Hunt: Showdown 1896

This was my favorite FPS ever, but since the 1896 update, it’s one of the worst games ever. The performance is really bad, the quality is really bad, and please don't get me started on the UI. I didn't mind any change Hunt made, but this is unplayable. I uninstalled the game, even though I had been playing it for almost 2,000 hours. I'm really sad about this.

Straight up ruined the game with the engine update.
Just like all the other people have said multiple times already.
UI is absolutely terrible and they did it on purpose simply because is the same as the COD games and they think it will bring more players.
Every update the try to change the game to appeal to more casual players and by doing this they change what the game is about and why people are playing in the first place, it loses it's appeal.
The devs don't play their own game and simply look at data and make changes based on that ignoring any logic.
Not only did they not fix any of the old problems this game has but brought in so many more with the engine update.
Bugs over bugs, server crashes, connectivity issues.
The biggest issues with the game were kill trading and ping abusing which are worse day by day.
Every match in European servers you are guaranteed to find Chinese and Russian players many of which are cheating and the rest which are not will kill you behind cover because of how this game gives an advantage to high ping players.
The game now runs horribly, huge fps drops and unstable servers every match.
Scummy monetization update after update, they are slowly turning their focus into making money instead of making a good product first.
They made MMR absolutely horrible, if you are new to the game you will get absolutely destroyed until you actually learn how to play since this game has almost no new players. If you are a veteran and don't have a team it's impossible to win. Solo play is dead since they also nerfed that into oblivion and it's what I used to play mostly because this game pairs you with the most brain-dead randoms they can find.
The game right now is in it's worst state it's ever been, simply unplayable and until they actually stop and actually fix the important issues this game will only get worse and sadly die.
I really didn't want to write this negative review since this game is very unique, I have played a lot and enjoyed it for the most part but I cannot continue like this.
The game is NOT worth playing right now, it's better to find something else until they fix it if they ever do.

So, I will keep it short.

I do not recommend Hunt Showdown in the current state of the game. Do not get me wrong, Hunt is one of the best games that I ever played, it is original, feels different and satisfying.

Here are my PROS:
- Game feels really satisfying when you make a play, when you kill someone
- New map is really good, less space for camping and more possibilities.
- Bullet drop feature that was added in last update is good
- Cool atmosphere and great visuals

Now, the BAD thing:
- UI is garbage after the update, everything is so slow, does not work as it should, it is buggy and unpredictable (favorite filters not working, skins are getting restarted from equipped every couple of games...)
- Server performance got worse, game keeps disconnecting me every 4-5 games
- Spear is OP (you can kill bosses without any stamina) and unusable at the same time, you cant throw it to anything at the roof, otherwise it will be stuck there forever
- New burn speed feature is too fast, your hunter will burn down in a few tens of seconds, you cant make any play, you just need to rush to your friend to throw a choke on them
- Voice chat is not working after the game restarts, you have to bind the button again
- Mouse cursor is showing up on the screen every 10 games, you have to restart the game to get rid of it
- Trade killing is bad in my opinion, I would rather die in fair fight than die with my enemy. Instead of making one people mad, now 2 people are
- When looking from longer range, textures are disappearing and even if you are thinking that you are shooting to the enemy, there is just this invisible wall
- Optimization is not great. Iam running on 4070 + Ryzen 5800x3d on full low details with 2k resolution, and I have 110FPS average.

So my final words would be to not buy the game in its current state. Developers are focusing on events and skin sales along with new DLCs instead of fixing bugs, that are needed to be fixed. The game feels extremely frustrating to play right now, you get 2/3 normal games from 10 games that you play.

I spent good amount of money on this game and Iam disappointed that Crytek is treating us like they are.

At its core, Hunt is a great game but with all the technical debt this game still has (I dont even mind the UI, which is worse than the old one but still usable, albeit very annoying to navigate) especially trades, server performance, cheating at 6* and just plain game breaking bugs (tools not being able to be picked up, poison bug is still prevalent after all those years). I cannot recommend the game to new players anymore. This game needs an "Operation Health" more than anything.

Tremendo juegazo, si te gustan los shooter y juegos de extracción, tienes que probar esta belleza de vidio game

Game is broken. Devs are the absolute worst with constant lies, not delivering, only going for DLC money. Cheapest servers with constant crashes. NO ping limit, flood of ping abusers and cheaters. Hit marker broken, you'll not understand why that shot was lethal or why you didn't hit a clear shot. Save yourself from the frustration.

After the changes on the UI, which is sucks for me because it makes me so confusing...even before I play the game, and that's kinda frustrated. That's it, I uninstalled the game after so many years.

horrible matchmaking system, gotta love getting games with 1000 hours+ russians as someone with 24

Oh, how the once mighty and great have fallen.

