Hunger’s playtest just came out, resulting in people and specially streamers to flood the game. With tons of streams and videos coming out now, several important questions about the game are being asked. We are going to focus on the PVP aspect of the game in this guide, specifically on combat and its techniques, the best weapons, and viable characters.
This guide covers the October 2026 Closed Beta. Some mechanics may change in future updates, and the article will also be updated accordingly.
Table of Contents
How Does PvP Work in HUNGER?
If you are familiar with Hunt: Showdown, then you will feel right at home in Hunger as well. PVP extraction shooter with gritty, slow-paced fights that require you to plan and listen to sound indicators to evade traps and ambushes. A well-designed melee fight system is also implemented, not as detailed as Chivalry, but still takes some skill and training to get used to.
The game follows the same concept as many other extraction games: jump in the map, do quests and loot, fight other living beings, and try to extract from the map alive. However, unlike other extraction-type games, there are heavy RPG elements in this game, which give way to builds.
In general, PVP is divided into two main sections: range and melee. Each of these two sections has dedicated skills and passives catered to them. Each has a set of special weapons that can give variety to playstyle and make the game unpredictable.
How to Win Melee Fights in HUNGER
Melee is quite detailed in HUNGER. While many games resort to simple light attack, heavy attack, and block and consider it enough to resolve the fights, HUNGER has taken it a step further. Directional attacks, specific heavy attacks for different melee weapons, and spacing and location chip in how you fight, changing the melee battlefield from a simple stat-check fight to a battle of tactics and skill.
Manage Stamina and Energy Separately
Stamina and Energy are different in Hunger. Stamina controls movement; jumping, sprinting, and dodging cost you stamina. On the other hand, Energy controls combat maneuvers. Attacking, blocking, and lunging all cost you energy.
All of these mechanics are added to the game so that melee combat doesn’t turn into a frenzy of barbaric swings. You need to time your attacks, position yourself correctly, and look for windows to land actual hits, rather than swing and pray that your enemy panics and you hit them.
Why is that a bad strategy? Cause you will run out of energy very fast that way. No energy means suboptimal defence and nearly no damage done to the enemy. All in all, melee fights revolve around spacing, positioning, and resource management. But that’s not all.
Use Blocks and Parries to Disrupt the Flow of Combat
Parry is the new addition to the game; a patch was issued on 20th of October, and it was added to the game. This makes timing our blocks a worthwhile choice and allows you to make more plays as a melee-focused character. But if you want a deeper dive into the melee combat of this game, you should check out our guide on HUNGER melee PVP combat.
HUNGER Melee Weapons: Damage and Hits to Down
The melee weapons list is shorter in number than guns but cover that with more of a variety. From knives and clubs to halberds and sabres, these weapons allow players to find the right play style and personalize their melee arsenal.
| Weapon | Rarity | Light DMG | Heavy DMG | Light DMG (No Energy) | Guard Drain/s | Hits to Down* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zweihander | Legendary | 52 | 82 | 33.8 | 25 | 2 / 3 |
| Halberd | Epic | 46 | 70 | 23 | 25 | 2 / 3 |
| Sabre | Epic | 34 | 50 | 17 | 30 | 2 / 4 |
| Axe | Rare | 30 | 44 | 15 | 30 | 3 / 5 |
| Rapier | Rare | 28 | 42 | 14 | 30 | 3 / 5 |
| Spear | Rare | 42 | 58 | 21 | 25 | 2 / 4 |
| War Axe | Rare | 40 | 60 | 20 | 25 | 2 / 4 |
| Longsword | Uncommon | 38 | 49 | 19 | 25 | 3 / 5 |
| Mace | Uncommon | 30 | 40 | 15 | 30 | 3 / 5 |
| Short Sword | Uncommon | 26 | 34 | 13 | 30 | 3 / 6 |
| Club | Common | 34 | 43 | 17 | 25 | 3 / 5 |
| Dagger | Common | 24 | 30 | 12 | 30 | 4 / 7 |
| Pricker | Common | 20 | 25 | 10 | 30 | 4 / 8 |
*Hits to Down: No Armor / Full Legendary Armor. Based on the strongest body attack. Light damage is the base value before directional modifiers. All listed melee weapons consume 6 Energy per light attack and 12 per heavy attack.
