Recent reviews by zeroh

very fun game.

unveiled my inability to drive a boat.

surprisingly infuriating

At its core, Dread Hunger is a fantastic game, but there a few glaring issues that overshadow any selling points the game may have.

I'll start off by saying that I was permanently banned with 200 hours played, with no ban reason provided and no reason that I can think of. Any attempts to contact the devs/staff have been met with silence via their ticketing system on the official site. I was also permanently banned from the Discord server with reason "N/A". There is no official appeal process so it's very difficult to get an answer to your issue, as I've seen in discussions/reviews here already.

Don't let the steam charts fool you - the game is currently 9th in concurrent players at the time of writing, but I would estimate that 99% of these players are Chinese, potentially more. This isn't an issue in itself, but if you play outside of the peak NA East hours, you WILL struggle to find an English speaking lobby, often waiting 20+ minutes and giving up. During this time, countless Chinese will join your lobby, requiring you to kick them every time as they rarely leave on their own accord. As you can imagine, this gets tiresome. But if you mention this to the devs or in the Discord, you will receive the response "ROFL just kick them lol?" and the conversation instantly killed with you receiving a timeout. The devs make no effort to give lobby hosts more moderation control, outside of kicking (such as optional region/language lock).

The game itself is a hidden gem. It's a brilliant experience and I can't really draw comparisons to any other game as it is very unique, some call it a blend of Sea of Thieves + Among Us. There are endless ways to play the game and strategies to come up with, every game is truly different. It's worth noting that you MUST have a microphone if you want to play this game with any kind of decent experience. There is no text based communication system, which I think heavily benefits a game of this genre. If you manage to get into a game without a mic, chances are you will be killed relatively quickly due to your lack of communication. Again, this is not a bad thing - I actually think it's good, however it has to be acknowledged.

I've noticed some other reviews mentioning the abundance of trolls, I'd say it's not really an issue. You get the occasional lobby where there's a troll or 2, but lobby hosts tend to cotton on. Since the English speaking base is so small, these players are often logged and get insta kicked from any lobby in future.

It really is a shame that such a great game is ruined by the devs' moderation style. They truly treat it like their own personal project rather than a public product that people are paying a significant amount to play. When I first got the game I saw reviews of other people saying the same thing, and thought they must be exaggerating. And for a while it seemed that way, until it happened to me. I can't bring myself to recommend the game for this reason, if the devs/admins were more transparent and professional, this would be an entirely different story.

I've left comments open if you have any questions you need answered.

EDIT: The staff have now decided to unban me, however the review will remain unchanged. It is ridiculous that the only reason I have been unbanned is because this review gained so much traction and started affecting their income.

EDIT 2: Hahahaha what? The "temporary comms ban" is for 10 games, not a specified time. So it's essentially impossible to play this game?

EDIT 3 (15/06/2022): Hi friends and readers, it's been a long time since I wrote this review and nothing has really changed. I did manage to get rid of the 10 game comm ban by changing my name to Chinese and hiding in their lobbies!

There are less English speaking players than ever, more trolls and cheaters than ever. There hasn't been a single major update since I wrote this review, but they did patch a glitch that lets you run around on the docks before the match starts, so silver lining and all that. At least we have more cosmetics coming out!

Same story as the main review, gameplay is great, concept is great, staff not so great, lack of players not so great, lack of updates not so great.

To the devs: If you are reading this, please take note of this and all of the other reviews. Recent reviews are now mostly negative and overall reviews are now mixed. You have to stop pretending like there is no issue, and divert your attention away from creating an echo chamber for yourselves where everything is just fine. This game will die if there aren't major changes very soon, and despite my criticisms I do not want this game to die as it's my favourite game currently.

PS: Unban me from Discord!