Hunt: Showdown was once upon a time a breath of fresh air into the shooter genre. A game where you played with the firearms of a bygone era and an extremely limited health pool. Every shot mattered and every hit mattered even more. Sometimes, those all important rounds ran out, and you had to get in close and dirty with the bayonet at the end of your rifle, the sword at your hip or even just the damned shovel you found lying on the ground next to you. And, if through the combined efforts of your skill, your teammates and (fairly often) just that little bit of luck, you'd be the last team standing - walking off into the sunset with the rich rewards of a match hard fought. The atmosphere, the sound design, the gun-play, the melee - it wasn't perfect, but it was damned good fun and, most importantly, the developers cared.

The update to 1896 ruined Hunt for me. The game had been in a slow but inevitable decline ever since long-standing issues were overlooked in favour of putting out more DLC, but 1896 really just put the final nail in the coffin. The hit-registration is off, melee weapons are more janky than ever, the sound design is absolutely borked to high heaven, long-standing weapon balance issues have not really been addressed and EVERY conceivable design choice which could make a players' life more difficult or miserable whilst playing seems to have been taken.

Hunt is a game which holds many exceptionally fond memories for me. Some of my personal best plays in video-games were made in Hunt, and some of my funniest memories in gaming come from this very game. But that's unfortunately all they are now, memories. Hunt doesn't have the magic or appeal that made it so great back in the day anymore.

CAN this game be returned to its former glory? Absolutely. The game is, from a technical standpoint, perfectly salvageable. It just needs the dev team to give a damn again about making a GOOD GAME rather than an overpriced DLC.

WILL Hunt turn it around? Based on current track record? I don't think so - and that is a real shame.

Do yourself a favour if you haven't already bought Hunt: stay away. If things turn around - buy it and play it. But in its current condition, I cannot recommend it.

2 of of 3 games I play against Chinese players I am unable to hit no matter how I aim. Opening their steam profile just to see they also have a VAC ban. Playing on EU server and having ping under 30 does not help. Can not recommend this game until they put region lock or ping limit in use.

The greatest 1st person shooter experience tied up in the worse user interface devised by human kind, the game will be good eventually when they fix the UI. also when they remove the shitty 800ms trade window.

A great game that I have always enjoyed and would recommend. recent '1896' update was very nice (other than the UI) my only gripe with this game is it's been out 5 years now and would have expected a hell of a lot more content in terms of maps and bosses.

bugs bugs bugs bugs bugs and more crashes

In 30 years of playing videogames and especially FPS, I haven't played a game that's more perfect for me than Hunt. I truly love it. It's not for everyone, but those that like tactical action where every bullet matters and shootouts can last from 1 second to 5 minutes and longer, will probably enjoy it greatly.
It currently has quite a few annoyances with the menu UI being the prime example and I expect it stops people's enjoyment enough to give it up, but I'd stick with it, updates and patches do come out and the kinks get ironed, albeit slowly. Try it, you might just stop playing every other you own for a long while.

One of my favorite games of all time, period.

At one point in this game's lifespan, it defined an entire niche. Nothing else has ever, or probably will ever play like it did. Extremely slow paced shooter where you felt like more of a detective than a mercenary. You used to walk up to a compound and find trails of where other hunters had been and figure out where they're going. Rolling up slowly and getting into position for a perfect angle of attack. Once you were locked into the fight your shots were slow and metered. The game felt like more of a strategy game than a traditional FPS.

Over the past couple of years the game has devolved into progressively faster shooting guns that hit harder and cost more money. This is because Crytek just... Keeps adding better and better guns. And giving you more and more money to play with. There's absolutely no reason to run cheaper loadouts because you're constantly flush with cash. You'll never really experience a rootin' tootin' Winfield fight again, you're just going to get blown over by a Karabiner Cyclone shooting at 9x the firerate of your gun.

Update after update has gradually torn this game down from where it once was. You don't get to be slow and methodical in a fight. You don't get to those tense moments of skulking around a wheat field while two guys hunt you down. You don't get to make long flanks and reposition after your partner went down.

One of the more egregious changes they've made to speed up gameplay is the insane speed that a dead hunter's health burns away via fire. You have MAYBE 30-45 seconds to extinguish your teammate before all of their health is burned away and they're dead. Even with Salveskin, it's MAYBE 60 seconds. You basically have to bull rush to your dead team mate as soon as they go down because with Flare pistols, every single hunter in the game has the option to burn you the second you go down. You CANNOT be strategic with your approach, you have to get to your downed teammate immediately, basically dooming you to run straight into whatever line of sight their team had on your partner. It's fucking terrible.

