Hunt: Showdown is an early access first-person shooter with Battle Royale style gameplay (it's not Battle Royale though; it's hard to define its genre) whose mastery of tension, theming, and tactical components has birthed a game where every match is as exhilarating as the next.



Oh boy. Ooooooh B O Y.

Hunt: Showdown wants to make you think like a hunter, and incorporates as many of our senses as it can. Unfortunately, our hands are occupied with the mouse and keyboard so we’re left with sight and sound and my god has Crytek nailed it in this respect.
The combination of a highly reactive landscape, excellent visual information, and sound design that’s so crisp I can hear my opponents picking their nose from 20 yards is masterfully executed enveloping a player into the game. This is the area where I think Hunt: Showdown separates itself from many of the other Battle Royales or first-person shooters.

To put this into perspective I’ll set up a metaphorical scenario. You are crouched outside a building and you suspect someone to be nearby. Here’s a list of some of the things you are likely to hear: crows, duck, chickens, dying horses, caged dogs, and all monsters will make noise when you get close to them. If the other person is not being sneaky, crows and ducks will also fly away, giving other visual information. You could also hear: footsteps on different terrain, doors opening, engines, hanging bottles that chime when knocked, and broken glass. There are so many audio cues that you can hear, perking your attention. This is what gives the player a feeling of real empowerment, making them feel like a tracker as they stalk their opposition using the endless number of audio ques.

Hunt: Showdown’s sound design also allow for an eerie, dismal atmosphere to set in.
Moments of intense combat puncture through the sombre ambience, screams and cries from hives carry across baron fields and morbid yards, and the silence is peaceful yet tense. With tuned ears, about any noise you make can turn you from predator to prey; from a hunter to the hunted.
This is a game that on a surface level looks like a Battle Royale style game but plays completely differently.
You have something on the line, your hunter, your gear, and the bounty that you so rightly deserve. The potential of losing all of that makes you question every door and every window you come across. The tension this creates is immense, your heart pounds knowing there’s another hunter in the next room. You can hear him, which means he can hear you. It plays out like a strategic game of chess, you move into an advantageous position, the other hunter does the same putting you in a mental checkmate. You have no idea what gun he has, if he’s alone, and if his partner is soon to arrive. You either have to take him on or leave him and hope someone else does the dirty work for you.


Teamwork encompasses many aspects, but it begins with selecting your team.
There are many ways to play:

- Solo queue.
- Queue with premade group.
- Queue with 1 random.
- Queue with 2 randoms.


Hunt: Showdown uses local/proximity Voice Chat, that other teams may be able to hear.
It is not disrespectful for a teammate to not respond, and please be mindful of the possibility of other teams being nearby.
With that, I mean that your teammate might not answer you with the voice chat, because he doesn't want to be heard by enemies.

The pinging tool is widely used, both in premades and random queues. This allows you to point at whatever is under your crosshair and share it with your team only. Other teams cannot hear or see pings
So using the pinging system is a very good way to communicate.

for e.g, A double-clicked ping is a universal language for "Hunters Here" or otherwise "Something very important".


Hunt: Showdown sees you playing as a bounty hunter in the Louisiana swamps, sent to hunt down and collect bounties that have been set on ghastly horrors. In a match your goal is to find clues to locate a monster lurking in one of the map’s compounds, kill the monster, and banish them back to whatever hell it came from.
There’s a catch though, there are eight or nine other players that are trying to do the same, and will stop at nothing to retrieve that bounty all for themselves.
Even if you can do the impossible and banish the beast you still have to escape with the bounty in your grasp.

Hunt: Showdown introduces a thematic natural way to condense players into one area using an objective style system, you will need to find three clues to deduce where the bounty is dwelling. With each clue the number of possible places the monster is hiding narrows.
This leads the players to a smaller area where chances of encountering other players is greatly increased but does not force players together like Fortnite or PlayerUnknown’s Battleground does, which feels more realistic.



So, you got the bounty and got out alive.

What happens now?

You will get rewarded with an in-game currency that you can spend on better weapons, tools, and consumables. Your hunter will also gain experience based on activities you have done throughout the match allowing you to unlock and equip different perks.
If any consumables were used you will need to restock on those consumables, and if by chance you lost a health bar you can replenish it.



What if your hunter died in the last match?

Well I’m afraid to say that Sheriff Woody is no longer with you.
All of his equipment, tools and guns, all gone.
Take comfort in knowing that his memory will live on in your bloodline. There is a separate counter for experience points (bloodline) and will allow you to unlock improved guns, perks, etc., similar to how a Call of Duty game would. This permadeath mechanic adds so much tension into every second of hunt. No one wants to lose all their stuff, ever.

Losing a character is one thing but permanent scarring of a hunter can also occur. If you get gunned down during a heated gunfight your partner can pick you up but it will permanently lower your character’s health by one bar. This can be recovered by spending perk points between games, but it should not be taken lightly. Additionally, if you catch on fire due to another player’s attack or an environmental effect you slowly begin to burn. If the flames are not snuffed out you could also permanently lose a health bar.



Until you are level 15, everything comes for free.
And when you hit level 16, one out of the four hunters you get each game, will be free (and all the equipments that comes with him too).


If you're looking for something absolutely new which isn't just a mindless FPS this might be the game for you. Very intense and strategic.
If you just run around and shoot, in most cases, you will get shot or get killed by players, zombies, dogs or any other monster.
Sneaking and communicating with your partner is the key to success (unless you play the "Solo" gamemode).



It's still in Early Access and has some issues but there are regular patches that fixes them and overall performance has improved. This might be my Game of the Year 2018.

I already spent 40+ hours and even if there are only two large map (for now), it's not getting boring yet.

Gameplay: 95/100
Audio: 100/100
Environment: 100/100

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You'll find yourself questioning your life choices as you desperately attempt to guide these party animals through levels that seem designed by a deranged cartoonist with a vendetta against your sanity. You think defeating Ornstein and Smough was hard? Try getting a gang of drunken penguins to cooperate long enough to pass a level without tumbling into an abyss.

And just when you think you've got it all figured out, some maniacal ostrich decides to clothesline you off a ledge, sending you into a fit of rage that not even Artorias at his angriest could match. Forget "Praise the Sun"; you'll be chanting "Curse the Fluff" in no time.

So if you're ready to have your composure shattered faster than a controller hitting the wall, dive into Party Animals and experience a level of fury that'll make even the toughest Dark Souls boss seem like a cuddly teddy bear.

Happy raging!