Hunt: Showdown 1896 Review Summary

Satisfying gunplay rewards tactical accuracy: The gunplay is satisfying and unique due to the 1896 era weapons. Headshots are lethal regardless of weapon, promoting tactical play and rewarding accuracy. The game offers a variety of weapons, tools, and consumables, allowing for diverse tactics and gameplay experiences.

Exceptional sound design enhances immersion: The sound design is exceptional and crucial for gameplay. It allows players to pinpoint enemy locations, weapon types, and movements, creating a tense and immersive atmosphere where sound is as important as sight. Recent updates have further improved the audio using CrySpatial, enhancing positional accuracy.

Core gameplay is fun, original: The core gameplay was considered quite good, fun, and original. The reviewer values the intense emotions the game evokes, even negative ones. The game has good game mechanics. The game has an original idea.

Unique atmosphere blends horror, western: The game features a unique blend of southern gothic, horror, and wild west themes, creating a dense, dark, and cinematic atmosphere. The sound design is exceptional and a central gameplay mechanic. The setting, art direction, and atmosphere are major attractions.

New map is well-designed: The new map, Mammon's Gulch, is a triumph and shows continuous improvement in level design, surpassing previous maps. The new map is visually appealing and well-designed, featuring detailed factories, mines, mountains, and multi-story buildings. The maps are complex, detailed, and visually appealing.

New UI is a downgrade: The new UI is widely disliked, with many reviewers describing it as a downgrade and a step back in usability. It is often criticized for being console-oriented, cluttered, and inconvenient, especially for PC players. The UI's poor design and lack of user-friendliness detract from the overall player experience.

Unbalanced matchmaking: Matchmaking is often unbalanced, pitting new players against experienced veterans or cheaters. This leads to frustrating and unfair matches, especially for solo players. The ranking system is also criticized for being inconsistent and easily manipulated, further exacerbating the matchmaking issues.

Frequent server disconnections: The game experiences frequent freezes, crashes, and map bugs, disrupting gameplay and requiring restarts. The new map, in particular, suffers from optimization issues and clipping problems. These technical issues detract from the overall user experience and make the game less enjoyable. The game suffers from frequent server disconnections, lag, and packet loss, disrupting the gameplay experience.

Too many unnecessary menus: The game has too many unnecessary menus and submenus, making navigation cumbersome and time-consuming. Important information is often hidden, and the UI is inconsistent, requiring players to use both mouse and keyboard for simple tasks. These issues contribute to a frustrating and inefficient user experience.

Lacking map variety: The game suffers from a lack of map variety, with updates often removing maps or forcing players to play on the same map repeatedly. This leads to repetitive gameplay and a sense of monotony. Additionally, some reviewers feel that recent updates have damaged the game's foundation and made it less enjoyable.

Unique PvPvE extraction shooter: Hunt: Showdown is a unique PvPvE extraction shooter set in a 19th-century horror-western setting. Players compete as bounty hunters to track and eliminate monsters while fighting other players for the same bounty. The core gameplay loop involves finding clues, hunting bosses, and extracting with the bounty, blending strategy, tension, and survival.

Tactical gameplay rewards strategy: The game emphasizes tactical and strategic gameplay over run-and-gun approaches. Players must utilize sound awareness, positioning, and team play to succeed. The variety of weapons, tools, and perks allows for diverse playstyles, from stealthy ambushes to aggressive confrontations.

Deliberate gunplay with historical weapons: The game features a variety of historical weapons from the late 19th century, each with unique characteristics and handling. Gunplay is deliberate and requires precise aiming due to slow reload times and limited ammunition. Mastering the weapons and understanding their strengths and weaknesses is essential for success.

Permadeath creates high stakes: Hunt: Showdown features a permadeath system where players lose their hunter and all their equipment upon death. This mechanic adds significant risk and tension to each match, making every decision critical. Successful missions reward players with experience and money to improve hunters or buy new equipment.

