Ed: Hello, everybody! This is Eddie V., and I am with Haoliang “HAO” Zhang, who is the director of Mistfall Hunter by Bellring Games. It is their debut game. Hello, Hao.

Hao: Hello!

Ed: I have to ask you, how long has the game been in development?

Hao: About two and a half years. 

Ed: How did you actually get into gaming, and when did you get into game development? 

Hao: I’ve been working in the industry for more than 12 years. 

Ed: 12 years?!?

Hao: Yeah, 12 years. (Laughs)

Ed: Were you a gamer in your younger years? 

Hao: Yeah, sure, definitely. I played everything I wanted.

Ed: How did you come up with the concept for Mistfall Hunter? 

Hao: Me, myself, I’m an action game player. I’ve played a lot of action games since I was a kid, like Monster Hunter, Devil May Cry, God of War, all those games. For most of my career, I played action RPGs. So, my team and I have a lot of experience making action games. We all like extraction games also.  We just found that the mechanics of extraction games are perfectly fit for action combat. These two elements are perfect for each other, so we found out that there is no game like that on the market. We want to play, at least for ourselves, we want to play those kinds of games, so we try to make one. We try to build something new, and at least we try to make a game we love to play, and we hope all other players love to play. 

Ed: How did you come up with the characters for this game?

Hao: First of all, we come up with a world view, and we love dark fantasy, and we want to create a world that’s suitable for the action and extraction game. We add some Norse mythology elements to the traditional dark fantasy vibe. After we set up this base tone, we created a lot of heroes, NPCs, and all the classes. We want those players to feel these characters are realistic. We want to create an immersive world. 

Ed: How did the art team come up with the characters? Were there designs that were just so mind-blowing and breathtaking that you were just like, “Yes, we need this in the game?”

Hao: First, we checked a lot of successful games, and we wanted to create our own character art style. Like I said before, we try to add a lot of Norse mythology to the traditional dark fantasy vibe. We set up several keywords for our art direction. First: mysterious. We want people to feel that our game world is a mysterious one. The second is wild. We want people to feel our game is a wild game because in extraction games, you will always feel so stressed. After all, it’s always tense, and we want people to feel the wildness in our game. You can see the results in our armor after fighting and in the environments the player is in. That’s two keywords that we want people to feel from our art style. 

Ed: Yeah, it looks like a AAA game, even though… 

Hao: Definitely not a AAA (laughs).

Ed: (laughs) But it’s beautiful because of the details in the game. I’m assuming the environmental artist team just went off drawing and made these beautiful worlds and landscapes. I haven’t even played the game yet, and I’m like, “Oh, this can’t be indie. This has to be AAA” because it looks like you guys really worked hard to make sure that the game looks very creative and detailed.

Hao: Yeah, we are a new team, and we’re definitely not an AAA team. We’re not a big AAA company. We’re just a small new team and try to make games we love to play. We are around like 70 people. It’s not big and not so small. But yeah, I think we did everything we could. 

Ed: I know that may seem big, but hopefully you take this as a compliment. There are different indie games that we definitely love at Boss Rush Network. I love this look because I love art. Our founder, Corey, is an artist. When we look at games, we look at the lighting and the detail that’s put on it. When we see that it is a debut game for any developer, we’re mind blown because it’s on a high level of quality. So, I want to just compliment you and your whole team.

Hao: Thank you so much.

Ed: What style of music are you going for in the game? 

Hao: First of all, for an extraction game, we don’t want too much music. We want people to feel they are in the real world. So, the environmental sounds are what we want people to hear. You can see that in our game, we don’t have an actual background music, but we have a theme arrangement, and we combine some Norse mythology human voices and some traditional fantasy like The Lord of the Rings movies. We combine all those together and try to make people feel that our game is a little bit epic, a little bit mysterious, and wild. 

Ed: Is there a storyline for Mistfall Hunter? What is the premise?

