Steam’s New Co-Op Game Brings Monster Hunter-Style Combat With Lovecraftian Fear

If you’re waiting for FromSoftware’s next big soul-crushing release, the waiting room is already packed with grim adventures. If you’re more in the mood for tactical extraction action, there’s also no shortage of shooters to jump into—especially if you’ve burned out on Arc Raiders. But finding something that genuinely scratches the same itch as Monster Hunter can still feel surprisingly rare, and that gap becomes even more obvious after Dauntless’s shutdown. There’s a special kind of thrill in stalking a monster, landing meaningful damage by cutting away key parts, and then staying on its tail until you finally secure the kill. Monster Hunter is, at its core, a long-form series of boss encounters, and that drawn-out structure is exactly why it’s so satisfying from start to finish. With that in mind, a real Hunter-style alternative is slated to arrive in 2027 in the form of Steam’s Elderfeast.

As the name hints, Elderfeast leans hard into one of Monster Hunter’s most recognizable side activities: cooking. Rather than turning monster scraps into armor sets and weapon upgrades, players assemble meals using collected pieces like tentacles, carapaces, and other unsettling alien appendages. Monster Hunter veterans already know that food is a major deal—eating before a hunt is second only to sharpening when it comes to helpful boosts—but the key difference here is that you’re not just consuming a menu item. You’re actively building the meal from ingredients, which gives the whole loop a more hands-on, unsettling flavor. On top of that, Elderfeast’s emphasis on Cthulhu-inspired creatures, sci-fi equipment, and alien worlds should help it carve out its own identity instead of feeling like a simple reskin.

At the moment, the game’s Steam listing only mentions a broad release window in 2027, which strongly suggests there’s still some time before you’ll actually be able to play it.

Steam’s Free-to-Keep Promotion is also adding a 2022 horror title that’s currently sitting at an Overwhelmingly Positive rating after 1,400 reviews.

Elderfeast Features at a Glance

• DISMEMBER Lovecraftian monsters solo or with a co-op partner.
• COOK meals using a grid-based system to strengthen your hunter and prep for what comes next.
• HUNT using a variety of sci-fi weapons, including giant blades and harpoon guns.
• TRAVERSE a galaxy full of different biomes and creatures.
• TRICK monsters into eating poisoned wildlife, or pull attention by using other characters roaming the environment.

Elderfeast is a co-op action game where the monsters effectively become your menu. You’ll hunt Lovecraftian terrors across the galaxy, cut them apart for ingredients, and then cook up what you’ll need for the next fight. The better you cook, the stronger you become—but the game promises there’s always another, even worse creature waiting around the corner.

Elderfeast is 70% Hunting Elder Gods, 30% Cooking Them

Because it’s built around co-op monster hunts, the primary rhythm of Elderfeast is all about satisfying encounters with gigantic sea horrors—squids, anglerfish, and similar threats. That’s where Monster Hunter comparisons land immediately, since players will be severing tails, tentacles, organs, and other parts to shape the fight around what the creature can do. Weapons appear to follow the same “different tools, different feel” philosophy seen in Monster Hunter. For example, the Harpoon Gun is positioned as something you could compare to bowguns, while the heavy Butcher Knife lines up more closely with the Great Sword-style approach.

Before the clock runs out, the game tasks you with spotting silhouettes—reading what you’re up against quickly enough to plan your next move.

That influence extends into preparation too. As you travel across planets, you’ll meet new wildlife, and your target won’t exist in isolation—it reacts to what’s around it. Maybe it dislikes certain small critters, causing them to scatter straight toward your blades and guns. Or, more likely, the Lovecraftian horror will simply eat those smaller aliens, creating a bigger opening for you to strike. The game also offers ways to manipulate the situation: you can poison smaller creatures to cause your target stomach issues and apply a debuff, and you can even steer it into consuming dangerous ingredients outright. From there, the hunt turns into a cat-and-mouse chase in the way players would expect. A clean HUD is also promised, with on-screen clarity described as similar to what you’d see in the Dead Space games, making it easier to track what’s happening as the fight escalates.

Still, the cooking focus is what’s meant to make Elderfeast more than just a sci-fi version of Monster Hunter. In Monster Hunter, a friendly palico handles the meal prep in a humorous but often repetitive cutscene that many players eventually skip. Here, you’re directly involved in crafting the food itself. You’ll watch tentacles move around alongside hearts and alien plants, and a grid system decides exactly what you end up with. The concept is comparable to Minecraft-style crafting: arranging ingredients in one order yields one result, while switching the layout creates a different dish. Experimenting to discover the strongest recipes and strongest buffs looks like it will be a major draw. The game also appears to include an in-game cookbook that doubles as a bestiary, which should make it easier to keep track of your findings in a way that stays tied to the world.

Upcoming Releases

Early Interest in Elderfeast is a Promising Sign

Even though Elderfeast has only recently been unveiled, it’s already gathered over 10,000 wishlists. Its trailer has also been spreading quickly across social platforms such as TikTok, helping it gain attention fast. It’s not hard to see why interest is forming—between the visuals, combat that looks fluid, the appeal of the cooking system, and the Lovecraftian atmosphere, multiple things seem to be landing with players at once. Hopefully, that early momentum turns into a release that matches the rapidly growing expectations. So far, what’s been shown looks like it could be hugely appealing, even if the meals players are cooking up won’t be nearly as comforting as a real-world dinner.