How to Win Ranged PvP Fights
While melee is very well thought out, ranged fights dictate a huge part of the game as well. A variety of weapons, with different reload times, bullet velocity, and fire rates, make gun fights in this game a heavily tactical part of it.
You start the game with the starter musket, Brown Betty. It takes a long time to reload, and usually it takes more than one shot to take down another player. That’s what you see on anyone’s first playthrough of the game. But as you advance through the game and level up your characters, you gain mastery points, which can be put into gun-related skills like faster reload or better recoil control.
The game happens in the Napoleonic era of wars; that’s why it allows you to use guns and melee weapons together. The guns, however, are pretty slow to reload and shoot differently than what you are used to in Tarkov or Arc Raiders. Here you need to count every shot that you make and make sure they land somewhere, either on the bots around the map or, even better, on enemy players. HUNGER requires you to think for every choice. So don’t rush.
Best Strategy For Ranged PvP Fights
The way you win fights at range comes with finding suitable cover. Fighting in the open is the easiest way to get traded and die with loot on you. Find yourself a good covered area, with good vision on your target, and find the suitable time to line your shots. Keep in mind that the guns take a long time to reload, so do have a backup melee plan if you can’t finish the enemy off with your gun.
HUNGER Ranged Weapons: Damage, Magazine and Reload Times
The greater Variety of weapons is found in the range section of this game, with three different types of guns: pistols and rifles. They follow normal video game logic: pistols deal less damage and have shorter range but offer faster reload time, Rifles take more time to reload but they have longer range and deal more damage.
| Weapon | Rarity | Damage | Full DMG Range | Magazine | RPM | Reload (s) | Hits to Down* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volcan (Pistol) | Legendary | 36 | 40 m | 8 | 80 | 11 | 3 / 6 |
| Borodino (Pistol) | Epic | 34 | 40 m | 5 | 120 | 10.5 | 3 / 6 |
| Marengo (Pistol) | Epic | 39 | 40 m | 6 | 120 | 30 | 3 / 6 |
| Morgan (Pistol) | Epic | 43 | 40 m | 4 | 240 | 5 | 3 / 5 |
| Cavalier (Pistol) | Rare | 65 | 70 m | 1 | 120 | 5.5 | 2 / 4 |
| Deux (Pistol) | Rare | 54 | 70 m | 2 | 30 | 8.6 | 2 / 4 |
| Auster (Pistol) | Uncommon | 48 | 40 m | 2 | 240 | 12.6 | 3 / 5 |
| Longboy (Pistol) | Common | 56 | 50 m | 1 | 120 | 9.9 | 2 / 4 |
| Snub (Pistol) | Common | 49 | 40 m | 1 | 120 | 8.5 | 3 / 5 |
| Belier (Rifle) | Legendary | 11 | 40 m | 60 | 706 | 9 | 10 / 19 |
| Drak (Rifle) | Legendary | 107 | 50 m | 1 | 120 | 3.2 | 1 / 2 |
| Farsight Drak (Rifle) | Legendary | 107 | 50 m | 1 | 120 | 3.2 | 1 / 2 |
| Jager (Rifle) | Legendary | 82 | 100 m | 1 | 120 | 3.9 | 2 / 3 |
| Farsight Swan (Rifle) | Epic | 40 | 50 m | 6 | 120 | 5.9 | 3 / 5 |
| Farsight Voir (Rifle) | Epic | 55 | 50 m | 1 | 60 | 2.1 | 2 / 4 |
| Lasher (Rifle) | Epic | 30 | 40 m | 14 | 300 | 33.9 | 4 / 7 |
| Lionne (Rifle) | Epic | 38 | 50 m | 8 | 67 | 21.3 | 3 / 6 |
| Swan (Rifle) | Epic | 40 | 50 m | 6 | 120 | 5.9 | 3 / 5 |
| Voir (Rifle) | Epic | 55 | 50 m | 1 | 60 | 2.1 | 2 / 4 |
| Kompas (Rifle) | Rare | 36 | 70 m | 4 | 100 | 3.4 | 3 / 6 |
| Vepr (Rifle) | Rare | 34 | 50 m | 12 | 100 | 21.5 | 3 / 6 |
| Louisville (Rifle) | Uncommon | 74 | 70 m | 1 | 120 | 13.4 | 2 / 3 |
| Volant (Rifle) | Uncommon | 22 | 40 m | 9 | 71 | 4.2 | 5 / 10 |
| Brown Betty (Rifle) | Common | 67 | 50 m | 1 | 120 | 10.8 | 2 / 3 |
*Hits to Down: No Armor / Full Legendary Armor, using body shots. Damage is per bullet before distance falloff. Full DMG Range is the maximum distance at which bullets retain full damage. Reload is the time to refill an empty weapon completely.
