The people behind RoboCop: Rogue City may have accidentally released an early version of an unannounced Hunter: The Reckoning game, set in the same World Of Darkness universe as Vampire: The Masquerade. The files in question were shared as an update for Rogue City, in what could be either a coded message from Hunter-Net’s witness1, or a classic case of backend butterfingers.

We have game developer, modder and Xitter user Silent to thank for this revelation. They spotted the update on SteamDB this morning, which included the files “Hunter.exe” and “HuntingSim”. The files were taken down around 30 minutes after upload, but not before two other users, Edness and @jas0n_098, posted screens of what they claim is “Hunter.exe” in action.

The screens include a shot of a “Hunter: The Reckoning” title screen, plus some highly WIP urban environments with cop cars, a bridge, a low-poly carpark, and waypoints for some kind of shootout investigation quest. I am including the shot of the low-poly carpark, because I find it calming. Please disregard the dead bodies, they were like that when I got here.

Sure looks like an unfinished videogame, but whether this is/was a brand new Hunter: The Reckoning game from RoboCop devs Teyon remains to be seen. Given that the files are no longer officially available, I can’t verify the screens. But I can, at least, point you towards the record of the update file on SteamDB. While you scratch your chin, I’ll ask Rogue City publishers Nacon for comment.

If you’re unfamiliar with the original Hunter: The Reckoning, it’s a table-top game about factions of supernaturally gifted humans chasing monsters, sharing info on their quarries via Hunter-Net. “Cyberpunk Van Helsing simulator” is probably a terrible choice of epithet. Venerable studio High Voltage created a few videogame adaptations back in the early noughties, which were not very good. (Update: there are also several more recent text-based games on Steam, which are apparently a lot better.)

Assuming this is a WIP build of a new Hunter: The Reckoning game, it isn’t necessarily a game in active development. Even if they have the rights, it seems deeply unlikely that Nacon themselves are in a position to publish such a game, given that they recently filed for insolvency. Hunter.exe could be a rejected Teyon pitch, left to moulder on a drive, saved from oblivion only by somebody’s errant mouse finger.

The mysterious WIP build could also be another of Nacon’s Hunting Simulator games, going by “HuntingSim” in itself. Still, the carpark full of dead guys doesn’t strike me as very Hunting Simulatory.

There is some evidence that a new Hunter: The Reckoning game is in development somewhere. In July last year, World of Darkness custodians White Wolf (owned by Paradox Interactive) expressed a desire to commission more adaptations, with a brand manager listing Mage: The Ascension and Changeling: The Dreaming as deserving what he probably shouldn’t have called “the Bloodlines treatment”. Asked whether White Wolf might collaborate on another spin-off, said brand manager quipped: “Who says we’re not already?”