Crytek’s first-person shooter, Hunt: Showdown, is finally available for the public to play. After multiple closed alpha tests, closed beta tests, and closed door demonstrations shown to the press, the developers have released the competitively co-op, supernatural shooter into Early Access on Steam.
The game features teams of two that enter into a map and must investigate the areas for clues. It’s a large, hand-crafted map with a variety of locations. Sprinkled throughout it are zombies, monsters and other killer creatures looking to stop you dead in your tracks. Your starting HP is low and your weapons – while deadly – leave you vulnerable to attack due to their slow firing rates and close range effects.
Players have to carefully plod through the map, taking down anything or anyone that gets in their path, attempt to locate the boss, kill the boss, take the loot, and exit the stage.
While that sounds like a cakewalk, keep in mind that the gameplay is very similar in ways to Resident Evil 7. You can die pretty easily and enemies can come at you from any direction. To make matters even more intense is that there are other teams of players looking to kill the baddies and cash in on the loot as well. Sometimes players will work together and other times they’ll shoot on sight, as depicted in the video below from CaRtOoNz.
As you complete missions, earn rewards and level up your hunter, you can unlock new weapons, new skill traits and access higher, riskier challenges.
Each hunter starts with two weapons, a main primary and a secondary. Ammo supplies are limited, so scavenging is a must if you plan on scouring the map for clues. These are also older late 19th century weapons, so you won’t be going in there guns a blazin’ with automatic rifles and high-magazine shotguns.
As you move up higher in rank you can unlock different types of rifles and shotguns, as well as more impactful handguns and revolvers.
The game is currently available in Early Access for $29.99 over on the Steam store.
Crytek has plans on keeping Hunt: Showdown in Early Access for the next 12 months.
The user reviews are mixed at the moment, but for the common reasons you would expect them to be mixed for an Early Access game. Some people are angry that there aren’t enough regional server support yet and that people playing in Australia lag out more often than not; others are disappointed that the game still has graphics bugs and a lack of performance optimization; and a few more are disappointed that Crytek hasn’t fixed all the visual glitches yet.
Of course, over the next 12 months hopefully Crytek expands server support, adds dedicated servers, fixes the graphical glitches, and improves on the overall performance optimizations.
Hopefully they’ll focus on the core aspects before putting too much attention into expanding on game content.
