Gone Feral: Hitman Has Put On a Hockey Mask, and Apparently Murder Now Requires Planning
Gone Feral wants to turn you into an ’80s slasher villain. You stalk victims, steal disguises, manipulate fear, improvise weapons and arrange murders in sandbox environments where practically anything could become a murder weapon. Developed by Just Purkey Games, it's an upcoming stealth-horror roguelike with a straightforward proposition: for once, you're the bastard everyone else is trying to survive.
The game remains unreleased, with no confirmed launch date. Its limited single-player playtest runs until October 31, 2026, while cooperative multiplayer is planned for the finished game. Early hands-on impressions suggest there's considerably more going on here than running around a campsite swinging an axe.
In fact, the obvious comparison is Hitman. Which raises an interesting question: can a game make you feel like an unstoppable horror villain when half your job involves hiding, stealing clothes and carefully planning somebody's death?
Fancy being a slasher villain without spending half your evening borrowing somebody's trousers? See how Halloween: The Game actually handles playing as Michael Myers. At least he comes to work wearing his own mask.
Jason Voorhees would be absolutely terrible at this
Think about how slasher villains normally operate. Jason Voorhees appears somewhere in the woods, notices a group of teenagers making spectacularly poor decisions and proceeds to reduce the local population. Michael Myers spends most of his time silently walking towards people who could probably escape if they stopped investigating strange noises in their underwear.
Neither seems particularly interested in subtlety.
Gone Feral has other ideas. You're given assassination targets within sandbox locations, and reaching them involves observing NPC behaviour, collecting weapons, using disguises and exploiting opportunities around the environment. Agent 47 has spent decades proving that murdering someone becomes considerably easier if you first steal a waiter's uniform and convince everyone the resulting catastrophe was an unfortunate catering incident. Apparently the same principles now apply to summer camps.
There's something appealing about a killer who actually thinks before attacking. You're preparing the circumstances in which someone dies, potentially choosing between stealth, deception and outright violence. But there's also a contradiction. Slasher villains are frightening because they seem unstoppable. Put Jason in a stealth game and suddenly you've got questions. Why is he hiding behind a cupboard? Why does he need a disguise? Who's going to recognise him when he's already wearing a bloody hockey mask?
And if Jason spends half an hour obtaining the correct uniform to enter the maintenance room, I think we can safely conclude the horror industry has finally been defeated by middle management.
Making people afraid might be more interesting than killing them
This is the part of Gone Feral that interests me most. The game features a fear system intended to influence NPC behaviour. According to the developer, frightened victims can panic, separate from others and make mistakes, potentially creating opportunities for the player.
In most stealth games, being noticed is a problem. Someone spots you, raises the alarm and suddenly everyone knows you're there. The obvious response is to disappear until the guards return to their routines, apparently having concluded that the heavily armed stranger they encountered was a collective hallucination.
But you're playing the monster here. Being seen could actually be useful.
Imagine frightening a group of campers into scattering. One runs towards an isolated cabin, another panics and abandons a safe position, and a third decides to investigate the abandoned shed because apparently natural selection has unfinished business.
If Gone Feral can turn those reactions into meaningful gameplay, the possibilities become considerably more interesting. You could manipulate victims into making themselves vulnerable rather than simply approaching every target unnoticed.
Anyone can run up to an NPC and hit them with an axe. Making somebody so afraid of that axe that they do half your work for you is much more interesting.
Whether the system consistently delivers remains unproven. Recent development updates have addressed NPC hearing, reactions and environmental hazards, but that doesn't establish how convincingly fear works across repeated playthroughs. If frightened characters merely run in circles before returning to their assigned positions, the whole thing becomes a particularly unsuccessful fire evacuation exercise.
If stalking victims sounds too straightforward, SAW: Genesis lets you run the entire murder dungeon. Traps, toxins, terrified prisoners and the administrative responsibilities of being an absolute bastard.
The turkey leg has entered the murder investigation
Gone Feral also wants you to reconsider the intended purpose of ordinary household objects. Weapons have characteristics including damage, noise, durability and throwing properties. Some can serve as distractions or tools rather than simply alternative instruments for rearranging somebody's facial structure.
The advertised possibilities include guitars, turkey legs and severed limbs. Which raises several questions, beginning with why anyone would choose a turkey leg when a perfectly good severed limb is available.
