Old West, New Look.
Overhauling a game to catch up to modern hardware is one thing, changing core systems, UI, and the feel of the game can often clash with what its die-hard audience wants from it or expects. While several changes have been extremely welcomed by its player base, Hunt: Showdown 1896 has seen the community split on the revamped UI, as well as some features set to give console players a slight advantage. As this is my first foray into Hunt: Showdown, The UI debate is one that I am slowly starting to see the point of its controversy but is also a game that while I do enjoy playing it, I don’t quite love it.
For what it is worth, Hunt: Showdown 1896 is superb in what it aims to do. While I am not terribly great at the game, I’ve jumped into several hours to understand what has made this such a cult hit, a game with a passionate fan base that is thankful for the new update but understandingly wants a better design for the UI and debating its use of aim assist for console players via crossplay. Currently, the game is getting review bombed to hell and back on Steam, an act of defiance where players want to be heard. And heard they have been, as the team has issued out a statement that they will continue to revamp the UI to serve the needs of its players.
Hunt: Showdown 1896 is a rebuilt version of the 2018 original using the latest Crytek 5.11 engine. While the game has currently scrapped many of its existing maps to retool them for the new and enhanced visuals, to be released at a later date, we currently only have one map in Mammon’s Gulch, an environment that is exceedingly large and offers a decent bit of variety amongst the mining town aesthetic. Many of the new features for this enhanced version include redone gun sounds that offer a more realistic audio experience for bullets zipping by your head to bullet drop when it comes to taking the long-range route and becoming a capable sniper.
This update to the new engine means 4K visuals that run at a pretty consistent 60fps on console, an effort that has seen the previous-gen PS4 and Xbox One to be left out in the cold as the game has moved on to this current stock of hardware. The new visuals are rather impressive and while the Series S console does allow for that 60fps life, it does so at the sake of dropping its resolution from 4K down to 2K, so do keep that in mind. Still, Hunt: Showdown has never looked and felt better.
In addition, there are new animals lying about such as wounded cows and bats, new weapons to equip, new ammo types to make those shots count, bear traps to bring into the fight, as well as reduced cooldowns for hunter timers for bleeding out and burning. While there are additional updates to this enhanced and rebuilt experience, those are the general points when discussing what has truly changed from plain ol’ Hunt: Showdown.
This new update also brings us a brand new wild target; the Hellborn. This target is different from your normal bounty targets as you’ll generally just find it roaming about via the new Colorado map. Resembling a larger Immolator, this fiend screams, throws fire, and can be incredibly deadly if you get too close. This battle is often loud and involved and since Hunt: Showdown is a game of PVPVE while you tend to your objective of taking down bounties and escaping with them, this fight can turn into an all-out gunfight between all the teams present, allowing those on the sidelines to pick apart those active in the skirmish.
Hunt: Showdown 1896 doesn’t change up the foundation of what was present in the base game, at least in significant ways. You still jump into the fight via teams or two, three, or just by yourself and tend to the bounty system of killing the target and escaping with your bounties. Granted, there is a true single-player mode that is more or less a battle royal to earn a new hunter, but I only found limited fun in that since I was largely competing against people who have played hundreds of hours of this. While that is true of the bounty mode, it feels even more so here as you are essentially alone.
My first couple of matches were through its matchmaking, waiting for my friends to log in so that we could jump into trios and look for that dub. While this allowed me to understand the game and grasp just exactly what it was and what it wanted from me, despite the pretty decent tutorials provided, it also showed me the quality of the matches without any sort of active voice chat. That said, it was hit or miss mostly. While there is a ping system, I don’t find it to be visually apparent, with the icon not really standing out. Still, I was able to rack up a few wins without ever talking or interacting with my teammates. Was I still wearing a headset? Sure, I mean the binaural audio is to die for, but it also meant I could talk to my teammates if I wanted. Did anyone reply back? No, not really.
However, when one of my friends did log in, the game didn’t allow for the pair of us to matchmake into trios. This is an insanely bizarre choice since solo matching into trios is a thing and works extremely well. Why there is a restriction because I have brought someone into my party makes zero sense. I also want to point out that inviting another player to join can often result in a few error messages and prompts that mention they could be on another server, such as US East or US West. Instead of giving one player an option to change it during the invite, you have to manually change it in the settings and then invite again. It’s an odd series of switches to flip to simply match up with your friends who might be all over the world. In fact, in order to even allow my friend to join, we both had to reset our game several times, as our initial invites would constantly error out. While it works fine now, my initial impression still stuck with me.
Matches can load fairly quickly or the exact opposite. For the better part of my matches, my queue to get into a round is anywhere from 45 seconds to 3 or 4 minutes, which doesn’t count the minute or so of syncing all players as the game is about to begin. I think the longest I waited for a match to be found was about 7 minutes, causing me to browse social media on my phone while it attempted to get something going. Granted, some matches have been extremely quick to find, but it’s very inconsistent. Given this is a new version of the game with more players than it has ever seen before, I’m willing to chalk it up to servers being taxed and the player count being substantial.
Update: two weeks after launch and my queue times are still about the same.
The core idea of Hunt: Showdown is tracking down a wild target, killing it, performing a ritual called a banishing, and then escaping with the bounty that is part of that process. You’ll do this with other teams in play, often tracking down one monster or two alongside you, aiming to gun you down in the process. The location of the monster is deduced by tracking down three clues that are revealed by using a vision mode called Dark Sight. These clues materialize as a series of blue blobs or swirling shapes, almost as if they were blue insects buzzing about giving off an aura. Granted, if you stumble upon the boss, you don’t really need to find the other clues.