Best Weapons for HUNGER PvP Fights
While there’s no “pick this and auto win” weapon in the game, the higher-tier weapons give you a definitive edge in combat, one that cannot be ignored.
For melee, the legendary weapon Zweihander takes the crown for how fast it can take down enemies in a head-on fight. However, in smaller corridors, you can’t use the weapon, as it gets stuck on the walls around you and is practically useless. For these situations, like when you know you want to dive into a dungeon with small and tight corridors, it’s better to arm yourself with an epic Sabre to compensate for the lack of space. Sabre hits to down is the same as Zweihander on an unarmored opponent but loses its edge against armored opponents.
For range, it really comes down to your build and style, but you can’t go wrong with the legendary pistol Volcan for a quick switch from melee to firearm to end the fight, superior to other pistols due to its magazine capacity. But if you look for more threatening firepower, or want to try to one-shot people, the Farsight Drak is the gun to go for: one shot to kill unarmored enemies and two shots for legendary armor, which is insane.
If none of these two pique your interest, then I can recommend the Belier, which allows you to play with suppressive fire and keep the enemy down in their cover, while your friends flank them and finish the job!
Best Characters for PvP in HUNGER
There are a total of 6 characters (Classes) in HUNGER for now, and among them, there are a few that stand out on top of the roster in terms of PvP. I’m not going to rank them above or below each other, but I’m going to point out where each one stands in the field of expertise.
Gabriel: Aggressive PvP
Gaberial is the choice for those who love an aggressive playstyle. His ultimate allows him to lifesteal; his charge passive allows him to reduce distance quickly. He’s hard to kill due to his tactical ability and too dangerous to ignore.
Eva: Ambush and Close-Range Pressure
Eva is the slippery character who uses stealth and a massive flashbang ultimate to bring us the Rogue/Assassin like gameplay with fast engage and disengage and ambush treatment. Her passive allows her to run for longer, and her tactical ability allows her to run almost silently for 30 seconds. Become a ghost and hunt people down with her.
Hugo: Melee-Focused Combat
Hugo is the melee specialist. So I won’t be going too much into detail for him here. You can read about him in our guide on HUNGER melee PvP.
Marie: Team Support
If you are like me and play with a bunch of hot-headed friends that like to rush into battle without a second thought, then Marie is the choice to go for. My girl has a self-heal as her tactical, a faster revive as her passive, and her ultimate is a team heal that works in an area of 50m around her. Just remember to not waste her abilities mid-fight, as damage cancels her healing effects.
How to Survive Extraction PvP and Avoid Ambushes
If you have played any other form of extraction games, you know that exactly near the end of your run, where you can see the extraction point and a sigh of relief is about to leave you, is the moment of a deadly ambush from greedy campers ready to take all your loot and dunk on you.
Extraction in HUNGER works with balloons waiting for you in the extraction areas. Upon reaching the area, you have to survive for 30 seconds before you are able to interact with the balloon and be taken away. This 30-second period is one of the deadliest times of your run in any HUNGER lobby. Make sure to clear the surrounding area and check for dead smoke.
Dead smoke is the red smoke emitted by the balloon when two or more parties arrive at the extraction point at the same time. This is a mechanism to stop extraction point ambushes, but don’t think you’re safe if you don’t see red smoke around the balloon. People might be using their long-range rifles and watching your every move.
Final PvP Tips for the Closed Beta
HUNGER is a game of choices. To fight in this area or leave, to lure enemies out with sound, or stalk them in the distance. Don’t rush in to every sound you hear, don’t shoot at every person you see, and don’t get too greedy. Survival is more important than getting one more kill. Strategize and synergise with your friends to survive the harsh world of HUNGER.
