Hunt: Showdown 1896 Review

thesixthaxis.com:

Hunt: Showdown 1896 is a big revision of the original Hunt: Showdown, which was released way back in 2019. For those not familiar, it’s a PvPvE extraction shooter featuring zombies, hunting down a selection of bosses, and a bunch of gunslinger types who want to kill all the aforementioned things as well as you. It’s also got some very cool ideas behind it, such as a heavy reliance on audio cues and spatial sound to pinpoint where other players are, but alas, some of these cool ideas fall apart in a multiplayer game.

The set-up is fairly straightforward, as you and up to two other hunters head into a zombie-filled map to find clues that will lead you to a big monster to kill. You must then banish that monster and collect its bounty tokens, which takes time and gives other hunters your location so they can hunt you down, and steal your bounty tokens – very rude, if you ask me. It’s an extraction shooter, except the things you’re extracting are, I guess, bits of a giant spider, or whatever boss you were lucky enough to get instead. I honestly love the idea, but the reality is a bit less exciting.

The first boss I encountered was the aforementioned spider, and what a spider it was – taller than me, nine feet long, hairy, and scuttling all along the ceiling and walls at a horrific pace. The sounds it makes are the worst part, accurately giving the impression it’s crawling around you when you’re wearing headphones.

The spatial audio is vital throughout, as while you’re finding these clues and fighting this boss, the gunshots and explosions will make an awful lot of noise and draw other groups of players to you. The quieter you are, the safer you are. In addition to shooting and your footsteps, they can also hear any noise traps you might trigger – things like dying horses in the road, flocks of crows, and dogs in a kennel all make noise if they notice you, giving your position away. With a pair of headphones, you can pinpoint the direction they come from and know that