Hunt: Showdown Interview – Lock and Load

Though Hunt: Showdown has had a long and complicated development cycle, the form Crytek released it in late last year after a period of early access is one of the most unique things we’ve seen in the shooter genre and the PvP space in years. With its combination of a horror setting, a slow-paced and intense gameplay loop, and uniquely gruelling mechanics, Hunt: Showdown currently offers the kind of breathless PvPvE action that can’t be found anywhere else. There’s still a ways to go for the game yet, though, with Crytek planning on continue tweaking it and adding new content to it. To get some details on the game’s future, we sent across a few of our questions to the developers not too long ago. You can read our conversation with producer Fatih Özbayram below.

"We’re extremely happy to have launched Hunt out of Early Access and are grateful for all the feedback we have received throughout Early Access and beyond."

First of all, congratulations on the 1.0 launch. Since the full release, the game’s been getting some very good reception from larger audiences- how does it feel to finally have the game out the game after what I imagine has been a ton of hard work?

Thank you very much! It feels great, but at the same time we realize that there is still a lot of work ahead of us. We’re extremely happy to have launched Hunt out of Early Access and are grateful for all the feedback we have received throughout Early Access and beyond. It’s now time to define the future roadmap for Hunt and to deliver on some remaining roadmap items.

How important was feedback from the community during the early access phase? How much has it shaped the game as we see it today?

We got a lot of feedback from the community and are happy to have been able to deliver some of the most-highly requested features, like the Quick Play mode, teams of three, a new map, a new boss, and many more.

There has been some criticism for what a few players feel is a visual downgrade in the 1.0 release- do you have any response to that feedback yet? Is that something you’re working on?

This one might require a slightly longer answer, as we did multiple things for 1.0.

Firstly, we tweaked some lighting (especially the night time of day) to make it brighter, which led to a less moody feeling. This was perceived as a downgrade because the scenes look less intense. While we knew that this would cause some pushback, we still went with it because it had become an issue that some players would raise the brightness artificially to get an advantage. It was in part a way to remove access to this exploit.

Secondly, we lowered the “low” graphics settings in a patch in which we had enabled more graphics options settings. The lower setting options were meant to help out players with older systems, and the additional settings meant players could still up their graphics settings where possible or desired. Unfortunately, we didn’t communicate this clearly enough, at the time, an experience which taught us a lot about how to interact with the community on these topics.

"We are committed to delivering the highest quality we can offer, and the highest settings graphics were never lowered. That being said, our focus is to make the game accessible – and fair – for as many people with as many different gaming set ups as possible. "

Finally, we had some issues with asset streaming that led to blurry terrain, characters, and bushes and had a patch where some of the vegetation (grass) was turned off by accident. While this was easy to fix, it was also perceived as a graphics downgrade.

We are committed to delivering the highest quality we can offer, and the highest settings graphics were never lowered. That being said, our focus is to make the game accessible – and fair – for as many people with as many different gaming set ups as possible.

I imagine the 1.0 release is only the beginning for Hunt: Showdown. Do you have plans for more content and updates laid out for some time to come?

Yes, absolutely! There still are a lot of ideas, and we plan to continue updating the game regularly just like before. Bigger updates that are planned include a solo PvE mode, live events, cross play between Xbox and PlayStation, and many more.

With next-gen consoles around the corner and Hunt: Showdown presumably being a game you’ll be supporting for some time, are PS5 and Xbox Series X ports something that you’ve maybe tentatively discussed?

Right now, we are focusing on the current generation. On February 18^th, we’ll release on PS4 for the first time, for example. Before we make any further plans, we want to make sure that we have a stable service, a fun experience, and a strong content pipeline. This is what we are focussing on right now and for quite some time to come.