Dread Hunger is a multiplayer social deduction & survival game developed by Slowdrive Studios & Digital Confectioners which make up Dread Hunger Team. Dread Hunger is Digital Confectioners' third game on Steam but is easily the most popular, Depth & LAST TIDE both follow a very similar predator versus man theme but replace the Arctic with the sea. Dread Hunger began public playtesting for free on January 7th, 2021 with several more free public playtests until the game released into paid early access on April 22nd, 2021. It would receive several major updates with new maps, items, & classes until it reached its official release date on January 26th, 2022.
Players pick from one of eight characters sent on an expedition to brave the unfriendly Canadian Arctic in search of the North West Passage. Unfortunately, wildlife, starvation, & the elements aren't the only obstacles for the crew. Two of the eight crew mates are agents of a malicious supernatural deity, taken from past expeditions where they would have perished, granted new life to wreak havoc on the expedition through deception, violence, & blood magic.
For the primary inspiration behind Dread Hunger, see Dan Simmons' novel The Terror & the 2018 miniseries adaptation.
This game contains examples of:
- Artistic License – Chemistry: While liquid Nitroglycerin is as volatile as is shown in the game, Nitroglycerin also has a very high freezing point (57.2°F/14°C). Even in summer Nitroglycerin left exposed to the elements would freeze and frozen Nitroglycerin is less sensitive to shock and impact but more sensitive to crushing and breaking.
- Bears Are Bad News: Every map has at least one polar bear all too eager to rend careless or unprepared explorers limb from limb if they get within so much as spitting distance.
- Cannibal Larder: Dread Hunger contains a heap of naked mutilated corpses in every map, which you can even skin & eat if you find yourself in a dire situation! You can even arrange your victims' limbs in a decorative fashion
- Cast of Snowflakes: Each one of the eight crewmates is visually distinct from the others, wildly differing in both physique & attire. From the young, weedy Chaplain to the obese, permanently-smiling Cook, no two explorers look alike.
- Gorn: The game really goes ham with its cannibal themes. All attacks reap absurd amounts of blood and gore, all organisms can be sloppily butchered and eaten in great detail, and there are countless scenes of carnage decorating levels, which the player can further add to if they feel "creative".
- Grim Up North: The game's setting - The unforgiving, barren Canadian Arctic.
- Hair-Trigger Explosive: Jostle the crate of nitroglycerin too much? Explosion. Drop it from too far a distance? Explosion. Strike it with something hard enough? Explosion.
- Low Culture, High Tech: The Hunter is seemingly still able to operate & repair a Flintlock Pistol or Musket despite being found deep within the Canadian Arctic according to events in the tutorial.
- Truth in television to a large extent, as by this stage in history the Inuit and Canadian First Nations were quite familiar with Europeans and their technology, very often not through their choice.
- Nitro Express: In order to progress on their mission, the explorers are forced to search for crates of nitroglycerine inexplicably hidden at the far corners of the map, then carefully escort it to the massive iceberg blocking the exit. Just their luck, the paths to the explosives are often guarded by wolves, polar bears, & rabid packs of feral cannibals.
- Timed Mission: The crew has three days to destroy the iceberg blocking their path, or else the approaching blizzard will freeze them to death.
- The Smurfette Principle: The Hunter was introduced in Early Access Update 2 to a previously all male cast & has the most starter items of all crew mates.
- Social Deduction Game: Dread Hunger follows the basic formula of six innocent players & two traitors, popularized by the wildy succesful Among Us. Other contemporaries include the 2.5D equivalent in Project Winter & the popular Garry's Mod game mode Trouble in Terrorist Town.
- Twofer Token Minority: The Hunter is the crew's sole female, as well as the only non-white member aboard.
- You All Look Familiar: The early stages of the game has most of the crewmates have the same face with three having the same long hair, with only the Captain and Chaplain withe unique faces until an update gave most of the crew unique designs.
- The Cannibals all have the same design until Only Six Faces comes into play with different designs, but still have some identical groups that has less or more of the same model.
