Updating my review for the 1896 update.
I feel there are very few games you can say are truly unrivaled, if a game gets popular enough you can bet someone will try to imitate it, but Hunt walks such a fine line between all of its systems and it does it so well that even 5 years later nothing has come close to the experience on offer here. It's not without its flaws but this is an exceptional game that you'll deeply regret not playing if it goes offline or dies for a questionable sequel.
Hunt is a deeply personal game to me, I started playing it just before I travelled to the other side of the world, and while quarantining for two weeks in some stranger's home in Taiwan during the height of Covid, not allowed to leave due to the rules, Hunt and the beautiful stable (lol) servers in Asia kept me sane. Months later I would use it to keep up with friends from home and decompress. For me it's a game that encapsulates a specific time and place in my life, which I don't think it could have done without being so unique.
The premise is simple, PvPvE extraction, spawn in, find clues, follow the clues to a boss, beat the boss for wallhacks, escape the map without being killed by other players. Nowadays this doesn't sound too appealing admittedly however what makes Hunt special is its setting. It bleeds southern Gothic, so much so that the developers of the game formed their own genuine band to make music for the soundtrack which they release albums for. The world here is muddy, dark, foreboding and haunting, it would be a fantastic setting for some kind of single player experience if they ever decided to branch out.
Unfortunately, this can be spoiled by the fact it runs on CryEngine and not a very good version of it. The newest update to the 1896 version of the game has helped, but this engine has some serious problems with texture pop-in and overall visibility. This is a big problem in a game that's all about sneaking from bush to bush, blending in and ambushing enemies. I've tried out the textures at the max settings even though I can't run it at a high FPS just to see what the pop-in is like and even then it's bad. The game also gets a disorienting filter over it in darker areas, it almost looks like it resolution scaling that is too low but I don't use a resolution scaling method at 1440p. It's not enough for me to say it's unplayable but for a game where visual clarity is key to winning it feels frustrating in many situations.
On the topic of winning, this is up to you. You build a loadout for your hunter and decide the win state, maybe beating all bosses and extracting, or killing all players, or just killing AI before leaving. It all goes towards levelling up your hunter which is the real measure of success because if they die they are dead for good. What makes this game standout for me is its roster of weapons, it lets you use guns that other games wouldn't dare touch due to their antiquity and slow mechanisms making them a balancing nightmare. The selection ranges from chain-fed, single action revolvers to cut down lever action rifles and trap door, bolt action rifles. It's nice to see variety like this while the game stays authentic to its setting.
This is the same for its characters/hunters, there are a million DLC packs for this game, all skins for hunters and despite five years of these none of them jump out as out of place - no Rick and Morty or Nicki Minaj to be found here. Just some honest to god cool as hell skins like a guy wearing the hide of an alligator, or a pagan shaman woman or a Chinese warrior woman kitted out for the bayou.
So the setting and everything around it is wonderful but how does it play? Despite the fact I think this game is special, I do believe the gameplay leaves something to be desired on a mechanical level. The new updates has genuinely improved things, it feels more polished and smooth however things like swapping weapons, aiming down sights, throwing items, all can feel unnecessarily clunky at times. I always had trouble aiming in this game too, I could never find a sensitivity that worked just right - I think the built-in weapon sway has something to do with it. I have played a lot of games with heavy sway (looking at you, Squad post-ICO) but the sway in this game really interferes in a way I haven't felt before. For most weapons unless you land a headshot then expect enemies to take two to four shots to take down, this means you'll often end up in gunfights of two or three minutes if playing against a squad.
The low TTK and often long ranges make combat tense, especially with most weapons taking an age to reload. You are encouraged to go low and slow, creep through the brush and listen for sound queues - headphones are a must. The problem is, as players get good at the game this stops being an issue; someone with 3 hours of gameplay might crouch everywhere, avoid sound traps, try sneak up on enemies for a well placed ambush, etc. Someone with 50 hours has learned its more effective to sprint around the map, grab items and clues ASAP, and only sneak if you know an enemy is unaware of you, otherwise run straight in. The gameplay is at odds most of the time with what the developers want you to do. The tense, spooky early hours give way to sweaty, quick matches. Your hunter either lives long enough to get good at speedrunning or you die a bushwookie, sitting in a sniper's nest for 20 minutes.
Right now the community is in an uproar over the new update ruining the UI. I agree that it's a downgrade but I don't think it warranted the review-bombing this game got. The original UI was pretty bad too and people put up with it, they should do better but I don't think it makes me want to stop playing.
While Hunt isn't in my top 10 games it will always be special to me and I think that if you have even one other friend willing to play with you, you should try this for a couple of hours to feel that early game excitement when things are new.
