this Closed Beta, and we wanted to share some of our thoughts on how things went, what we've learned, and what comes next.

The Biggest Success Was Something You Probably Didn't Notice

One of our primary objectives for this Closed Beta was to validate a huge amount of technical work that has taken place behind the scenes since our previous Tech Test.

HUNGER is an extraordinarily complex game from a networking perspective. There are multiple interconnected systems responsible for everything from matchmaking and loading into Expeditions to managing your inventory, stash, character progression, traders, and the Château itself.

Making all of these systems work together reliably is one challenge. Making them work seamlessly at scale, with tens of thousands of players interacting with them, is another challenge entirely.

In many ways, this has been the most technically complex undertaking we've faced as a team, and it's a large part of why there was such a gap between our previous Tech Test and this Closed Beta.

We're extremely pleased to report that these systems held up remarkably well.

Across the entire Closed Beta, we only needed to deploy a single client hotfix, and the issues addressed were relatively limited in scope. Other problems that arose on the backend were largely resolved without requiring client updates, taking the game offline, or interrupting your playtime.

Perhaps most importantly, we didn't encounter any widespread or systemic issues with inventories, stashes, or progression being wiped.

Anyone who participated in our previous Tech Test will probably appreciate just how important that last point is!

It's difficult to communicate just how much work goes into making all of this happen, particularly because players shouldn't really notice any of it when everything is working correctly.

That doesn’t mean the test was without issues, and we’re continuing to investigate issues reported throughout the Closed Beta.

Seeing You Come Back

Another enormously encouraging part of this test was seeing how many of you continued returning to HUNGER over the course of the Closed Beta.

Testing environments are strange things. Players know that their progress will eventually be wiped, that the test will only last for a limited period, and that they're playing a game which is still very much in development.

On top of that, a short testing window doesn't necessarily coincide with everyone's availability. Some of you had plenty of time to play, while others could only squeeze in a few hours.

With that said, we were incredibly encouraged by the number of players who kept coming back, progressing through the game, experimenting with builds, and investing significant amounts of time into their characters.

Seeing so many high-level players wandering around the Château, including plenty who had pushed beyond level 50, was particularly rewarding.

It was also fantastic to see people begin to engage with the deeper interconnected systems that underpin the game, rather than simply experiencing HUNGER as a series of individual Expeditions.

Balance, Feedback, and What We're Working On

Of course, we've also received an enthusiastic amount of feedback, and there are plenty of things we want to improve.

HUNGER is an RPG with a large number of interconnected systems. Weapons, armour, masteries, movement, stamina, character progression, enemy behaviour, and the economy all interact with one another.

This means that balancing the game is a continuous process, increasingly informed by seeing how thousands of real players engage with it.

There are already a number of clear areas we want to address:

• Spatialised audio and occlusion needs improvement
• Vepr is performing above intended balance
• Spear lunge is proving overly strong/effective
• Base movement speeds feels a touch too sluggish
• Power gap between low level players and higher level players feels too significant
• Vaulting/mantling can feel clunky and imprecise
• Vendor item availability needs further balancing
• Reconnect feature (coming)

These are just some examples of a much broader range of changes we're considering across weapons, Masteries, combat and the rest of the game. It’s also a great example of why we’ve chosen to go into Early Access to build out solid foundations.

That's the sort of adjustment we're interested in exploring: changes that improve how the game feels while preserving what we're trying to build.

More broadly, we've been collecting, reading, and discussing your feedback throughout the test. There are plenty of areas where we agree improvements are needed, alongside ideas that we're excited to explore.

We know this Missive only touches on a small part of the feedback you’ve shared. We’re currently organising that feedback, discussing it across the team, and gathering the answers we need to respond properly.

That includes larger conversations around progression and matchmaking, movement and traversal, audio, performance, recovery and the economy, onboarding, and much more.

Some of those improvements will arrive before Early Access, while others will form part of our ongoing development after launch.

Early Access Is Just the Beginning

We want to reiterate that we see HUNGER's Early Access launch as the beginning of a much larger journey.

Those of you who have been following the project for some time will know that HUNGER has been a genuine labour of love for our team.

We've invested a great amount of time and effort into building the foundations of the game, but there is still a huge amount that we want to do.

We have substantial plans for new content, features, systems, improvements, and expansions to the experience. Early Access gives us the opportunity to continue building HUNGER alongside the community, using real player behaviour and feedback to help inform that development.

We're committed to supporting and expanding the game long into the future, and we're excited to begin sharing more of those plans with you.

What's Next?

We're pleased to confirm that we'll be holding an Open Beta ahead of our Early Access launch.

We'll be announcing the dates for both the Open Beta and Early Access soon.

Between now and then, we'll also be sharing more development updates and Developer Archives, giving you a closer look at what we're working on, the changes we're making, and some of the new content and features we have planned.

We’re also preparing the first episode of After the End, a new developer podcast coming to YouTube. We’re also planning to stream future episodes live on Twitch , so make sure to follow our official channel to catch them.

We’ll use it to discuss the Closed Beta, respond to some of the major feedback themes, answer community questions, and talk about what comes next for HUNGER.

We’ll share the date and further details soon, so keep an eye on our channels.

If you haven’t already, you can still share your experience through our Closed Beta feedback form or report any bugs you encountered through our bug-report form.

A Shoutout to our #playHUNGER Creators

We also want to give a special thank you to all the content creators who recorded, streamed and shared their experiences throughout the Close Beta! It's been fantastic seeing HUNGER through your eyes, from intense expeditions and unexpected encounters to incredible moments, discoveries, and plenty of entertaining mishaps along the way. If you missed out on the Closed Beta, or simply want to see what others have been getting up to, search #playHUNGER across social media, or check out some of the content here:

YouTube: #playHUNGER Videos YouTube Shorts: #playHUNGER Shorts TikTok: #playHUNGER Twitch Category: Follow HUNGER to catch future content!

To everyone creating and sharing HUNGER content, thank you for helping introduce the game to new players and bringing the community together. We can't wait to see what you create next!

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to participate, share feedback, report bugs, or simply spent time playing HUNGER. It's been incredibly rewarding for the team to see so many people engaging with something we've spent so long building. We're very much looking forward to welcoming you all back into the Château. If you enjoyed the Closed Beta, please consider Wishlisting HUNGER on Steam.

GOOD FUN CORP

JOIN THE COMMUNITY