Hao: Our game world is about what may happen after Ragnarok. You know, there are still plenty of games or movies talking about Ragnarok, but nobody talks about what happens after it. So, in our game, we set up a world where all gods have fallen. All the god’s blood–they burst out and form this mist. That’s why our game is called Mistfall Hunter. Mistfall is kind of a disaster. We call it golden mist. It can corrupt other people’s souls. So, all the civilizations are corrupted. Certain people try to survive in this desperate world, and there is a mysterious lady we call Du, and she is a shard of the goddess of fate. She walks in this world to find dead heroes and tries to give them a new life and let them restore the whole world. We call these people guild hunters. That’s pretty much the whole background. You will find more information throughout the storyline and more throughout the game.

Ed: You can create your own character in it. What made you guys want to go that direction instead of just having a main character? 

Hao: We want to create a traditional RPG experience. In our game, players can customize their own looks, their playstyle, their skills, their talents, and their equipment. People can play as whoever they want to be in our game. People can feel they live in this real world. 

Ed: Since there’s going to be weapons, armor, and magic, will you be able to customize those items, or will you be able to upgrade them in the game? 

Hao: You will level up, and you will unlock new skills, new talents, and that will expand your skills.

Ed: I’ve seen that there’s a player or a character with a hammer. I was wondering, will there be pros and cons to the weapons? For example, if you do get a hammer or a big mallet, it may be powerful, but it’s also slow due to the attack. 

Hao: Yeah, because we have PvP elements, balance is very important.  You have this great hammer that may be very powerful, but you are swinging it very slowly. So, you must be very careful about every decision you make. 

Ed: Regarding the speed of the game…it looks from watching the trailers, that it’s 60 frames per second. It’s so smooth. Was that something that the team worked together to make sure there won’t be frame drops or anything? It’s engaging because it’s so action-packed. You gotta have that smooth frame rate.

Hao: Yes! Yes, because it is an action game that also has PvP elements, our game has to be smooth. People will dislike the feeling when they try to kill each other or try to avoid the killed by other people and the frame rate isn’t consistent.  Making our game smooth is the most important thing we are trying to do, but it’s very hard–it’s very tricky. We try to make our graphics look good, and we have a lot of people in the same map, and we have more than 500 monsters in the same map. Yeah, we have a big 3D map. 

So, all of this stuff we have to render above 60 frame rates is very tricky. Our tech team puts a lot of effort into that. We are still working on it. You may find some glitches or junk during the playtest, but we’re still working on it. 

Ed: That was going to be my next question. How has the playtesting been? How has that been for you, and has the team been super excited to hear the feedback? Have the attendees, who are here playing the game, have they offered great feedback for you guys to help you develop this game?

Hao: Yes, we did a lot of beta tests because we are a PvPvE game, so we need people to play and give us feedback so we can adjust the mechanics. So far, the players are so excited about our game. It gives us a lot of stress but also a lot of motivation. That’s why we came to PAX and tried to see and engage with our hardcore players and try to get first-hand feedback from them. 

Ed: I was telling another developer that we at Boss Rush Network talk about feedback, and we want to hear from the community by putting out surveys to become better. I think for developers and publishers, they may be nervous at conventions like this to hear feedback, but feedback is critical because it shows that they want the best for your game. If a community finds potential in your game, they will give you feedback. Has that feedback, even just personally for you, been inspiring to even hear from somebody? People might just say, “Oh, your game is good,” and walk away. But you’re probably curious to be like, “Okay, what makes my game good? What did you like about it?” Is that something that you kind of enjoy hearing? 

Hao: Yeah, definitely. All in all, we believe in Kodak. You know, in this world, I’m a player, and our game has a lot of players. They can contribute a lot of good ideas to us. You know, we try to absorb as much as we can. So together, our team and all the players together, we can make this game better. 

Ed: I was speaking to one of the PR people here because I know the game release on the pamphlet says Q4 2025, which I think is probably around November or December, but if the game does get pushed back, it still makes me look forward to the game. How do you feel about delays as a developer to make your game better? Do you think that it’s kind of helpful for you guys because you need more time to work on it? Some players might get sad because their anticipation has to go longer. I always wanted to know from developers, when they have to delay a game, how do they feel as a team? 