The UI problems are annoying but sure to be fixed before too long. The state of the gameplay is the real issue.

Our old-timey cowboy weapons lose their thematic luster when you're mostly getting pegged down by nearly automatic rifles and stalker beetles.

All in all, Hunt: Showdown has lost its one-of-a-kind identity and its niche.

We live to die another day.

After the last update the game became much worse than before the changes, nicer graphics are not everything. Lots of Asians on European servers where there is a regional lock? Unbalanced matchmaking system. FPS drops on not the weakest computer. Changing the menu to so unintuitive and impractical. The company is engaged in the production of skins, not the development and repair of the game. Keep doing this and more people will definitely uninstall the game.

I can't stand this game anymore after 1,600+ hours, Crytek have finally broken my will to play.

They refuse to fix long standing bugs, a major trade kill issue has been around for years now, rampant desync, horribly boring campy / sniper meta, all the while they keep releasing paid cosmetics and talk about fixing things without ever doing it, I'm just tired of it.

Also whoever thought having the equivalent of an m16 (avtomat), spas12 (crown and cring) and two semi-automatic pistols in a western shooter needs to be slapped, this game was interesting back in the day because every bullet counted, you had to scrounge together cheap loadouts resulting in variety, high tension and drawn out firefights like no other game, but now - the fight is usually over in seconds (if you don't count the painfully long bouts of sitting still because whoever makes the first move normally loses).

Disappointed, uninstalled.

Basically a really good shooter, but with the latest (apparently untested) patches/updates it's going down the drain. I'm not saying you shouldn't play this game. But if you ask me for advice: Wait a couple weeks/months before you buy it.

I'll probably come back later and change this review after they've fixed a bunch of bugs.

Came back after a few months of not playing to check out the massive update.
I saw the complaints about the new UI and thought they were just mad because change can be hard to adjust to.
This new ui is the most unintuitive mess i have seen. half the features of the old UI dont exist anymore, or are just impossible to find. the new shop is hard to navigate and they cover the screen with the graphic of the gun/tool/etc and make the list annoying to navigate.
In game looks fine, i cant tell much change, the new map is cool and a nice change. But until the main menu gets changed, this is going to be a negative review. as it makes getting into a game more annoying.

I was trying to give the UI a solid chance (a month is enough) until I logged in today to be greeted by a massive MTX billboard with every bit of the terrible UI present and arguably worse than before. I don't even give a shit that its MTX! Where is my GAME! Ya know, the one I logged in to play? None of these menus feel good to use Crytek! Why have all this redundant or useless shit cluttering the game!

Also, you just straight up deleted important parts of the game! The after action report is on life support and hardly ever works, the ability to see teammates loadouts before match (so I can remind them to buy chokes!!) is completely gone, and you removed MMR/MMR average in the pre-lobby screen so I don't even know what to expect when I play with my low MMR friends!

Everyone else has harped on the loadout UI enough, so I wont, but it is all warranted! We want to be able to move fluidly through menu's without having to stop and click 5 options when I used to be able to do the same thing in 1 or 2 clicks!

If you're on the fence about the game I would still tell you to get it because the feel of the gameplay is what keeps me coming back to this game, not the UI obviously. However, there sadly isn't a review option that gets the point I'm trying to make across better than a thumbs down. The UI simply repels me from playing this game atm even though I love playing it.

Edit: The ability to see a teammates loadout in lobby is not actually removed, its just hidden by the junk cluttering the UI. If it took me a month of playing the game to find it it's an unintuitive and bad design.

Hunt: Showdown used to be a great game with a unique charm that kept players coming back, but the latest update has been a major letdown. As a long-time fan, I’m genuinely disheartened by the changes.

The new UI is not just a disappointment; it’s a disaster. The old design, while not perfect, managed to convey the game’s distinctive atmosphere with a fresh, engaging art style. Now, the UI feels suffocating and polluted, as if every element is fighting for space on the screen. It lacks clear direction, making navigation a chore and the entire experience borderline unusable. It's an eyesore that detracts from the immersive, gritty feel that once set the game apart.

On top of that, performance has taken a serious hit. What used to be a smooth and intense gaming experience is now riddled with lag, frame drops, and stuttering. Even on high-end systems, the game struggles to maintain the level of performance players have come to expect.

This update has left the game feeling like a shadow of its former self. It's sad to see Hunt: Showdown lose the polish that made it so special. I hope the developers listen to the community and address these issues quickly. The game deserves better than this.

who designed this new interface needs to be fired. need to keep pressing backspace to exit a match ? need to press enter to equip an item to a loadout ? why cant i just click it like a normal fukin human ? scroll down to access all hunter ?

