Hunt: Showdown

The game itself is great, the new engine update makes it look a lot better than before, it has removed all the jaggy outlines on a lot of objects/models and for the most part performance seems to be the same or better with DLSS.
The UI is absolutely terrible though, they need to fix it, it's a complete step backwards from a UI that was already a bit awkward to use.
Giving it a positive review, just fix the UI, there's no point reviewbombing the game because of the poor UI when the gameplay is great.

The greatest 1st person shooter experience tied up in the worse user interface devised by human kind, the game will be good eventually when they fix the UI. also when they remove the shitty 800ms trade window.

Hunt Showdown used to be a great game. It was challenging, rewarding, and most importantly. Fun. It was the thinking mans FPS, where no matter how bad your gear was, if you out thought or out shot your opponent you could win.
This still holds true to a degree. However since the 1886 Engine/UI update its been reduced to an okay game.
The Engine Update has more or less been good. Tons of players have reported issues with the game since then, I was lucky and my AMD based system didn’t suffer anything worse then reaching barely playable frame rates. Overall, this is the only part of the update I don’t believe has damaged the games core identity in any way.
The UI topic has been done to death so I’ll only say that in the hundred odd hours I’ve played since it was released, I still struggle constantly. Its without a doubt a nightmare for new players.
The various weapon changes and balances are however where things start to take a turn for the worse. Hunt has always had weapons that were simply better in every way then other weapons, regulating them to meme loadouts or simply never to be seen in the Bayou. With the addition of special ammo, this only made weapon variety worse, as the good weapons became great, and the great weapons God-tier. This isn’t restricted to PvP weapons either. The weapons that were best used against AI have been heavily nerfed. On the PvP side, tweaks and balances have been implemented to improve the worst affected weapons. Such as certain types of special ammo to be removed from some guns or given to others. On the AI side. Nothing. This was one of the biggest and most divisive updates in Hunts history, and in hindsight was a sign of what was to come with the 1886 update and its changes.
Gameplay changes are what is making most people leave the game currently. The stated goal of these changes from Crytek themselves is make games end quicker. That is it. They want players to enter the server and leave as fast as possible. To this end they increased the burn rate of downed hunters, reduced the effect of the choke bomb, and added more options to burn bodies. They also changed Necromancer, a powerful-ish trait that allows players to revive downed teammates from a distance, to such a state that I have seen it used only a handful of times. Hunt Showdown used to be more then a name, it was a description for the gameplay. You searched for clues or hunted other players down, reaching a compound where you had a showdown that left only one team alive. Now the way the game is played people rush areas of high traffic and force conflict, with the bosses becoming a secondary objective. It’s PvEvP style of gameplay has changed perhaps irreversibly to PvPv(on occasion)E
This all adds up to a far more frustrating game, where small mistakes that already punished you greatly are simply brutal. You can still kill anyone or anything with any of the weapons and tools in the game, you can still out think, out maneuver, and outshoot your enemies. However the frustrations you run into have gotten worse and the enjoyment of fighting AI is now non-existent.
And this leads me to my biggest concerns about this games future. Its no secret the playerbase is small and tends to shrink more each year by about a hundred or more players. When I started the average daily player count was about 20,000, now its about 12,000. A really good number for the type of game it is. However it seems like with the newest event and its controversial premise that leads me and others to think Crytek might be trying to appeal to a larger player base. Which has historically killed the soul of every game that does it. I don’t want Hunt to lose its soul, but it looks like its heading that way. So if you’re interested in trying this game, alone or with friends, do it sooner rather then later. Crytek has shown they’re willing to meet players half-way on most issues, but not enough to bring back people who have left. Play now before it stops being Hunt and becomes a ever more generic and wider appealing game then it was when it launched.
I do recommend it still, but you should be forewarned, its a different game then it used to be, and is constantly changing so fast and so much that what makes you fall in love with might change and drive you away in a year or less.
I'll nearing that point myself, and will see what the next event holds before I make the choice leave or not. I hope to see you in the Bayou in the time between now and then.

What masquerades itself as a shooter is actually a mental game of chess where you can only hear the pieces. This cowboy-from-hell-ass game has sucked up 200 hours of my life so far and I have only just begun to scratch the surface of the ridiculous intricacies that these fights involve.

dope game.

Please listen to the players, Revert the UI back or at the very least add an option that allows us to use the old UI. This change was not welcome

I keep losing characters because of server problems. If ya cant then at least compensate. Inevitably, people will lose interest in the game when we have high level characters with good equipment and in the middle of the map, we all crash and lose the characters

I don't usually play FPS games, but Hunt's "vibes" (setting, music/sounds, lore & more) captured my heart to the point I play this game every day.
Not every day is a good Hunt day, but I always love playing this game.
Signed - A very bad hunter who shakes when she gets shoot outta nowhere (seriously, sometimes my left hand shakes so much I just stand still trying to press W)