Hao: First of all, nobody likes to delay a game. Delaying a game means we have to put more money into our game, and we have to work overtime. We have to work a longer time, but all in all, we’re making games. We don’t want to release a game where players remember that it launched on time, but it sucked. Everybody wants good games. For ourselves, our game is kind of like our baby. We want the best for it. Especially as your debut game, you want to come out polished. 

Ed: You want to come out having people talk about your game. It may not even get a Game of the Year nomination, but it’s going to be like, oh, you’re playing that game? Oh, let me get that, because I’m hearing all of this good stuff. 

Hao: Yes, yes. We will try our best to absorb all the feedback and try to integrate it into our game, and try to make the best game we can. It’s also a seasonally updated game, so we will update a lot of new content when we launch. We will have a new season every three months, so we will continuously bring up new content to our game in the future.

Ed: I see that the game is also coming out on Xbox Series X and S. Do you guys plan on doing a physical version for it, or is it just going to be all digital between PC and Xbox?

Hao: Just digital because our game is not a single-player game. It’s an online game. So right now, we do not have the plans to make a hard copy of our game. Who knows, maybe together we may have some collective version for our game with some cool stuff in it, maybe in the future.

Ed: Yas! (laughs) Are you guys thinking about PlayStation 5 or even PlayStation 6 in the future? 

Hao: Yeah, definitely. As I said before, our team is not very big. We still have a lot of work to do. So, when we officially launch, we will be first on Steam PC and Xbox consoles. We will get on to PlayStation later, definitely. We’re hoping to do a Nintendo Switch 2 Edition. We’re hoping. 

Ed: You beat me to the punch. I would love to see it on Switch 2 or even the next console. Even if you guys couldn’t get it on Switch 2, their next console has to be powerful, and hopefully, this game can be on it. 

Hao: Our game is very perfect for portable devices. You know, when you’re about to go to sleep, you want to go another round. It’s perfect for you to hold the device and play it in bed. 

Ed: Well, do you have a personal build in the game that’s your favorite? Like you have a favorite weapon or a favorite character design? 

Hao: As a game director, actually, I love them all. (Chuckles). They are all my babies, but right now I can say that I may love our new class more because in our latest version we have a new subclass. We have a support class called Seer. Seer has two different paths. The first one is kind of a support class. He uses a ranged weapon we call a Catalyst. We also have another subclass of Seer. We call it Blasphemer. They used to believe in gods, but now, since all gods are dead, some of them choose not to believe in those gods. They find themselves even more powerful. So, in this subclass, they’re using a single-handed mace as a weapon. They crush everything they want. They use their anger as a power and try to crush everything they see. Yeah, I love being a melee player, like I said, with the hammer. Mistfall Hunter offers more classes with arrows, ranged attacks, and magic.

Ed: If someone was getting into this style of game, what kind of class or weapon would you recommend for people to start? 

Hao: Yes, yes. We have five different classes. Each of them has a totally different playstyle. Even in, like I said before, in Seer, the two subclasses have totally different play styles. So, first of all, I think you should try them all. You should try them all to see which one you like most. You should see what kind of game you used to play most. If you love melee weapons, like you’re playing Dark Souls or Monster Hunter, you may like our melee classes, like Mercenary and the Shadow Streaks. These are for those who like stylish action, and I love stylish action. If you love D&D and you love magic, you could try Sorcerer, and if you play a lot of games like shooting games, you can definitely play our Black Arrow as a Ranger. All these classes are totally different. I strongly recommend that if you are a new player, you try them all.

Ed: I love Devil May Cry. I actually love Devil May Cry. It’s my favorite. So, I’ve been trying to figure out what class will work for me.

Hao: Definitely, I would recommend Shadow Strix. He’s kind of an assassin. He has two weapons. First is a dagger, and the second one is dual blades. I think he’s a little bit like Dante, but not that fast. You know, our game tempo is not as fast as Devil May Cry. He’s kind of a bit speedy, though. He can get like three hits. 