I am not going to say anything this guy covers it all and it has triggered many. Make this review go famous:

Most vile, abhorrent, disgusting, putrid, counter intuitive user interface I have ever had the displeasure of being subjected to.
This is the 9/11 of UI updates, genuine psychological warfare as soon as you boot up the game, the moment your hunter begins to render it's like you're on the beaches of Normandy, bracing for an overwhelming assault, hit with a million pop ups and ads for new battlepasses and dlc, all of which either pop up obtrusively or scatter sporadically around the main menu.

The absolute grief this abysmal UI update brings me almost rivals that of the death of my grandfather. The sheer agony of sifting through a million drop down menus that hide more drop down menus that lead to more drop down menus for a single gun or game statistic slowly wears at your sanity and patience, turning a once trivial process into a brutal and cruel battle of attrition that destroys the soul before a single game even starts.

Much like how the Chicxulub crater reminds us of the most catastrophic event advanced carbon based lifeforms have ever been subjected to, the new UI is a testament to the absolute devastation that befell our once convenient menu, another victim of this modern plague of avant garde corporate neo-expressionalism that decimates anything it comes into contact with.

It's still probably the best shooter out there though lmao

Most vile, abhorrent, disgusting, putrid, counter intuitive user interface I have ever had the displeasure of being subjected to.
This is the 9/11 of UI updates, genuine psychological warfare as soon as you boot up the game, the moment your hunter begins to render it's like you're on the beaches of Normandy, bracing for an overwhelming assault, hit with a million pop ups and ads for new battlepasses and dlc, all of which either pop up obtrusively or scatter sporadically around the main menu.

The absolute grief this abysmal UI update brings me almost rivals that of the death of my grandfather. The sheer agony of sifting through a million drop down menus that hide more drop down menus that lead to more drop down menus for a single gun or game statistic slowly wears at your sanity and patience, turning a once trivial process into a brutal and cruel battle of attrition that destroys the soul before a single game even starts.

Much like how the Chicxulub crater reminds us of the most catastrophic event advanced carbon based lifeforms have ever been subjected to, the new UI is a testament to the absolute devastation that befell our once convenient menu, another victim of this modern plague of avant garde corporate neo-expressionalism that decimates anything it comes into contact with.

It's still probably the best shooter out there though lmao

This is my opinion about the game after more than 2300 hours of play. I went all the way from love to hate with this game. At first I was really loving it, but as the time passed the things were getting worse and worse, until one day I realized, that this game gives me more negative emotions than positive. The game became more and more annoying and irritating. Developers keep changing the game again and again, they keep buffing and nerfing things again and again, basically you can say, that they keep changing the game's rules over and over: just imagine if same thing happened in sports games, if they changed rules in football, hockey, basketball every season! Who would like that? No one! That's why they don't do that. Crytek keep making changes which no one ever wanted, I'd say, that they keep following the formula: one good change + 5 bad changes. Developers live in their own isolated world, having no idea, what community wants. They also really love to "balance" the game by changing the prices for weapons, which is absolutely stupid, because it will only affect new players and players who struggle with making money in the game, while veteran players have tons of money and they don't care about the prices. Crytek never do hot fixes, ever! They can roll out an update with serious bugs and leave it that way for couple of months. Therefore they game has a lot of old unfixed issues, and the list of problems keep growing up, because even with small patches they manage to introduce more bugs. Another very disturbing issue is a hit registration, which is the worst among any other multiplayer FPS games that I played. Even when you shoot an enemy player who is not moving, there's a high chance, that the game will decide, that you missed. Now just think of this: different weapons in the game have different muzzle velocity and different ammo types have different muzzle velocity, now they added bullet drop (which is, by the way, lives on its own laws of physics!), so different weapons have different bullet drop and different ammo types have different bullet drop, and now add to this a terrible hit registration, very inconsistent damage system and bad servers.... good luck with hitting your shots!! RNG factor severely affects to many aspects of the game, no matter what you see and what you expect, the RNG will decide and often in a way weird ways. Some may say, that I have skill issue and that is true, I have a skill issue with this game, but it's only specific to this game: I only have these sorts of issues while I'm playing Hunt Showdown. I wanted to give this game a negative review some time ago, before the August update (my very first negative review to a game ever!), but I was hopping, that this upcoming big engine update will change somethings in a better way, but the miracle didn't happen. Yes, the new map looks great, graphics looks better (yet, there are some visual glitches and issues here and there), but underneath it all, it's still the same game with the same issues + plus now with a lot of new ones. And on top of that - this new UI, which is a total failure, trash, garbage. This new UI perfectly represents how developers treat their own game, it clearly shows how they make changes to the game. I don't believe in a better future for this game anymore. The game now is much worse in too many ways, than it was in the past. Sorry, that's just how I feel.

