Teyon and Nacon have revealed Hunter: The Reckoning – Deathwish, a new “semi open world” first-person single-player RPG set in the World of Darkness table-top universe. Where stablemate series Vampire: The Masquerade is about a secret society of bloodsuckers, Hunter is about the humans who stalk and kill those bloodsuckers together with werewolves, ghouls and, well, anything remotely monstrous or supernatural.

Do not go Trick or Treating near these folks – they will put a stake right through your Beetlejuice costume, and you will have deserved it for besmirching the legacy of Michael Keaton. Anyway: trailer.

Slated for release on PC in summer 2027, Hunter: The Reckoning – Deathwish features a player-created Hunter protagonist and takes place in New York. You’ll create your character according to a simplified version of the table-top game’s ruleset, choosing ‘advantages’ and ‘flaws’ alongside cosmetic features, and assigning points to six attributes tethered to 18 skills. In the course of a branching, multiple-ending story, you’ll join a Hunter cell and meet five, storied, befriendable and even romanceable companions.

Missions, meanwhile, sound a lot more involved than those of Teyon’s previous RoboCop: Rogue City. Many of your quarries have lairs, and you must find a way in by means of the classic immersive sim food groups: stealth, brute force, acrobatics, or sheer charm. There are dice rolls for skill checks, with more points in a skill equalling more dice to throw, and you can be nice or nasty in conversation. The devs are apparently taking some inspiration from Baldur’s Gate 3 and Deus Ex, in addition to the venerable Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines.

That trailer certainly looks a lot posher than the “hunter.exe” build Teyon accidentally uploaded as an update for Rogue City, a few weeks ago. Presumably that was an early prototype, and somebody pushed the wrong button? We may never know, but perhaps I will commission some Hunters to find out, with the stern proviso that they are not allowed to exorcise anybody below C-level.

The other zombie elephant in the room here is that publishers Nacon recently filed for insolvency. I couldn’t tell you what that means for Deathwish, but Teyon aren’t owned by Nacon – if the latter evaporate, the developers will hopefully be able to take their new Hunter game elsewhere. Hey, maybe Paradox would be interested! They had so much fun publishing Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, I’m sure they’d be up for another World of Darkness joint.