Hunt bosses, banish, extract bounty: The core objective involves locating and eliminating a boss monster, then banishing it to claim a bounty. This process alerts other players to your location, creating tense situations and potential ambushes. Successfully extracting with the bounty is the ultimate goal.

Optimization significantly worsened post-update: Many reviewers reported that the game's optimization has worsened, leading to increased hardware demands and reduced performance. Players are experiencing lower frame rates and increased resource usage, even on high-end systems, and are often forced to lower graphics settings to achieve playable performance. This is a regression from previous versions of the game.

Frequent server instability and disconnects: The game experiences frequent server issues, including disconnects, lag, packet loss, rubberbanding, and crashes. These problems make it difficult to connect to matches, maintain a stable connection during gameplay, and can lead to frustrating experiences. Server instability is a recurring concern for many players.

Frequent game crashes, especially map: The game is prone to crashing, often when opening the map, but also during other actions like reloading or banishing bosses. These crashes can lead to loss of progress and frustration for players. The frequency of crashes is a major concern.

Performance varies by hardware: The game's performance varies significantly depending on the player's hardware. While some players with mid-range or high-end systems achieve acceptable frame rates, others struggle to maintain stable performance even with powerful PCs. This inconsistency suggests optimization issues that need to be addressed.

Texture loading and visual fidelity issues: The game suffers from texture-related problems, including slow loading, blurry visuals, pop-in, and flickering. These issues detract from the visual experience and can make it difficult to identify enemies or navigate the environment. Some textures appear low quality even on high settings.

Game's quality is declining: Many reviewers express that the game's current state is declining due to technical issues, poor UI, and questionable design choices. Some suggest the game is dying or has lost its original charm, while others hold onto hope for future improvements. Some reviewers are review bombing the game due to frustration with the developers.

Unpopular UI changes frustrate players: A significant point of contention is the new UI, with many reviewers finding it clunky, unintuitive, and not optimized for PC. Some suggest reverting to the old UI or providing an option to switch between the two. Some reviewers are willing to overlook the UI issues due to the game's other strengths.

Developers' priorities are questioned: Many reviewers express concern about the developers' direction, accusing them of prioritizing profits over gameplay and not listening to the community. Some suggest the developers should focus on fixing existing issues rather than adding new content. Some reviewers express gratitude to the developers for their efforts.

Game is unique and enjoyable: Despite the issues, many reviewers still find the game enjoyable and unique, especially compared to other shooters. They praise its atmosphere, gunplay, and strategic depth. Some reviewers consider it one of the best extraction shooters available.

Try the game on sale: Many reviewers suggest waiting for sales or free weekends to try the game, especially for new players. Some reviewers do not recommend buying the game at full price due to its issues. Some reviewers recommend upgrading PCs to play the game.

Dedicated player base despite flaws: Many reviewers have played the game for hundreds or thousands of hours, showcasing dedication despite flaws. Some have purchased DLCs and gifted the game to friends, indicating a strong attachment and belief in its potential, while others are taking breaks or reducing playtime due to recent issues.

Community feedback is inconsistently addressed: The developers are generally communicative and listen to community feedback, but some feel they prioritize certain voices (streamers) over the wider player base. There are also concerns that the developers are focusing too much on microtransactions and appealing to a broader audience, potentially sacrificing the game's original vision and unique identity.

Bug-ridden updates frustrate players: The game receives frequent updates and has active developers, but these updates often introduce new bugs or fail to address long-standing issues. Some players feel the developers are prioritizing new content and monetization over fixing core problems, leading to a cycle of broken and then slowly fixed features.

Review bombing concerns: Some reviewers express concern about review bombing, particularly in response to recent updates. They believe that negative reviews may not accurately reflect the game's overall quality and fun, and that they could deter potential new players.

Cosmetic monetization, but shifting focus: The game's monetization is primarily cosmetic, with DLCs and skins that don't offer gameplay advantages. However, some reviewers feel the focus has shifted towards pushing new skins and battle passes, and that the introduction of skin rarity and the removal of ways to earn premium currency incentivize purchases.