Hunt: Showdown is quite committed to the concept of permadeath. It's a 2v2v2v2 competitive survival game, but unlike PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, your gear is persistent across matches, you don't loot other players, and you buy weapons and equipment using in-game currency. If you die in a match, you lose your stuff forever, and the character who carried it in.

It's a daring design choice, but that unwillingness to water itself down was one of the reasons Hunt we've been so enthusiastic about Hunt since we saw it at E3. I've asked Crytek a few questions about how these systems will work, answered by lead designer Dennis Schwarz below.

And above, Crytek expands on the design of Hunt's guns in a new video. The studio is both embracing and deviating from the game's setting—1890 Louisiana—with period-authentic rifles like the Mosin Nagant alongside fantastical contraptions like Concertina bombs, which lay out webs of barbed wire to block opponents.

PC Gamer: How are weapons earned in Hunt?

Dennis Schwarz, lead designer: First of all, the weapons available to you will depend on your Bloodline rank. When you unlock additional weapons, they can then be purchased with the (in-game) gold you earn collecting bounties. The higher your rank, the more weapons you can choose from. Once purchased, these weapons are added to your arsenal and can be assigned to individual Hunters.

New Hunters come with a set of weapons—so you are never starting empty—but you can choose to either keep those weapons or replace them with gear you’ve purchased for your arsenal.

How are weapons lost? If you die in a match, do you lose every piece of gear you're carrying?

The equipment a Hunter brings into a match is lost when they die. So while better gear gives you better chance at success, it also makes the price if you fail a lot higher. Playing with a partner helps reduce that risk, however, as they can still try to revive you if you are killed.

Do I have to buy ammo?

Ammunition is replenished each time you complete a match. You won’t have to worry about buying bullets for your weapons, but you will only be able to carry so much of it at a time.

Is there a weapon degradation system?

We have no weapon degradation system in Hunt: Showdown right now.

And there's no looting, right?

You cannot loot dead players in Hunt. We want players to focus on completing the match, rather than on killing all the other players. PvP is an important part of the game, so yeah, it is an advantage to take out your competition, but without a looting element there is a little less motivation to do so. What you can do, however, is steal other players’ bounties. This creates some great ambush scenarios where you let another team do all the dirty work and take them out on their way off the map.