Hunt: Showdown just received its massive 1896 re-launch–one that overhauls Crytek’s supernatural extraction shooter and updates it for current-gen consoles–and it’s doing the numbers on Steam to prove it.
Crytek’s shooter has always had a consistent player count of around 20,000-30,000 people on Steam over the last few years, slowly but surely cementing its place as one of the best extraction shooters available. The Hunt: Showdown 1896 launch has pushed the game’s concurrent Steam players to new heights, reaching over 55,000 players and counting at time of writing, according to SteamDB.
It’s a big moment for Hunt: Showdown. The 1896 update overhauls the 2018 shooter’s visuals, with an upgrade to the latest version of the CryEngine and all the improved lighting and audio updates that come with it. The changes are so dramatic that Crytek is ending support of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the game. Owners of the last-gen console versions, however, will be upgraded for free to the PS5 and Xbox Series X|S versions. It also adds the game’s first new map in years (set in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, which is the first map set outside the swamps of Louisiana), and introduces new enemies, weapons, weapon variants, and cosmetics.
Controversially, it also overhauls the game’s UI, which is earning Hunt: Showdown 1896 “Mixed” recent reviews on Steam despite the game’s overall “Very Positive” rating. Most of the game’s recent negative reviews remark on the UI change, with one negative review stating the new update “brought with it a UI that was designed for console players” and “barely functions,” while another calls the new main menu and UI “disgusting.”
There are gameplay changes too, with major adjustments to various Hunter traits like the widely used Necromancer trait, changes to make it so Hunters burn out faster when downed and on fire, reduced duration for Choke bombs, improved Trap placement, and reworked bullet physics, including bullet drop. Headshots will now always be an instant kill as well. The game’s challenge system has also been overhauled, with all players now having the same weekly challenges, all the objectives of which are displayed on the in-game map.
For those interested in seeing what Hunt: Showdown 1896 is all about, the game is running a free weekend on Steam that ends on August 19, with an Xbox free weekend lasting until August 18. Hunt: Showdown 1896 is also discounted on all platforms by 20% until August 22, available for $24 instead of its usual $30.