What can I say... I'm quitting this game after close to 1.5k hours of some of the best time I've ever had in gaming and it's mainly because of how broken the new update made this once masterpiece. Not because of gameplay changes I dislike, not because of the new map, not because of the new boss, not even because of the f*cked up new UI.

I've laughed, I've cried, I made friends in this game and even though it is tough as nails, it always felt fair and you could almost always be sure that when you died it was your own fault... with this update all of that changed. And it took me way to long to realise what was going on because all I could find was the developers adressing the shitty UI and stability issues. I'm not going to rant about the menu UI - that sucks but it's not the core of the game.

The game as it is now after a month of being updated is still just a huge mess in the most crucial parts imageable. Let me list the issues:
- For many people no matter their specs the game will randomly experience fps drops from solid 80+ down to under 30 with nothing else happening
- Especially in fights fps drops will happen but don't think you can predict and adjust bc it can happen literally anytime
- Night maps will bring your game to a near stop at times when there's fire or flares (there's people using this as a tactic)
- Bullet registration (HOW is this an issue in a shooter?) is bugged as hell, like "shotgun-shot to face getting no hitmarker" bugged
- Trading (two hunters shoot, both die to one another) is not a interesting rare mechanic anymore, it happened to me 3!!! times in one round and for the 2 following rounds at least once. overall every second game at the least
- SBMM is broken as hell, I've had multiple games where my team (3,3 and 4 stars) got destroyed by a team with two 5 stars and a 3 star

I don't want to sound too pathetic but... I really loved this game. Easily the best ever made. Just not in this state, the developers turned it into. In this state it is a frustrating sh**fest that made me tilt multiple times with its technical bs to the point where I'm calling it quits.

Dear developers: Thank you for the memories and the friends I was lucky enough to make in this game. You've got a great community. I'm inclined to say there might be a scientific paper on how you were able to build a community like this at some point as there is just none as positive and welcoming like it in this genre out there. But without stable running, fun and most of all fair gameplay I am just left with the sad decision to let this one go. I hope I can come back at some point in the future and enjoy Hunt: Showdown again. I really want to.

Just to put this here as well: I've scoured reddit for fixes and other people's experiences. My points are not singular fringe experiences or a rarity. There's loads of people dealing with the issues mentioned. My connection is stable and I can identify whether shots were off or not. Also much more campers, teams rushing like leeroy jenkins, hives not dying after 6 shots and hell, even cheaters (which are increasingly common) don't bother me. These are all issues that the game has proven to give you the tools to confront. THAT was why I love(d) it so much. You don't know success until you outplay a wallhacker in Hunt: Showdown but good luck relying on the game working as intended in the current state.

Get the game on sale if you must but pray for the devs to fix it so you too can experience what this game CAN be actually... if it works again. I really hope that I will edit this review into a positive one rather than the warning it is right now.

Update ruined everything. UI is shit, performance is shit, network is shit. The only good part with this update is the new map but every other area has been negatively impacted or just completely ruined. How they released such a shit update without any testing is beyond basic understanding, but evidentely most of the work has been put in to the map. Shame, game went from being the best extraction shooter to being one of the worst.

Amazing game, but holy hell man. I feel like I took every drug known to man going through that new UI. Please for the love of god just bring back the old UI with minor changes.

Crytek had one of the most unique and compelling FPS on the market, sadly they've decided to push out an update that broke half the game and made it unplayable for most of the playerbase, likely just to cash out on the console re-release
Hopefully they will patch and fix this mess in the future, but for now if youre thinking of buying this game, you should wait
I will change this review when the game is in a playable state

I Pretty much liked the game. But since the Update, this game is nearly unplayable. Lag spikes, hits not registering. And then the UI has gotten so much worse. It takes ages to equip your hunter and the buying of stuff isnt a great experience. Fix the bugs and the game is great again.
But in the current state i wouldn´t recommend it.

Novelty of the new map fades away quickly. What we are left with
- crashes, packet losses, high ping issues
- hitbox issues
- throwables keep disappearing or you just cannot pick them up
- bounty position and status bugged out after you die
- no promised latency limit in matchmaking
- impossible to see you current team loadout
- they removed information hich hunter did daily extraction
- favourite hunter option does not work
-matchmaking range is crazy, putting MMR 3 and mm6 in the same match
- introduced way for solo players to silently move in a game based around sound design ...
- doing anything in the new UI is just pain

New UI is garbage and causes way too many issues and frustration. Leaving a negative review until the UI is reworked again because this ain't it. Especially having the option to spectate your teammate RIGHT NEXT TO THE QUIT TO MENU OPTION. Utter trash.

