Hunt: Showdown has just undergone a major overhaul and rebranding. As a result, Crytek’s survival shooter has seen a surge in player interest.
On August 15, Crytek launched Hunt: Showdown 1896, which upgraded the six-year-old game to CryEngine 5.11 and overhauled many mechanics and elements. The changes include a new map, the Scortched Earth live event, reworked gunplay, and new challenges. In addition, the shooter is now out on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
According to SteamDB, Hunt: Showdown peaked at 60,124 concurrent players on Steam. This is an impressive increase from the previous all-time high of 45k CCU achieved in June 2023.
The 1896 update aside, another factor that impacted the game’s player count is a free weekend. From August 15 to August 19, everyone can play Hunt: Showdown for free to try out its new version.
However, player reception for Hunt: Showdown 1896 has been far from warm so far. Recent reviews on Steam are “Mostly Negative,” with only 36% of the 6,041 user reviews left in the last 30 days being positive.
Players seem to generally love gameplay changes and new content. The main criticism is aimed at optimization, bugs, server issues, and reworked UI, with many players feeling like it was designed for consoles.
Developed by Crytek, Hunt: Showdown originally launched in Early Access on February 22, 2018. Through various modes, the studio combines elements of the FPS, survival, extraction shooter, and battle royale genres to offer its own take hardcore take on PvPvE gameplay.
Despite its popularity, Hunt: Showdown has constantly recevied cricitism from its core audience over cheaters, server issues, and a lack of new content. So it will be interesting to see whether the new 1896 version will manage to retain old players and reach new users.