This is a review of a game "Hunt Showdown". The game is available for PS4, Xbox One, and Microsoft Windows. Hunt Showdown is a first-person shooter developed and published by Crytek. The game is set in Louisiana in 1895 with the region being infested with a wide variety of demonic monstrosities you play as a hunter and your job is to explore the game world find clues and take on monster bosses to gain tokens. The game has three modes, trials are a solo experience where you explore the map and take on challenges, quick play is a 15-minute solo match with the last hunter standing wins and bounty hunt is an hour-long mode where solos duos, or trios hunt bounties whilst competing with other human players for tokens.
What is the game like to play
Firstly, the practice mode is fantastic and it lets you develop your skills before jumping in the deep end. Bounty matches see you dropped into the map where you have to use your spirit world senses to locate clues, find three clues and you'll locate a bounty which is basically a boss fight. Kill the boss extract the bounty then head for the extraction point but everyone else is doing the same as you so you need to keep your eyes peeled for other hunters. Being set in 1895 the game has old-world firearms that look great but as you'd expect from the era they are very slow when reloading. One key feature of hunt showdown is the permadeath system which may be a bold choice but also feels a tad unnecessary.
Basically, before you start a match you need a hunter so you go to the store to buy one but there is always a free one there if you don't have any cash. They come with basic weapons but you can equip a bespoke loadout once you've purchased the items. Now for the first few levels, you won't lose any hunters they don't like penalize you but once you break the threshold if your hunter dies in a match you lose them forever as well as all the equipment they were carrying. It is a cool idea but one that ultimately just adds a lot of admin to the experience as if you die in a match and you want to jump right back in you have to have a spare hunter in your locker. if not you've got to buy one and kit them out in the poorly optimized menus. so it's an interesting idea but one that I didn't feel really added any value to the experience.
The game maps are excellent though and they're really beautifully created the misty and creepy Louisiana swamps are very atmospheric and the matches take place at random times of the day. It feels a bit like resident evil 7 stylistically in terms of the PvE and it could have been a standalone story game in my opinion it's that high quality in terms of design. When you're exploring the creepy map watching out for zombies savage dogs and freakish monsters it's a riveting and exhilarating survival horror experience. The bosses are terrifying and those encounters take place in dark and narrow locations where you'll fight giant spiders, stealthy assassins, and deadly butchers but you've also got to deal with the PvP as in the other human players. Now this game was marketed as a PvP game in the main but to be honest it feels more focused on PvE in terms of the enjoyment I'd say players will get from this game you know finding clues, killing monsters, extractions. That is really fun. The human encounters though they differ in terms of enjoyment.
The main issue is that the controls are quite awkward and the characters are very slow in terms of their movements. Add to that the old-school weapons and the horrifyingly slow weapon loading times it makes any human encounter a case of who gets the first shot off usually wins. It kind of sucks the life out of the PvE enjoyment as these encounters really don't help because of the slow nature of the combat one other issue for new players is that the existing community are a little bit snooty as in when you match with other young hunters at the beginning. If they see that you're low level they will unmatch you almost all of the time so if you want to play co-op I would recommend getting a mate to buy this and then you can play with them.
Graphically the maps are awesome and it's one of the most atmospheric and creepy game worlds i've explored. The character models look good. The monster designs are amazing and they're horrific. However, the menus are poorly optimized with unnecessarily small fonts, and considering you'll be spending a lot of time in the menus buying and kitting out hunters it seems a bit of an oversight by the developers. The sound is excellent and noise adds a tactical element to the battle royale experience. Crows, guns, or explosions reveal your position to other players as well as the terrifying monster sounds. The music in the game is amazing and the first time you load up the game you're greeted with this amazing main theme but overall the music is just wonderful.
What's Good and What's Bad
What's good: The PvE part of the experience is amazing it's a great co-op experience. The maps are all well designed and creepy as hell, the monsters are awesome and it's a bit like an open-world resident evil game and the sound and the music amazing.
What's Bad: The permadeath system is a bold feature but one that ultimately doesn't really add any value to the game. The PvP suffers from slow character movement and archaic weapons meaning encounters often feel random. The weapon reloading times are an absolute nightmare and the game in general tries to implement too many ideas rather than focusing on what it does best which is PvE.
What's the Verdict
Hunt's Showdown is a very interesting and unique game experience. It has a surprising amount of depth and the level and character designs are wonderful. Imagine if Resident Evil 7 The Texas Chainsaw massacre and Red dead 2 all got merged into one game that's what you get here something very eclectic which stands out from the crowd but also an experience that is perhaps a tad over-optimistic as to what it can achieve. You know with the character movement being so slow and the weapons being from 1895 it makes you feel very vulnerable, which is perfect for survival horror PvE games as it increases the tension but when you adopt those principles to a competitive PvP game. It really makes the whole experience suffer massively and it's very painful and frustrating also factoring in the perma-death meaning you lose all your purchased gear when you die it really takes the shine off the overall experience. So in summary it's a fantastic PvE experience that will have you on the edge of your seat as you explore the creepy and dangerous swamps of Louisiana but as a PVP game, it's a fairly middle-of-the-road experience due to the sluggish nature of the combat. Also, the marketing for this game seems a bit odd as from what I saw it emphasized the PVP over the PvE but honestly, this is really just PvE and it's bloody amazing at it but if you want a good PVP game then you're much better off with COD Warzone or Fortnite.
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Wonderful game