Dread X Collection 4: The Hunt

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Seven horror shooters, reached from an abandoned arctic base.

Platforms: PC
Stores: Steam
Price: Paid
Rated: Very Positive on Steam (89% of about 470 reviews)
Length: about 8 to 12 hours
Players: 1
Made by: DreadXP and David Szymanski, with seven indie teams
Released: 2021

What frightens Seven short horror shooters, from photographing diseased animals for the CDC to hunting a pagan cult with a crossbow and banishing a plague demon, reached from an abandoned arctic research base whose own mystery you uncover.
Content: violence, blood, some gore, references to self-harm, violence against animals.

Dread X Collection: The Hunt is the fourth Dread X Collection, co-produced with DUSK creator David Szymanski: seven short horror shooters by indie developers, connected by a launcher world in an abandoned arctic research base. The store puts the whole collection at 8 to 12 hours.

About Dread X Collection 4: The Hunt

Dread X Collection: The Hunt was published by DreadXP in April 2021, the fourth in its anthology series after Dread X Collection 2 and 3. It was co-produced with David Szymanski, maker of DUSK and Squirrel Stapler, and every game in it is a horror shooter, whether the weapon is a gun, a camera or both. The developers were chosen to represent the range of indie shooters, and were given twenty days instead of the series' usual ten.

The launcher is a world of its own. You play Artemis, a newcomer to the series, who follows a cryptic message from someone in her past to the ARK 2 research base in the arctic. You explore the abandoned base, uncover what happened there and, as the store puts it, might save the world.

The seven games: in Uktena 64 by KIRA you hunt and photograph diseased animals for the CDC; Axis Mundi has a ghost photographer cleanse a haunted new shopping mall; in Black Relic a monk takes up his crossbow against the pagan cult that sacked his monastery; Rose of Meat strands you on a staring island with a revolver and a talking leg of meat; Seraphixial sends a father through a submarine to another world to find his daughter; The Fruit sets you against the deranged locals of an 1884 town with an interactive reload system; and in The House of Unrest a demon-hunting priest fights the plague demon Asakku with a gun and the light of God.

It suits players who like retro and indie shooters with a horror edge, and want a sampler of many makers with a larger story around them.

How to play Dread X Collection 4: The Hunt

Buy it on Steam for Windows.
Explore the ARK 2 arctic base as Artemis to find your way into each game.
Play the seven horror shooters, each with its own weapons and rules.
Return to the base between games to uncover what happened there.

Screenshots

The ARK 2 research base half buried in snow, with a satellite dish on its roof

A chained-shut door in the base with blood pooled on the floor and splashed on the wall

First-person view holding an old camera toward a figure with a glowing orange mask in a snowy compound

A pixelated low-poly scene in the rain: a horned figure in red faces the player across a dark courtyard

Tips

Spread the games over several sessions; the whole collection is 8 to 12 hours.
Read each game's controls: some shoot with a camera rather than a gun.
In The Fruit, get used to its interactive reload system before the locals close in.

Questions

How long is Dread X Collection: The Hunt?

The store says 8 to 12 hours for the whole collection.

How many games are in Dread X Collection 4?

Seven horror shooters, plus the launcher world set in an arctic base.

Who made Dread X Collection: The Hunt?

DreadXP and David Szymanski produced it, with games by KIRA, Torple Dook, Christopher Yabsley, Dan McGrath, Mr. Pink, Philip Hesselbäck, and Vidas Games with Aaron Wise and Abbey Smith.