Hunt Showdown

Has anyone here been playing Hunt Showdown from Crytek. I see its free to play this weekend over on Steam. Can't find another thread for this on boards.

I wasn't following this game but a friend gifted it to me about a month or so ago and I'm finding it quite enjoyable.

Its a multiplayer only PVP with PVE elements game. The primary game mode is a two player team based game where you have to track down and kill a monster (the bounty) and escape before any of the 9 other 2 man teams do the same.

You start off at the edge of the map (there is currently two different large maps) and using a special vision mode you hunt for at least 3 clues to determine the location of the bounty. The map is littered with various lesser monsters (zombie types) but they are generally not much of danger unless they catch you distracted dealing with rival teams. Each time you find a clue it narrows the location of the bounty. Once you or an opposing team find the last clue the location of the bounty is reveled to all teams causing a convergence of the various teams to that point, though sometimes there is more than one bounty)

Once the bounty is killed a timer runs down where the monster was killed (called banishing) that drops a bounty token you have to escape with. This is done by getting to one of the various escape points at the edge of the map. The problem is that once you have the bounty token, all opposing teams can see your approximate position in the special vision mode and the closer they get to you the more accurate that vision is, meaning you can't easily stealth away after picking up the bounty token.

The gameplay is quite interesting.You basically have 1 life. You die your out for the round. The game also features permadeath for you characters once you reach level 16 (the game considers level 1-16 the training phase). You can level up your characters that gain perks and traits but once you die after level 16 you lose them. Weapons upgrades are on a different skill tree called bloodline and you don't lose access to unlocked weapons if you die but you will have to buy them again.

This is a game where the visuals and even more so the audio play a huge part.

The game is set in what looks like the aftermath of the American civil war somewhere in the deep South, the guns have a distinctly western feel to them. Combat is close to one hit kills, headshots are one hit kills as far as I can tell. The weapons often require manual loading after shooting. Someone of the shoot outs I've had have prolonged engagement at range and they remind me of watching old western movies, and are quite fun.

As a result of the combat system ambushes and getting the drop on other teams is very important. For example sun glare and light shafts can really obstruct your vision, but more impressive is the audio more so that any other game in a long time. The distance you can hear gun shots from is huge. The game has a huge amount of audio tells to give away your position, like broken glass in buildings, chains hanging in barns, clusters of birds or ducks in ponds that squawk and quack loudly and then take flight into the air when you move close to them, or a dying horse making noise when you approach it or a dog barking in a kennel. So it forces you make decisions, you can slowly stealth around and use melee weapons to stealth kills monsters while you look for clues or you can go in guns blazing to do things faster (you get better rewards for this)but risk giving away your position to other players. Considering it can be one hit kill and there is permadeath it can make for tense and interesting gameplay.

Anyway I feel the setting, combat style and the way it makes use of audio here make this game feel different and fresh.