Ed: Oh, that is my class! I cannot wait to play that. Well, I just got two more questions for you. I’ve been writing an article on games that have earned their stripes. You know, maybe it’s a franchise, an anime, or a movie. Maybe it’s a game that changed the industry. Maybe it’s a game that had potential but didn’t meet expectations. Is there a personal game for you that’s earned its stripes?

Hao: I began to play games when I was very little. I played all kinds of games. I loved to play action games, shooters, and even eSports games. I played a lot. Now, as a game developer, I have to play a lot of games for work. It’s very hard to say which game is my best game or which one I love it the most. It depends on, for example, the mood. If I’m very stressed, I may want to play some Nintendo games. If I am so angry, I may play some Call of Duty or Monster Hunter. So, that depends on the mood. I love them both. I love them all. ll. If you ask me what games inspired me for Mistfall Hunters, I cannot say any one game inspired me. I can only say that I absorbed a lot of things from those successful games I played a long time ago, since I was a kid. Like you said before, Devil May Cry, Monster Hunter, Dark Souls, and God of War, all those action games, and also other games like Escape from Tarkov, those kinds of extraction games also inspire us a lot. So we try to absorb as many as we can.

Ed: I know for me, one of the games that I feel like has earned the stripes is a game called Gris, by Nomada Studio. And it speaks about death, but it tells it in this colorful… 

Hao: Oh, Gris. Oh, you mean that side-scrolling… 

Ed: Yes, Gris!

Hao: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know that one.

Ed: That inspires me, and I feel like it’s earned its stripes. I also love Neva, their second game. Gris was a game that just came out of nowhere. I think it had a trailer on Facebook, and then the game came out. I brought it, and after I finished the game, I put down the controller and for about five, ten minutes, was speechless. I know a lot of people are not going to talk about this game, but this put Nomada Studio on the map.  I feel like that game has earned this studio, not only its stripes, but my support for them. I feel that Mistfall Hunter will be a game that earns its stripes due to the love, the passion, and the time you all took with this game. 

Hao: Thank you. Thank you so much. 

Ed: I was looking at the clips outside, and I’m just like, “This game is on a whole different level.” I’ve also noticed all the people standing in line, waiting to get their hands on it. I don’t know what they will walk away with, but if I were standing in line to play this game, I definitely would have come away impressed.

I was talking to Playism in May. They’re a indie publisher. They do indie games. They had this one game called HARUKA: Beyond the Stars, which wasn’t coming out until next year. I got to talk to the CEO, and I asked them about it.  I played it at last year’s PAX West, and I’m like, I need to know everything I can because I was ready to take the demo home and make it my game of the year. I feel the same way about Mistfall Hunter. This is definitely on my list of PAX games that people need to play, and they need to follow. 

My last question for you is, what is your go-to snack? Maybe the team is done with work, it’s the weekend, and it’s time to go home. Maybe you want to unwind. What is that go-to snack for you? It could even be a meal or anything. 

Hao: As a Chinese, I would say dumplings. I love Seattle. Seattle is one of the best American cities I love. I do miss my Chinese food, you know. 

Ed: Well, if you ever come to Chicago, try our deep-dish pizza.

Thank you so much, Hao, for your time. Everybody, please check out and wishlist Mistfall Hunter on Steam. The game is still in development but sign up for the beta. No joke. If you are an Xbox player, please look forward to this game. If they do pre-orders digitally on Xbox, get your pre-order in. This game is phenomenal. From art and its gameplay, it’s fast-paced action. Once again, Hao, thank you for your time and for this interview.

Hao: My pleasure. Thank you.

Mistfall Hunter is planning for a March 2026 release date at this time. It will be in the next Steam Next Fest on February 23, 2026. It is planned for Steam and Xbox.

Do you love the PvPvE genre? Does this game entice you to play? Share your reactions in the comments below or join the conversation on Boss Rush Network’s Discord, Facebook, and Twitter.

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Feature Image: Bellring Games