It’s been 5 years since Hunt Showdown was released. During this time, 54 add-ons have been released for it, which will cost 18,000 rubles to purchase. You can also take into account battle passes and a built-in donation store. And during this time, the extraction shooter in the occult Wild West setting has experienced many balance and technical changes. But it was the latest update, which is associated with the game’s transition to a new version of CryEngine, that became a reason to pin hopes on correcting its errors. Well, to what extent Crytek’s changes have managed to meet user expectations, I will tell you in today’s update review.
The game is not pulling? You just need to update your PC!
The story of the changes should start with what simply cut the shooter’s audience – with the system requirements. The transition of the game to CryEngine 5.11 obviously hit the gamers’ hardware. Moreover, this increase in requirements has two directions at once, which can be called “technical” and “partnership”. From a technical point of view, everything is quite obvious. The new Crytek engine turned out to be much more demanding and today Hunt can no longer run normally on the same GTX 1050 Ti. The minimum requirement was the presence of the GTX 1650 Super, and the RTX 2060 Super is listed among the recommended ones.
Speaking about the “partnership” reasons for changing the requirements, here we need to state the fact that the developers have been close partners of Nvidia for many years. They have been promoting the green corporation’s technologies in their games for many years, not giving other video cards any chance. This was the case during the Crysis games, and this is still happening today. And it is this partnership that today negatively affects the owners of graphics processors from AMD or Intel.
But even with a competitor’s graphics card, you can play it somehow. Things are much worse on last-gen consoles. At the time of this review, Hunt Showdown users on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will no longer be able to play this shooter because the new engine is too demanding for last-gen consoles.
From the main menu to “Shop on the couch”
Speaking of consoles, it is worth noting another change that causes great indignation among veterans – a complete redesign of the main menu. The developers have completely redesigned the main menu, making it more “console-like”. Although it would be much more correct to say, “game service-like”. The fact is that the new design of the main menu interface is completely copied from the donation store. People now need some time to understand which tab is responsible for the game itself, and which one is trying to foist something on you.
It’s good that the audience’s indignation finally reached the developers and they announced that they would rework the main menu. We can only hope that Crytek won’t make the interface even worse…
But even when players manage to get through this entire obstacle course of banners and figure out which button does what, the game of patience begins, as various settings menus like to close in the lobby after almost every choice made. The hunter settings interface has become very busy and not as intuitive as before. Therefore, it may take a considerable amount of time to study it.
Speaking about a greater focus on the game-service, I can’t help but mention such an innovation as weekly challenges, for which donation currency is offered as a reward. True, it is given incredibly little (10 coins per task), but players now have several more reasons to hang out in raids and not donate to this game.
What about the gameplay?
Gameplay changes for Hunt Showdown were known for a few days before the update was released. Some of them seemed insignificant to players, while others, on the contrary, completely change the in-game meta.
One of the most significant changes was that the shootouts became much more similar to Escape from Tarkov. The update revised head damage, due to which now a hit from absolutely any weapon to the head of a hunter or an ordinary monster will always be fatal. On the one hand, this made the game much more hardcore and now even an experienced loner has every chance to cope with a party of three people. On the other hand, any hunter has enough health for exactly 2 shots from any firearm. Therefore, such an innovation will have its value only for pro-gamers.
This feature will be much more beneficial for cheaters with auto-aiming to the head. This increase in headshot damage gives them an incredible advantage. And given the fact that Easy Anti-Cheat barely copes with cheaters and the Russian server continues to suffer from the expansion of Chinese scammers, there are even more cases of sudden headshots.
A solid buff to shotguns could also be added to this piggy bank, increasing their accuracy and damage. True, the previously mentioned buff to head damage does not work on pellets, but this does not prevent pellets from killing other hunters with one shot. Therefore, builds of shotguns and long-range rifles are becoming the most popular.
In addition to increasing the frequency of headshots, the developers decided to introduce full-fledged ballistics. Bullets now have their own trajectory and flight speed. And here lies a less obvious problem that may not manifest itself in everyone.
We are talking about problems with synchronization between players and the Crytek server. With the release of the update and the start of the free weekend, users in Europe and North America began to encounter connection problems. Some are not allowed into the game session, some are thrown out in the middle of a raid, and some even begin to have a story with “ghost” bullets that can pass through the enemy because the shooter has a worse connection to the server than the enemy. Although this happens quite rarely. Much more often, the first two scenarios occur, which have existed since the release of the game.
Hunter perks have also been reworked. They are now separated by acquisition methods and usage amounts:
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By acquisition methods: “common/rare”. Common skills can be acquired as you level up your account. Rare skills need to be obtained in raids;
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By number of uses: “burnable/permanent”. Burnable skills work once, after which they will need to be purchased again in the hunter settings. Most of these perks are related to resurrecting yourself or your comrades.
Traps and incendiary bombs have also undergone significant changes. Firstly, traps can now be installed almost anywhere, even on windows. Secondly, bear traps have been introduced into the game – a trap that can cause huge damage and cause bleeding. And thirdly, the developers have increased the damage from fire, thanks to which monsters and hunters will lose health faster.
Of the little things, it is worth mentioning that the developers have adjusted the aiming from the front sight. Now the sight is located exactly in the center of the screen, and not at the bottom, as it was before. Another change is related to the ammunition boxes. Now they can be conditionally called infinite. That is, everyone will be able to take cartridges from the box. Previously, such boxes were only enough for 2 uses for two players.
Overall, we can say that all of these changes are aimed at increasing the pace of matches. At the same time, they did not forget about solo players, providing them with several useful skills and changes aimed at greater survivability in unequal battles.
But something remains the same
Despite all this “technological breakthrough”, the developers still can’t properly combat bugs. Crytek has been releasing patches to fix bugs for 5 years now, but they still manage to create new ones and revive previously fixed ones. And this update is no exception.
This time, promoting the technical capabilities of Nvidia video cards, the developers wanted to demonstrate the magic of ray tracing, but instead they seriously screwed up with shadows and lighting. Because of which, for some players, night raids, as well as dark spaces in all sorts of caves and basements of buildings, for some reason became pitch black – even with increased monitor brightness… This also includes problems with the network code and cheaters, which I mentioned earlier.
Diagnosis
A couple of years ago, a new dubious method of releasing sequels to their games-as-services appeared in the gaming industry. In October 2022, we saw a similar move with Overwatch 2, when gamers were literally deprived of purchased copies of the first game and given in return a free copy with a battle pass, tasteless donation skins and a completely broken balance that they still can’t fix. Then in 2023, Counter-Strike 2 was released, which replaced Global Offensive and brought a whole bunch of technical problems related to the network code and anti-cheat, which was triggered by high mouse sensitivity.
And I gave such examples in order to state that Hunt Showdown 1896 continues this tradition. By presenting the audience with the fact that the previous game is “closing”, and in its place comes a sequel with the subtitle 1896. And the most noticeable changes will be increased hardware requirements and a complete rework of the main menu.
The gameplay felt more lively and the matches went faster, but it was not a panacea. The transition to a new engine with increased hardware requirements managed to overshadow all the positive aspects of the patch, which is why the project’s audience thinned out, and the remaining gamers are seriously indignant due to the lack of understanding of the audience’s requests…
Beginners with good hardware may like this game. After all, the setting and genre of extraction shooters have reached their peak of popularity this year. On the other hand, a long stay in this project will sooner or later make you understand that this “beautiful” game has a whole bunch of shortcomings that cannot be eliminated.
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All images in this material are copyrighted by Crytek.
