Hunt: Showdown 1896

3 star lobbies are infested with 6 star solos, don't buy unless you wanna live in this game like 6 star players do

I really do enjoy the game it's one of those games you can truly get hooked on. But sadly, I can't recommend that anyone start playing it, because of the stubbornness of Crytek (the developer). For years we have asked Crytek to finally add a ping limit to the game, but they just don't listen. At some point, around 5 Stars and above, you run into a lot of Chinese players with absurdly high ping. And the best part is that they don't even need a VPN you can just select the server in the main menu. I have never seen a developer so limited in their ability to add a simple ping limit. They've been promising it for a few years now, but as a developer myself, I just can't comprehend what the challenge could be. It's just sad, and a missed opportunity. I would change this to positive in a heartbeat the moment Crytek finally realizes what a gem they actually have. The game is insanely fun and atmospheric, especially when you get into fights with other players. The Wild West theme with zombies is also just a great choice. I really do love the game, but the developer is just too stubborn to realize what's going wrong.

I bought this game a couple of days after it released in early access in 2018 and have revisited it on and off over the years. I really wanted Hunt to succeed, but every time I come back, I remember why I didn't continue playing, and things haven't gotten better over the years. Let's start with the GOOD: on paper, the core gameplay loop is actually great. Give me an objective-based extraction shooter over a loot-based one any day! BUT (and here's the BAD): this quickly gets overshadowed by a plethora of issues the devs have failed to address: - Negative and unsportsmanlike behaviour is 'meta'. You may want to say "git gud," but there's something deeply wrong when the dominant strategy revolves around cheesy tactics, bush camping, and other borderline exploitative practices. This seems to be even more the case in higher MMR. - There is no real balance. The latest attempt at balancing loadouts feels like an overcomplicated solution. - it's patchwork thinking instead of addressing the root cause. - I do have to give credit where it's due: the engine upgrade made the game feel much smoother. Unfortunately, that improvement has been overshadowed by persistent server issues... - The content has become stale. I'd even go so far as to say some of the recent additions are harmful to the core experience. The latest update (Road to Hell) completely undermine the game's core loop of tracking monsters and gathering clues... And the optimal strategy is rushing the balloon, fortifying that position, and farming kills. If I wanted to play king of the hill, there are much better games for that. As for the UGLY: the monetization feels completely out of balance and unworthy of a premium game that also sells battle passes. I bought several skins, but honestly, the coolest ones are the default hunters with hunter progression. I don't understand why the developers don't make those the premium offering. I don't want another dark, borderline pay-to-win skin. I'd happily pay for the opportunity to unlock a skin I can lvl up through skill - that would actually feel rewarding. The current monetization just feels lazy and predatory. The frustrating part isn't that the game has flaws (all live services do!); it's that, after years of updates, many remain unsolved. It's like putting a patch on a festering wound. It may look OK, but under that, the meat is rotting. At this point, I no longer believe that crytek is interested in fixing the issues that matter most. In the end, the game feels like an empty shell of what it could have been. I really wanted to love this game, but after eight years, I don't think I'll be coming back. On the bright side: it's not too long now until Hunger comes out, something fresh to sink our teeth in! Final note and to echo a friend's review: credit your ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ devs who worked on the game, crytek!

It was a great game. Now it is a clown-fest (literally, clown zombies) with rapper-celebrity focused event, paid animations for dances, pop-culture crossovers skins, while a game in a constant status of atrocious servers with horrible tickrates, broken balance, one of the worst ranked systems (you can't play unranked btw) and same guns variants and events repeated over and over with a bit different wrapper and an intent to hide impressive laziness of developers. I was 6 stars when i left, 7 dlcs, played from first public versions, played with group of 5 friends for years. Same as me, none of them can recommend it now. Music is still good.

Honestly I wish this game could be fun for me but the matchmaking is a joke and the lobbies are never balanced, you always get one guy cheating or just running around hard meta in low level lobbies with 20+ prestige under their belt. It's a slog and it can't even begin to be fun because the second you finish the tutorial you get no-lifers like this ruining every possible lobby you could get

Right off the bat; If you value your sanity, this game is an immediate skip. I knew this game had a poor matchmaking system, but I had absolutely no idea how horrible it actually was. The "MMR" is shown as 1-6 stars, 1 star players being the lowest skill, and 6 stars being the highest. So why as a 3 star player am I getting consistently matched with 6 star players with their bounty being in the tens of millions? It's just not fun always dying to people so far above my skill level while me and my teammates struggle to keep up. I've also heard cheaters are pretty rampant, but I've never encountered a blatant one before, so take that as you will.

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ matchmaking

Every sound matters.

It's a hard game to get in to but when you get at least some hang of it the kills feel super rewarding. Also got the game on sale just to try it out and it has been the best entertainment purchase I've made in some time

Früher hat mir Hunt: Showdown 1896 richtig Spaß gemacht. Die Atmosphäre, das Sounddesign und das einzigartige Gameplay gehören immer noch zu den besten, die ich in einem Shooter erlebt habe. Genau deshalb ist es so enttäuschend, wie sich das Spiel inzwischen anfühlt. In viel zu vielen Runden habe ich das Gefühl, auf Spieler zu treffen, deren Verhalten extrem verdächtig wirkt. Natürlich ist nicht jeder gute Spieler ein Cheater, aber wenn solche Begegnungen regelmäßig vorkommen, leidet das Vertrauen in faire Matches. Zusammen mit Serverproblemen, Bugs und einem Matchmaking, das sich teilweise unausgewogen anfühlt, geht der Spielspaß immer weiter verloren. Das Traurige ist: Hunt hat enormes Potenzial und könnte einer der besten Extraction-Shooter überhaupt sein. Statt mich auf spannende Kämpfe zu freuen, frage ich mich inzwischen oft, ob die nächste Niederlage überhaupt fair war. Solange diese Probleme nicht deutlich besser in den Griff bekommen werden, kann ich das Spiel leider nicht mehr empfehlen.