Great game with a lot of fun - at least until the "1896"-Update dropped.
Since then:
Every match at least one trade with an enemy.
Every match slowdowns as far as you can look.
Every forest on the forest map kills your frames.
Everything "fixed" is just worse or simply not fixed at all.
Communication is lackluster and nearly completly missing from Crytek.
The performance and broken promises are straight from 1896 - so at least that part is correct.

If something really gets fixed and Crytek finally holds its promises, I'll update the review. Until then mAyBe iTs fIxEd iN tHe nExT pAtcH...

Devs did not deliver on anything they promised besides the new map, new ui is dogshit, also region lock China

Ok so... Hunt: Showdown 1896:
Is the current UI an unintuitive mess? Yes
Is it even buggier than before? Also yes
Is the game a masterpiece? Definitely yes.

I played all extraction shooters on the market, and I mean ALL of them. Hunt is the most balanced well made extraction shooter out of them all in my opinion. Just the sound design is better than in all of the similar games.
Is the game overall perfect? No. But I trust that this new version of the game will be brought back to it's former glory. Just be a lil patient guys.

The transition to 1896 is the nail in the coffin, sadly.
I can overlook an ever-worsening UI. (Btw, have you tested it at all on PC?)
The new map is great in terms of level design.

Sadly, however, Crytek decided to ruin the old game in favor of their service game agenda.
The transition to the new engine leaves players with less fps overall while not fixing common issues for players like netcode/hitreg/trading (why would you ever do this?)
The 1 hit kill spear on any range on any bodypart is absolutly unjustified and griefs the complete melee-weapon-balance of the game.

Me and everyone I know quit the game—sadly. Before Hunt: Showdown was our go-to game for playing w the boys. The historic gunplay mixed with the intriguin-created world made an incredibly immersive scenario and thus a welcome change to the high-end military stuff like cod or tarkov. Disregarding the entire Lore from this patch on is somewhat understandable because barly any user digs deep on it, yet for me and some others it was a welcome addition, once further ebraceing my liking for the game.

Don't go the same route as Piranha Bytes, listen to the people.

new UI is absolutely horrible, saps any fun of playing the game when i have to fight the menus to even start a game

The "Hunt: Showdown 1896" update has been a major letdown, and the problems go far beyond the universally criticized new UI. The real disaster lies in the poorly implemented MMR (matchmaking rating) system, which has completely thrown off the game’s balance. It feels like the UI designers swapped places with the engineers developing the matchmaking, resulting in a mess on both fronts.

Before this update, while you could encounter sweaty players and campers, the game still offered some balance—after a couple of tough matches, you could land in a more manageable lobby. Now, just having one player with a 6-star MMR on your team almost guarantees being placed in the most unbalanced, sweat-soaked lobbies imaginable. This happens even if you’ve invited newcomers, dragging them into frustrating matches where the game feels impossible to enjoy.

Previously, even top-tier players could expect their MMR to drop after a few losses, which kept the game dynamic and fair. Now, the new MMR system locks players into high-skill lobbies, making it nearly impossible to enjoy balanced gameplay. The update has ruined the progression and balance that once made "Hunt: Showdown" enjoyable, leaving players frustrated and disappointed. Until these glaring issues are addressed, it’s very hard to recommend buying this game in its current state.

UPDATE 20/09/24:
***If there's a perfect example of a company prioritizing profit over player experience, this is it. Just a month after launching their latest patch, which was met with mostly negative reviews—everyone voicing their frustrations about the atrocious menu design—what do we get? A DLC, of course. What else could we expect from a greedy company that seems more interested in cashing in than addressing the numerous issues their game has?

It's disappointing to see the developers continue down this path, ignoring the community's feedback while pushing for more content that feels less like an update and more like a ploy for more revenue.***

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆ (1/5 stars)

ORIGINAL:
Hunt: Showdown is a game that stands out in the crowded landscape of multiplayer shooters. From its atmospheric graphics to its compelling blend of PvPvE gameplay, it offers a truly unique experience that few titles can replicate.

As a player who has been involved since the alpha testing phase, I have witnessed both the highs and lows of this game, and unfortunately, it seems that the current state of Hunter: Showdown leaves much to be desired.

Atmosphere and Graphics
The game excels in creating an immersive environment that is both haunting and beautiful. The graphics are impressive, drawing players into the grim world of 19th-century Louisiana. The sound design further enhances this experience, with the sounds of nearby hunters or swamp creatures ramping up the tension with each encounter.

Gameplay Elements
The core gameplay is filled with strategic depth. Players must navigate a treacherous landscape filled with deadly creatures while also contesting with other bounty hunters. However, numerous gameplay and balance issues have plagued the experience over the years.

