Hunt: Showdown Is The PvP Masterpiece You're Looking For (2024)

Do you ever think that online shooters are too forgiving? Do you believe that too many online shooters cater to making themselves accessible to a casual audience? Do you want something more niche, a game that’s more … cruel? Where death comes swiftly and with drastic consequences?

If you do, let me introduce you to the Bayou, damned soul.

Hunt: Showdown is an interesting blend of various genres. While some call it a battle royale, it is in actuality, an extraction shooter. Imagine if Escape from Tarkov wasn’t a perpetually miserable experience that also didn’t prey on your wallet. Although there are many ways in which it stands out on its own as well.

For starters, Hunt: Showdown is a PvPvE game. This means that you also have to contend with AI-controlled enemies alongside other players. Your objective? Look for clues across various compounds on a large map to locate the boss of the area, fight and kill the boss, and then take its bounty to an extraction point and win the match. Die at any point and your hunter is lost for good, along with all of their loot.

It’s brutal, punishing, so much so that half of its player base hasn’t killed a single enemy. Despite all of this, I still consider Hunt: Showdown to be among the best online shooters ever made. It’s my personal all-time favorite online FPS despite only having around 60 hours in it, and this article is my excuse to gush about why Hunt: Showdown is flat-out amazing.

Atmosphere And Immersion

Immersion usually isn’t something that’s discussed when talking about multiplayer games. When you’re knee-deep in a sweaty match, of course, Hunt you can’t really take in the atmosphere. Taking the time to immerse yourself in a setting is something most players tend to enjoy in a single-player setting. That’s where Hunt differentiates itself.

Why do you think Hunt is so intense?
byu/Mundian-To-Bach-Ke inHuntShowdown

See, Hunt: Showdown is a slow, methodical game where you have to play cautiously and pay attention to the smallest of details. It’s also where a core element of the game comes into play: Sound.

Sound is paramount in Hunt. The smallest noise matters. Whether it’s the faraway barking of dogs or the sound of a piece of glass shattering under your foot. Gunshots echo violently across large distances. Hunt: Showdown weaponizes sound both in your favor and against you.

Imagine a stream of data. When you hear a noise, that’s the data and information you’re receiving about another hunter. It could be what weapon they’re using, what enemy they’re fighting, or even their exact distance. On the flip side, every noise you make could potentially be giving the same data and information to other hunters.

It puts the players in this constant tug-of-war where you’re trying to take in as much information while trying not to give away information about yourself. That’s where the PvE aspect of the game comes in. The enemies you encounter don’t pose a threat in isolation, but factor in the ways you can deal with them, and things could quickly spiral out of control.

Make too much noise and other players could pinpoint your location. Getting distracted by a grunt during a gunfight can give the enemy hunters a significant advantage against you. Not using the right strategy for a specific enemy could land you in some lethal trouble.

Hunt: Showdown is an intricate game made of systems that work in tandem with each other to create a hyper-intense, immersive experience with some best-in-class sound design and a killer atmosphere.

Guns And Roses

The second aspect that makes Hunt so special to me is its arsenal. Being a game set in the Louisiana bayou in the mid-late 1800s, all of the weapons in Hunt: Showdown are from that particular era. This means you’re always using slow-firing, clunky revolvers or rifles that are both deadly but also difficult to use. Missing a shot with a revolver could potentially mean death as you wait for your hunter to co*ck the hammer back.

A worry with a system like this is that it could be very easy for the arsenal to feel same-y or lacking in variety. Hunt doesnotface this problem. Weapons all feel distinct from each other with both downsides and upsides. While expensive weapons like the Nitro or the Dolch are both extremely powerful and fun to use, they’re no more effective than the starting Winfield rifle or the Caldwell Conversion revolver.

What weapons FEEL the best to you?
byu/GavinRayDev inHuntShowdown

Coupled with how sound factors into gameplay. Gunfights can often turn into these elaborate, borderline cinematic shootouts where you’re constantly trying to both out-skill and outsmart your opponents. It’s why I also think that Hunt has the most dynamic shootouts of any multiplayer shooter, simply because of the many ways you can play around with the mechanics.

Closing Thoughts

Despite what I’ve said so far, Hunt: Showdown isn’t nearly as punishing as its reputation leads players to believe, and that’s because the game always ensures that the player never hits a dead end. You’ll die, again and again and again, and that’s okay because Hunt makes it effortless to pick yourself back up.

It’s not a perfect game. The game faces server issues, UI problems, and high-rank toxicity. However, when you look at what it gets right, Hunt: Showdown is a masterpiece.