“It pains us greatly to share today that we must lay off an estimated 15% of our around 400 employees,” posted Crytek. “The layoffs affect development teams and shared services. This has not been an easy decision to make, as we deeply appreciate the hard work of our talented teams. After putting the development of the next Crysis game on hold in Q3 2024, we have been trying to shift developers over to Hunt: Showdown 1896.”

Further in its statement, Crytek said that the layoffs were an inevitable thing for the company despite having done its best at remaining financially viable by reducing costs and cutting operating expenses. It is, however, offering the employees affected by the layoffs with severance packages and career assistance services.

Moving forward, Crytek has said that it will double down on Hunt: Showdown 1896 with more content and updates down the line. This also includes further work on the engine running the game, CRYENGINE.

“We firmly believe in the future of Crytek,” said the company in its statement. “With Hunt: Showdown 1896, we have a very strong gaming service and remain fully committed to its operation. We will continue to expand and evolve Hunt: Showdown 1896 with great content and drive our strategy for our engine CRYENGINE.”

Hunt: Showdown 1896 is available on PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

pic.twitter.com/zJzGroAIex

— Crytek (@Crytek) February 12, 2025

For starters, there’s a new map in the form of Mammoth’s Gulch, which encompasses 16 unique compounds and various different environments, from mines to burnt and abandoned towns. There’s also a new target, called the Hellborn, which, in Crytek’s words, “moves frantically to slag trespassing Hunters, scorching everything in its considerable reach”, and is best dispatched with speed, given the fact that its “raging howls” can attract other Hunters to your location. Meanwhile, all of Hunt: Showdown’s previous maps will also arrive in remastered and overhauled form with a free post-launch update that’s yet to be dated.

Then there’s the new in-game Scorched Earth event, which will run from now until October 7, bringing new story details about Mammoth’s Gulch, as well as rewards in the form of new equipment, ammo, and weapons. On top of that, Crytek is also introducing a battle pass, as well as a new weekly challenges system. 

Crucially, Hunt: Showdown 1896 also sees the first-person shooter upgrading its engine. Now running on CryEngine 5.11, the game now boasts enhanced visual fidelity, and improvements across lighting, animations, audio design, and more. On PS5 and Xbox Series X, it runs at 4K and 60 FPS, while on Xbox Series S, it targets 1440p at 60 FPS. Other, gameplay-related improvements encompass improved controls, new wildlife, gunplay enhancements, and more. 

Meanwhile, as previously confirmed, this update also means that Crytek is no longer supporting Hunt: Showdown on PS4 and Xbox One. A free upgrade path is available, but going forward, the game will be unplayable on last-gen consoles.

Hunt: Showdown 1896 is available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. Check out the full patch notes for its big update through here, and watch its launch trailer below.

Specifically, Hunt general manager David Fifield confirmed in a recently released developer update video that when Hunt: Showdown upgrades its engine this August, it will switch to running natively on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, which in turn means its last-gen versions on PS4 and Xbox One will no longer be supported once the update is live.

That means that not only will future updates not be available on last-gen consoles, the game will become entirely unplayable on those platforms. Fifield assures in the video, however, that players’ accounts and their ownership of any and all DLC they have purchased will remain intact and transfer over to the game’s current-gen version at no cost, so those who have either a PS5 or an Xbox Series X/S will be able to continue playing without too many issues.

Details on exactly what the upcoming summer update will entail exactly in terms of other improvements and feature additions are currently scarce, but Crytek says it will be releasing regular update videos over the coming weeks to remedy that. The update itself is set to go live on August 15.

Hunt: Showdown is currently available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.

The event also brings with it a new Wildcard Condition, dubbed Ash Bloom, which involves flurries of insects and ash affecting visibility and keeping animals in the zone in a constant state of alert. Check out the Ash Bloom in action in the trailer below.

The three Pacts players can pledge to are dubbed The Demented Pact, The Drowned Pact, and The Grounded Pact. Each Pact comes with its own exclusive new Traits, like Shadow Leap, which allows Hunters to teleport directly a monster’s location, killing it instantly.

Hunt: Showdown is a competitive shooter that pits teams of Hunters against each other as they also try and track down dangerous and grotesque monsters in the area to take down. Killing the monster rewards players with bounty tokens which then have to be extracted. Players carrying bounty tokens can be killed by other players, however, and have their tokens stolen as a result.

Hunt: Showdown is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.

Well, it’s still in the works, even if it isn’t at a stage where Crytek is ready to show it off. Speaking in a recent interview with MP1st, David Fifield, general manager of the studio, provided a brief update on the game, stating that it’s still in the works, and that it’s being worked on by “a great team”. More details on the title, according to Fifield, will arrive “down the line.”

“Crysis 4 is currently still in development and we have a great team working on it,” he said. “We will update once we have more details on it down the line.”

