Hunt: Showdown is an upcoming multiplayer first person shooting survival game initially developed by Crytek USA and later moved to the Crytek Frankfurt Headquarters following the closing of the Crytek USA subsidiary. The game has been in development for a long time and has already been announced twice; once in 2014 and then in May 2017.
Earlier this week, this tweet was sent out from the game’s official handle, which announced that the game will be available on Steam Early Access. No date was announced.
We are coming to Steam Early Access, read the article now on @IGN and wishlist the game on Steam! https://t.co/h9tGZRfzHj pic.twitter.com/0ZtaLHGp65
— Hunt: Showdown (@HuntShowdown) October 12, 2017
Hunt: Showdown features multiplayer battles in which the player’s gear will be persistent across all matches, other players cannot be looted and new weapons and equipment can be bought using in game currency. However, if a player dies in a match, they will lose all their stuff and the character as well. Ammo will be replenished every time a match is completed; there is no unlimited ammo and no weapon degrading system in the game. Regarding the absence of a looting system, Dennis Schwarz, lead designer for Hunt had this to say:
“You cannot loot dead players in Hunt. We want players to focus on completing the match, rather than on killing all the other players. PvP is an important part of the game, so yeah, it is an advantage to take out your competition, but without a looting element there is a little less motivation to do so. What you can do, however, is steal other players’ bounties. This creates some great ambush scenarios where you let another team do all the dirty work and take them out on their way off the map.”
The game is set in late 19th century Louisiana and boasts a large open world map where players must battle for bounty on the numerous monsters that lurk in the swamps. These monsters include The Butcher, The Spider, Meathead, The Hive, The infection etc. All these characters feature unique interactions and must be killed in order to receive in game currency. Where it gets interesting is that there are other players in the map playing with you for the same rewards. This scenario makes for some pretty interesting interactions and gameplay techniques. A player may decide to rush in and take the opponents by surprise or constantly follow and them while they kill the creatures and gather bounty only to snatch it from them at the end. The possibilities are endless.
Hunt: Showdown will be released for Windows but the release date has not been revealed by the developers yet.