Neglect from Developers
Regrettably, my enjoyment of the game has been overshadowed by a series of frustrations stemming from the developers' apparent lack of care for the player base. While there have been numerous known bugs, including exploits with ladders and cheats allowing players to manipulate in-game mechanics, it feels like these have been left to fester for far too long. Meanwhile, the developers have prioritized releasing new DLCs and cosmetic items, seemingly more focused on monetizing the game than addressing critical issues impacting player experience.

A glaring example of this is the quick response to a bug related to the in-game currency (BB), which was addressed within 24 hours. However, more significant problems, such as cheaters gaining unfair advantages through shaders and persistent server issues, remain unresolved.

Community Feedback Ignored
Despite the passionate community that has submitted valuable suggestions to enhance gameplay and fix recurring issues, the overwhelming majority of advice appears to go unheard. This has led to mounting frustration among dedicated players who feel their voices are ignored, especially after witnessing the UI overhaul that many consider a disaster.

Conclusion
Hunt: Showdown has the potential to be a remarkable title due to its unique mechanics and atmosphere. Unfortunately, it is let down by developer negligence and a lack of responsiveness to player concerns. As someone who has continually returned to the game, it pains me to say that the current trajectory suggests a prioritization of profit over player experience. For those considering diving into Hunt: Showdown, I urge caution, as the game's inherent potential is overshadowed by unresolved issues and apparent disregard for its community.

With nearly 2,000 hours in-game, and typically sitting at 6*, I'm confident I have an extremely strong grasp on this game's vision, gameplay, strengths, and weaknesses. Clearly, with almost 2k hours, it's one of my all-time favorite games. What Hunt does well, it does best-in-class, or stands alone as a trailblazer in the gaming industry.

I'll preface this with what it does well:

-The new map: Mammon's Gulch. With every map the dev team releases, it's clear they learn, listen to the community, and iterate with constant improvement. Stillwater is blatantly the weakest map with glaring issues. Then, Lawson, which improves upon many of the issues of Stillwater, though still with large stretches of open land, some poor compounds, and pathing that could use improving. Desalle, prior to this update, stood out as the superior map of the three, and was unsurprisingly the most recently added to the rotation. Seeing this continuous improvement is heartening, and shows there's clearly talent on the team, and passionate level designers who understand this game's needs and gunplay. Mammon's Gulch makes Desalle look half-baked by comparison - it's truly a triumph of a map for this dev team, and they should be unbelievably proud of their success here.

-The gunplay. While this will inevitably draw some complains from other long-time players and 6* PC players, it's still true. Yes, Mosin / long ammo remains the meta. Yes, Avto, Nitro, Crown and Dolch are still unbelievably strong, and it's tilting to die in scenarios where you lose for no other reason than you chose to run an objectively inferior loadout. However... in my mind, that's part of the challenge, and fun, and adrenaline of how fights can unfold. I'm a full-time Crossbow + Shotbolt player, and I've hit and retained 6* from this loadout alone. It's "inferior", but plenty competitive, as it has one of the highest skill ceilings (alongside other options like the bow). Now, with the gunplay changes that any ammo can headshot at any range, and with bullet drop and the new map's verticality somewhat diminishing the ultra-long range engagements, there've been far fewer tilting cross-map Mosin Spitzer Sniper engagements that, unless you're running the same, are outright un-fightable. Ultimately, the gunplay feels like it's in the best place it's ever been, even with strong meta picks remaining on the table. If a Dolch FMJ tags me, that's on me for not gunning them down before they had a chance to get a shot off.

-The core gameplay loop. The concept of this game as an occult western with wild traits like Shadow Leap, audio-focused hardcore PvP engagements, and fantastic art design boss/AI PvE engagements, leads to an immersive experience unlike any other. While balance changes that make the PvE element more difficult (looking at you, most recent melee weapon nerf) place additional focus on a *less* fun aspect of the game (I feel the PvE should be secondary to the PvP - making them more difficult just makes the task more tedious, not more fun), there's no way around the fact that once you load into a game, you're likely going to enjoy the experience once you get the hang of it. Though, there's an admittedly extremely steep initial learning curve for new players, as basic Ai like immolators, hives, and bosses like Scrapbeak will inevitably cause some embarrassing and frustrating deaths for new players until they get the hang of how to handle all non-PvP aspects of the game without even having to think about it.

So while this all sounds extremely positive, I have ~2k hours in-game, play regularly, and clearly love this game... why would I "not recommend this game"?

