I have to be honest, I didn’t think Crytek would survive long enough to complete Hunt: Showdown and that this would be one of those poor games that get stuck in development limbo while the studio doors shutter. However, I was wrong. Crytek managed to put Hunt: Showdown into Steam Early Access back in February of 2018, after having a series of closed alpha tests in January of 2018. Just over a year later they managed to graduate from Early Access, with full console releases in tow.

The full launch of Hunt: Showdown on PC is also accompanied by the Legends of the Bayou DLC, which is currently available for $9.99. It features two new playable characters, including the Bone Doctor and the Weird Sister, along with the new ritual knife and the copperhead Nagent pistol.

For the full release the game has a couple of new features, including the ability to play in teams of two or teams of three, as well as the new map.

However, not everyone is pleased with the final results.

There are a lot of complaints about certain nicknacks that have grown into pet peeves for the players who have put in a lot of playtime over the last two years.

The first big issue that a lot of people complained about in the developer stream on release day was the lack of gun sway. Apparently over time Crytek reduced the gun sway on the PC version of the game, which many hardcore players did not like at all, since it scaled back the difficulty ramp in firefights and reduced immersion.

But you know… the developer stream wasn’t all bad. There was a lot to glean throughout the entire thing, even if you didn’t really care about the game. I know it was quite enjoyable for me and I’m not a fanboy of Hunt: Showdown.

Anyway, now that the full game has arrived on Steam, the user review rating has plummeted from positive to mixed, mostly relating to the issues mentioned above.

Dogg, which has one of the highest rated negative reviews on hand, perfectly summed up the technical issues with the game, ranging from the lighting being made too bright and the LOD being made too low, to the firefights no longer being technical and intense…

“Up until 1.0 aiming in Hunt was a two step process, One button to bring your gun up into hipfire stance then another button press to bring you into ADS stance. This, along with some pretty severe weapon sway meant that gunfights in Hunt used to require a great deal of skill. Even people with incredible aim couldn’t just one tap everyone from anywhere. It meant fights on average lasted longer than other FPS games and this required players to be more than just a ‘Good Shot’ in engagements, flanking, retreating and re-engaging, using decoys or even triggering AI to help you win fights all happened frequently. However the introduction of ‘Gunslinger’ mode allows players to bypass the two stage aiming system, with Gunslinger the player is always in hipfire stance, meaning they have an advantage on anyone not using Gunslinger as they only have to press one button to shoot instead of two, and although the Devs claim there is a disadvantage to using Gunslinger I have yet to see where any disadvantage lies. The removal of the weapon sway has meant that anyone with halfway decent aim can get headshots quite easily, both of these changes have reduced the skill ceiling whilst also reducing the average length of gunfights which in turn has seen a reduction in the need to flank etc. This has imo made the game a little boring. If I wanted insanely accurate guns and fast gunfights I wouldn’t be playing a game like Hunt as there are so many other games that allow me to play that way easier and with more enjoyment and variance.”

That last sentence perfectly encapsulates how I feel about most games.

A lot of times you have a dime-a-dozen cookie-cutter shooters out there, and I absolutely abhor it when a unique shooter comes along but then gets nerfed into a milquetoast, cookie-cutter cutout with the sort of mundane encounters one would expect from Call of Duty or Battlefield.

It’s a shame that Crytek is screwing themselves over with these decisions. A better way about it would be to add a casual or advanced mode for the gunplay, and then separate the multiplayer rooms based on people who choose casual or advanced mode. People who don’t care can select to have matchmaking put them in random rooms. Problems solved.

Anyway, the PC version of Hunt: Showdown is now fully out of Early Access and available right now on the Steam store for $39.99. The Xbox One version of the game will graduate from the Preview Program “soon”.