Shortly after the announcement of Crysis 4 (or the announcement that the game was in development), it was confirmed that it was being directed by Mattias Engström, who, during a lengthy tenure at IO Interactive, had served as a level designer on Hitman (2016) and Hitman 2, and as game director on Hitman 3.

Currently, there’s no word on which platforms Crysis 4 is being developed for.

The biggest feature of the new update is the addition of a new boss category. Dubbed Wild Targets, the first boss in the category is Rotjaw, who hangs out in the waters of the Bayou rather than inside a compound like other bosses in the game.

The event also brings with it three new pacts—Primal Pact, Smuggler Pact, and Grounded Pact. Each pact brings with it a host of new lore, along with new legendary weapons and equipment associated with the factions.

Players can unlock rewards from the event by earning Event Points, which is done by completing in-game challenges and interacting with, or destroying Ship Alters all over the Bayou. Players can make use of single-use Burn Traits during the event to give them an extra boost in capabilities.

Tide of Shadows is slated to come to the console versions of Hunt: Showdown at a later date.

Two new tutorials have been added to the game as part of the update. Narrated by Doug Cockle—known for voicing Geralt in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt—the tutorials have been split into teaching players basic and advanced concepts. Completing the tutorials will reward players with a Tier 1 Hunter, alongside rewards earned in the tutorials.

The basic tutorial will teach players Hunt: Showdown‘s core mechanics, including controls, gunplay, and monsters. Advanced concepts taught to the player in the second tutorial include using clues to locate the boss targets, how players can fight these targets, and how to banish them before extracting with their rewards.

The update also brings with it two new questlines—The Ward of the Reptilian (which will be available until May 1), and Vengeance of the Skinned, which will be available later. The questlines offer new activities and rewards, and team members can now also contribute to your questline progress.

Retailing for $49.99, there’s a 40 percent discount available for seven days after launch, allowing players to pick up all three games for just $29.99. Those who Crysis Remastered will receive a 55 percent discount off the bundle in the first week of its release.

The Crysis Remastered Trilogy features three classic Crysis games with high-definition textures, lighting improvements, enhanced environments, and ray tracing. Multiplayer and Crysis Warhead aren’t included, and Crysis Remastered has had its fair share of issues, like being built on the console port as opposed to the original PC release.

For more details, check out our review for the trilogy here and Crysis Remastered here. All three remasters are also available for Xbox One, PS4, and Nintendo Switch.

The studio has ultimately released a short teaser on Twitter that shows off how this equipment will be usable in the game.

Considering the setting for Hunt: Showdown, Crytek’s teases have started laying the foundations for how such an item would fit into the game’s overarching narrative.

The studio has been describing how beetles work with their handlers to scout out the surrounding area, giving their handlers better situational awareness in the process. Crytek has been tweeting out quite a bit of lore surrounding this, including a final blurb about scientists being yet to have concluded their research on the subject.

There has yet to be an official confirmation of such an item—being beetles or otherwise—making its way into Hunt: Showdown. Considering how much of an impact such an item would have on the game, however, it will likely be added alongside a major update that potentially brings a new Monster to its bestiary.

As current findings are relatively new, and scientists have yet to conclude their research, we can only assume that further information will be revealed in the near future regarding this species, and their origins. pic.twitter.com/OfRPlCSZiN

— Hunt: Showdown (@HuntShowdown) September 22, 2022

The Serpent Moon live event will bring a new supernatural infestation of snakes to the game. Serpents will start showing up in snake dens throughout the bayou, nad players must capture the sankes and sacrifice them on altars. Rewards for taking part in the new event include Blood Bonds and weapons.

Tying in to the new mechanics revolving around snakes, players will have access to new Event Traits to help them with the new objectives: Beastface reduces the reaction range of snakes, Serpent increases the distance from which snake sacrifices can be made, and Poison Sense will identify nearby poisoned players through Dark Sight.

The Serpent Moon event will also allow players to play as new Legendary Hunter Viper. A new feature with Viper is that the character will see visual changes through different stages of the event. The number of stages will depend on the player’s progress through the event. There is also a new battle pass system, dubbed The Gilded Path, which allows players to choose between free, standard, and premium paths.

Two of Viper’s progression paths are available through the free path in the new battle pass, alongside weapons and Blood Bonds. The standard Gilded Path adds on four stages of Viper’s evolution, and the premium Gilded Path adds 3,000 Event points on top.

There are 11 rewards during Serpent Moon, with new weapon rewards including the “Antosha” Caldwell Conversion Chain Pistol, and the “Lucidus” Vetterli 71 Karabiner Silencer. The premium Gilded Path includes weapons like the new “Snake Oil Ward” antidote shot, and the Winfield 1873 Swift rifle “Slither”.

Hunt: Showdown‘s Serpent Moon event is kicking off alongside a new DLC bundle for the game—The Prescient—which includes new Legendary Hunters and Legendary Weapons. Serpent Moon is live in Hunt: Showdown on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.