"Review bombing" as a term carries this connotation that people go out of their way to express frustration with overly negative reviews as a way to "punish" a company for what the company often believes to be a minor issue. I'm not leaving this review as part of a "review bomb", nor do I think that's what this community is doing. Veteran players and the core playerbase aren't coming out of the woodwork to vent mere frustration at a change of pace, or a new direction. New players are coming in droves to Hunt - which is great! However, I know numerous people personally (and you can read countless more examples online) who tried the game, and have decided to give it a pass due to the issues that are prompting these negative reviews.

Steam reviews ask if we, as owners of this game, would recommend it to a new player. And, bluntly, in its current state, no, we wouldn't.

The biggest issue that's being mentioned in all these other negative reviews is:

-The UI. No, they're not being overdramatic, and neither am I when I say this is the worst UI I've experienced in any game, ever. I work in digital marketing, often collaborating with my company's UI team, where we rigorously test, pilot, and adjust any new UI updates according to feedback. We also design with one of the most important core concepts of good UI in mind: get people to where they want to go in as FEW CLICKS AS POSSIBLE. Identify the most used / high-traffic regions (simple heatmapping can identify this, or even just playing the game yourself and timing how long the new UI takes versus the old one to buy, modify, then equip a hunter, and start a game), and optimize your UI around those core elements. This UI somehow seemed to try to do the opposite. Even when they teased it, the community expressed their deep concern, but the team asked us to "give it a chance" to use it in-game. We did, and all the original criticisms not only still stood, but things were far, far worse than we ever anticipated. The UI is the first thing a new player will see, and it's quite literally HOW you play the game. It's clunky, broken, confusing, and a downright waste of time. This alone is genuinely worth steering new players away from, because frankly I don't want their sentiment toward the game forever tainted due to a horrible first impression.

-Trades.

-The engine. Yes, I know this update made certain vistas prettier. Yes, I know performance is improved on SOME GPUs. However, generally, optimization has been questionable. Entire compounds can take even nice computers down to half their average FPS. High-end GPUs are experiencing massive screen tearing, shadow bugs, and more. While i'm sure these issues will be sorted with time, this isn't my biggest issue with the engine. In fact, it's an issue we've had since before this update, and it's quite literally game-breaking:
Derendering. Essentially, walls, windows, and other visual obstructions (that you can shoot through) disappear completely depending on your settings. Thus, any player can adjust their render distance to "low", and quite literally see through entire buildings - sometimes even within the same compound! This allows for you to be shot while you're inside a building, by someone who sees you floating mid-air on their screen, or crouched next to an open window that, to you, is completely closed. As the victim of a derender, you have quite literally no way to combat it, other than by getting behind a non-penetrable wall (thick stone - but not brick, as this can sometimes be penn'd by Nitro). In a competitive shooter, an engine deficiency that quite literally gives wallhacks to enemy players is unacceptable. Sure, Crytek says they'll punish players caught doing this, but they only actually follow through if there's recorded proof submitted via their website - hardly a user-friendly system, and it's done absolutely nothing to discourage this type of play. If you don't know what walls derender, or are aware that this is a "feature" of Cryengine, as a new player you'll die in places you didn't think possible, to what appear to be hacking players. This will keep happening, with no punishment going to those players doing this, and thus make both new AND experienced players alike want to uninstall this game.

Do I recommend this game? Not until it's fixed.

Used to be a really good game but the 1896 update made it unnoptimized, the amount of PC resources required to play are now really high up, and some of my friends can't play anymore due this. The game had some DC issues and crashes after the 1896 update, but those were fixed already, hence this editted review. Good game, but you better have a good PC. Pls optimize your game crytek and then i'll recommend the game once more.

as a 4500hr+ veteran of Hunt, all i can say is the new big update is 1 step forward in game play but 10 steps backward in the UI design. It's just so f__king painful to navigate through the new UI to just to find a game/ edit your loadout/ check your teammate's loadout etc, not even mentioning the glitches/ bugs/ poor designs comes with it . Now I don't even want to open the game to just to suffer from the UI again .

Game is in the worst state I have ever seen it in. UI is absolutely abysmal, worst trade window I have ever seen, servers are lagging out beyond belief, my teammates and I crash at least once a game, literally nothing works the way it is supposed to. This game is borderline unplayable in its current state and its been over a WEEK with ZERO fixes. Also we STILL cannot reconnect to a game when disconnected(I didn't realize it was even possible for a developer to not know how to do this in TWO THOUSAND AND TWENTY FOUR and SIX YEARS INTO A GAME'S LIFE), I still can't pick up an arrow or bolt off the ground over 50% of the time, I still have to sit there and wait for someone to join one invite at a time instead of just inviting two teammates at once. It is absolutely insane these issues have been around for so long and STILL are not fixed. I cannot recommend this game to anyone and I'm not sure I will ever be able to at the rate things are "fixed".