Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age is a free, beautiful, third-person Left 4 Dead

Run for the hills

First, take Left 4 Dead's four-player cooperative action--the whole "running around in unfamiliar locations and facing a non-stop assault of enemies." Alright, do you have it? Now, mix in Resident Evil 4's camera angle and moody environments. You're now looking at a third-person, moody game in which enemies are procedurally spawned to take you down, right? Good. Now blend in dozens of bosses with unique abilities, and make it free-to-play. Cool, did you mix them all together? Don't forget to add in a dash of absurdly beautiful graphics--this is Crytek, after all. Bake it for an hour at, and DING! You have Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age, one of the coolest games of E3 2014.

Developed by Cryteks Austin studio (comprised of ex-Darksiders developers), Hunt looks absolutely enthralling. The demo I saw took place in Louisiana, and had a group of four dapper gentlemen fighting enemies that looked like hillbilly versions of the Los Ganados from Resident Evil 4. They tossed axes, grabbed players, and tumbled around the beautifully rendered bayou. The developers said that the game is meant to be endlessly replayable, so things like enemy locations and traps are randomly generated--even the boss you're fighting could change from play to play. Crytek aims to have "the most bosses of any game," and if they're all as robust as the one that hid at the end of the demo we saw, we're in for a treat. She was a massive, nasty witch that swung around concrete blocks on chains. Early in the battle she sucked one player into a dream, and only he could see her. When she was hit she'd flash for a moment, allowing everyone to attack. It's a clever mechanic, and shows the kind of creativity that you have to look forward to.

The free-to-play model sounds great, too. Crytek is basically making a full AAA game and only charging for cosmetic gear, so everything else will be totally, completely free. Sound too good to be true? Sort of, but we'll withhold judgment on that front until the beta releases later this year.

Check out the following screenshots for additional info!

Characters are totally customizable.

There are plenty of special enemies, too.

These big guys can grab you and choke you out--you'll need to break free, or wait for a teammate to save you.

A beta is releasing this year, but the whole game is hitting PCs (and possibly consoles, according to the devs) in 2015.