Underneath the absurdity is a promising sandbox idea. A noisy weapon might work beautifully in direct combat but prove spectacularly unsuitable when three witnesses are nearby. A throwable object could distract someone even if it's useless in a fight. Different properties could encourage players to improvise with whatever the environment provides.
That's the interesting part. You're no longer simply searching for the designated weapon pickup. You're examining ordinary objects and wondering what sort of criminally irresponsible behaviour the developers have permitted.
Of course, this only works if those differences matter. If one weapon proves overwhelmingly effective, all that apparent freedom becomes decorative. Players will find the optimal murder implement and ignore everything else, which would be disappointing for a game apparently determined to turn a campsite into a hardware catalogue written by a psychopath.
How many times can you murder the same campsite?
The current playtest includes a tutorial, Gas Station and Summer Camp. Replayability comes from a roguelite structure that retains recognisable locations while varying targets, items and other details between attempts. Cash, experience, upgrades and mastery challenges provide additional incentives to repeat missions.
On paper, that makes sense. A stealth sandbox benefits from familiarity. Once you understand a location, you begin spotting opportunities that weren't obvious the first time. You learn where people go, what objects are available and how the environment might be manipulated.
Hitman excels at this because its best locations are carefully engineered. NPC routines intersect, unrelated events influence one another and ridiculous plans can unfold beautifully if you understand the moving parts.
Procedural variation could make Gone Feral less predictable, but it might also undermine that carefully constructed complexity. An early hands-on preview from Horror Geek Life raised a similar concern.
Randomly moving a few objects around doesn't automatically make a location interesting again. If the underlying assassination remains identical, you're effectively repeating the same job because somebody moved the stapler.
Mastery challenges might help by encouraging different strategies, but replayability depends on whether those strategies genuinely change the experience. There's only so many times you can murder everyone at the same petrol station before management really ought to consider additional security measures.
Or close the business entirely. The insurance premiums must be magnificent.
So, can Gone Feral deliver the slasher fantasy?
There's enough here to make Gone Feral worth watching. Its assassination structure supports meaningful villain play through stalking, disguises, environmental manipulation and deliberate killing. The improvised weapons offer opportunities for experimentation, while fear could become the system that gives the game its own identity.
The October 9 update, version 0.27e, introduced more than 125 changes, including substantial adjustments to combat, movement and NPC behaviour. Development is clearly active, but the game remains unfinished. Long-term replayability, final progression and cooperative multiplayer are still important unknowns.
What interests me most is the combination of two very different killers. One carefully studies routines, prepares opportunities and avoids detection. The other is an unstoppable horror villain whose reputation depends on everybody knowing he's coming.
If Gone Feral can make those approaches work together, it could produce something rather special. Imagine deliberately terrifying victims, manipulating their increasingly desperate decisions and choosing whether to finish the job through careful planning or a spectacularly unnecessary application of violence.
And if it turns out to be Hitman wearing a hockey mask, I can live with that too.
Although I do hope the developers explain why a man already wearing a hockey mask needs to steal somebody else's identity.
Still haven't had enough people making catastrophic survival decisions? Enter CRIMENET's Horror section for more monsters, murderers and games that provide compelling evidence humanity should never have left the trees.
Gone Feral FAQ
What is Gone Feral?
Gone Feral is an upcoming stealth-horror roguelike where you play as an ’80s slasher villain. You stalk victims, use disguises, manipulate fear and kill targets using improvised weapons and environmental opportunities.
When is Gone Feral coming out?
Gone Feral currently has no confirmed release date. The game is still in development.
Can you play Gone Feral now?
A limited single-player Steam playtest is available until October 31, 2026. It includes the tutorial, Gas Station and Summer Camp.
Will Gone Feral have multiplayer?
Yes, online co-op is planned for the finished game. However, the current playtest only supports single-player, and the multiplayer experience remains untested.
Is Gone Feral like Hitman?
Yes. Both games feature sandbox assassination, disguises, stealth and environmental opportunities. Gone Feral adds an ’80s slasher-horror setting, improvised weapons, roguelite progression and a fear system designed to influence victim behaviour.
Is Gone Feral a roguelike?
Yes. Gone Feral uses roguelite progression, with changing targets and item placements, upgrades and mastery challenges encouraging repeated attempts at familiar locations.
Comments