While PVP is a major component of the game, there are countless monsters present that convert this into a PVPVE experience. While gunning down these zombies, mutated dogs, and abominations is all good and well, firing off your weapons is a good way to cause other players to know where you are. This is on top of kennelled dogs barking, wounded horses neighing or birds cawing and flying away, giving away your position. These can be avoided by keeping your distance or using other silent means to cancel them out. And while they certainly can work against you, you can also use them to your benefit, such as keeping enemies alive to also cause you to figure out if someone is nearby and trigger happy.
I mentioned I am split on Hunt: Showdown 1896, and that is I don’t click with the gunplay as much as I would have liked. Sometimes it is the feel of a gun, the speed of the reload, or other factors like the time to kill sometimes feeling like you’ll die to a single bullet. Where I am truly split; however, is in how you outfit your loadout and procure hunters. Each match will see you outfit your hunter’s kit with two rifles, and some consumables. Each weapon and item has a cost and that is displayed via your Hunt Dollars. These are earned generally by looting, killing, and winning the match. Each gun and item has its own range of cost, and since dying will see that hunter deleted from your stable, something akin to a rogue-like, having to respend to restock can take the wind out of the game’s sails, especially when you die to something incredibly stupid.
When it comes to your loadout, it can mean the difference between life and death. While you’ll have a few free options to outfit your hunter, taking the bare minimum or the cheapest options won’t always play out in your favor. So, for example, let’s take a look at some costs. If you grab a free hunter, they will come with gear, so there is no cost in taking them for a spin. While I’ll get to why that isn’t always the best thing shortly, the fact they exist is still a great thing to keep you playing. So when you purchase a hunter, whether it is via DLC or through the Blood Bonds paid currency, you get that hunter for a single life. Should they die, then you spend Hunt Dollars to buy another instance of that hunter. This costs 100 Hunter Dollars.
For the sake of the example, I have 6,873 Hunt Dollars right now. So, when it comes to buying Otis Blackwell again after I just lost him in the previous round, 100 Hunt Dollars is practically nothing. However, unlike those “free” hunters, he doesn’t come with anything equipped. So, let’s take a look at equipping him and what it costs. In my large slot, which is reserved for the more impactful rifles and shotguns, I like using the Vetterli 71 Deadeye. This costs 110 Hunt Dollars. However, should I want to equip the Nitro Express, that gun costs 1015 Hunt Dollars. The handgun that I like to use is the Uppercut, but that costs 414 Hunt Dollars, so I usually opt for the Scottfield or the Pax, which run 77 and 80, respectively. The first aid kit then costs me 30, and is mandatory, a knife costs me 40, and I usually want to bring some Fire Bombs and Ammo kits, which run 60 for the Fire Bombs and 65 for the Ammo box. So, a typical spend can see me using around 819 Hunt Dollars meaning I can likely use that same loadout only around 8 times if I am not earning more Hunt Dollars. This causes me to be far more frugal in my equipment choices since it is sort of a risk-reward system, one that doesn’t always work out in my favor, especially losing my hunter. It makes me sort of wish there was a three-strike system instead, making me feel a tiny bit less threatened upon losing it all over some dumb mistake. I get why the game is built this way, I just don’t feel as on board with it as others may be. Did this affect my score? Absolutely not.
Now, I mentioned that the ‘free” hunters are not terribly great and that is down to the fact they only come with one random perk. Paid hunters return with a set of three randomized perks and frankly, the first time I brought Otis back to life, he had far better perks than he originally had. That said, that set of three perks are long gone now, so it’s pretty moot for discussion. As you level up the Hunter, by surviving the round and earning experience, you then can purchase more perks to make them even more sturdy and more reliable. It’s a good system, provided your hunter survives to use it in the first place. These perks range from earning health upon looting a hunter, being able to equip better items, to having monsters being unable to even see you, though, they can still hear you. All in all, there are 55 perks or so, each costing a different amount of skill tokens that you earn from leveling up. However, should that hunter die, all that progress is gone, even if you bring back that same hunter back to life.
Now, despite the rogue-like nature of losing it all if you die, I keep jumping back into the game because I find the loop and overall gameplay to be rather engaging. I’m rubbish when it comes to fighting other hunters, but the world, the feel of the game, certainly gives me the impression that there is something there to enjoy. Sure, I get a lucky shot and have won about a dozen matches, but I’ve lost even more, seeing my seasoned hunter fade into dust and having to start fresh yet again.
Apart from the standard bounty mode, you also have the battle pass to consider as well. This unlocks new hunters, charms, guns, bullet types, blood bonds, and various equipment. It also unlocks portions of a story. These moments are thankfully disconnected from actually owning the battlepass, so I was able to experience some of them. These are audio logs with decent presentation and quality, allowing you to understand the narrative of this Scorched Earth season. Currently, there are fifteen entries, but you’ll need to reach level 49 of the battlepass to experience them all.
Hunt: Showdown 1896 is an impressive overhaul to a pretty enjoyable game. While the UI has sparked controversy and the team is set to revamp it further, many players have had performance issues on PC that are still present. Regardless, it’s impressive to see the visual enhancements for PS5 and Series X/S that bring the game a bit closer to the medium/high-end PC experience, especially with the jump to 60fps across all platforms. While its rogue-like elements don’t always sit well with me, I can’t deny how fun the game can often be, even if I am dying as frequently as I am. As the team continues to add the previous maps with the extra coat of paint on them and refine what is present, I think this overhauled version of Hunt: Showdown will continue to live on, improve, and give players exactly what they want.
Developer - Crytek. Publisher - Crytek. Released - August 15th, 2024. Available On - Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PC. Rated - (M) - Blood and Gore, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X. Review Access - A review code was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.