Contrary to what you may have heard, this game is not about tracking down monsters in the Louisiana bayou. It’s not even about hunters killing each other with old timey weapons. It’s about economics. Of course, it’s communicated in the language of monsters and gunfights, but the whirlpool of risk, reward, human psychology, and limited resources make it feel like an imaginative economic allegory. To outline the rules of the competition, maps have up to twelve players fighting for a maximum of four bounty tokens, with each boss monster dropping two. Players start out on the far edges of the map, and their goal is to locate a series of clues to reveal a boss’ lair, kill it, and then run to an extraction point. However, if everyone decided to queue as a team of three, half the teams in that match won’t be able to go home with a prize, and if you queued solo, the contention for the bounties is even more cutthroat. Not only do bosses not drop the tokens instantly, they alert everyone on the map when the harvesting process begins, marking the lair’s location. Gunshots ring across the entire map, crows and barking dogs signal movement, and after players pick up the bounty tokens, their general location can be seen by everyone else, who then set up ambushes to try and steal the reward. All these mechanics are oriented to ensure that players clash at every opportunity, and the ways that players plan around these systems is where some interesting psychology comes into play.
If you’re like me, you might have wondered “If players can be killed by the boss, are revealed by the harvesting process, and highlighted by carrying the bounty token, why bother being the one to go for the kill?”. Surely enough, that’s a common thought, and many players choose to quietly observe the bosses’ lair from afar and pick off would-be hunters, or wait in a central location until the harvesting has begun to capitalize as the others try to escape. Some people just pick an extraction point and hang there for the entire game, a slow but steady way to pick up some cash, both from killing hunters extracting their tokens and from those who just chicken out without a bounty. After all, players can run for extraction at any time, just taking the meager returns from killing generic enemies, and choosing not to risk their pricey loadout of weapons and tools. Since your character can be used in multiple rounds until they die, accruing useful skills and weaponry along the way, people might not want to risk their investment if things start to go south.
So, now you get the picture of the game’s economy: you have an incredibly risky strategy of moving right into the heart of conflict to kill a boss and get out, weighed against the safer path of essentially being a hyena, picking up the scraps and taking down wounded players in relative safety. However, just like a real economy, the balance of this risk and reward is constantly fluctuating. You’ll find yourself mentally keeping tabs on how many players you think are left in the game, since you’re never told how many have died, extracted, or were even in the game in the first place. You may see that one team is harvesting tokens, then hear gunshots in the distance, and know you killed one team on the way in, so you figure that you can get your bounty in relative safety. Sometimes you stumble across a boss’ lair in the first minute of a round, and the calculus flips to where you want to fight the boss immediately and frantically capitalize on your head start. It may seem like the gameplay is just about hunting monsters and shooting people, but this capacity for cleverness and planning, thoughtfulness and risk-taking, that’s what makes Hunt: Showdown a very special sort of experience.
...However, in-game economics and scarcity aren’t the only things you have to worry about, there’s the real world, and whether this game is worth your $40 is a bit harder to determine. As exciting as the thrill of the hunt can be, it’s still a game with 95% of its content in multiplayer, with the usual downsides. It’s reliant on unreliable servers, the groups you’re matched with, and the patience you have for the times where you hide in a bush for minutes on end, excitedly waiting for your chance at an ambush, only to be brained by someone 250 meters away. My personal experience wasn’t that great when playing solo, but when playing with a friend who’s a stealth game master, it hit some of the highest peaks I’ve had in multiplayer games in general. If you can find a patient friend who’s interested in the game, first of all, cherish them, and secondly, wait for a sale. Consider it a little practice for holding back on the trigger, waiting for the perfect moment to get yourself more than you bargained for.
If you’re like me, you might have wondered “If players can be killed by the boss, are revealed by the harvesting process, and highlighted by carrying the bounty token, why bother being the one to go for the kill?”. Surely enough, that’s a common thought, and many players choose to quietly observe the bosses’ lair from afar and pick off would-be hunters, or wait in a central location until the harvesting has begun to capitalize as the others try to escape. Some people just pick an extraction point and hang there for the entire game, a slow but steady way to pick up some cash, both from killing hunters extracting their tokens and from those who just chicken out without a bounty. After all, players can run for extraction at any time, just taking the meager returns from killing generic enemies, and choosing not to risk their pricey loadout of weapons and tools. Since your character can be used in multiple rounds until they die, accruing useful skills and weaponry along the way, people might not want to risk their investment if things start to go south.
So, now you get the picture of the game’s economy: you have an incredibly risky strategy of moving right into the heart of conflict to kill a boss and get out, weighed against the safer path of essentially being a hyena, picking up the scraps and taking down wounded players in relative safety. However, just like a real economy, the balance of this risk and reward is constantly fluctuating. You’ll find yourself mentally keeping tabs on how many players you think are left in the game, since you’re never told how many have died, extracted, or were even in the game in the first place. You may see that one team is harvesting tokens, then hear gunshots in the distance, and know you killed one team on the way in, so you figure that you can get your bounty in relative safety. Sometimes you stumble across a boss’ lair in the first minute of a round, and the calculus flips to where you want to fight the boss immediately and frantically capitalize on your head start. It may seem like the gameplay is just about hunting monsters and shooting people, but this capacity for cleverness and planning, thoughtfulness and risk-taking, that’s what makes Hunt: Showdown a very special sort of experience.
...However, in-game economics and scarcity aren’t the only things you have to worry about, there’s the real world, and whether this game is worth your $40 is a bit harder to determine. As exciting as the thrill of the hunt can be, it’s still a game with 95% of its content in multiplayer, with the usual downsides. It’s reliant on unreliable servers, the groups you’re matched with, and the patience you have for the times where you hide in a bush for minutes on end, excitedly waiting for your chance at an ambush, only to be brained by someone 250 meters away. My personal experience wasn’t that great when playing solo, but when playing with a friend who’s a stealth game master, it hit some of the highest peaks I’ve had in multiplayer games in general. If you can find a patient friend who’s interested in the game, first of all, cherish them, and secondly, wait for a sale. Consider it a little practice for holding back on the trigger, waiting for the perfect moment to get yourself more than you bargained for.