Hunt: Showdown is getting one of the rarest things a game can get: an engine upgrade

pcgamer.com:

Hunt Showdown is currently celebrating its five-year anniversary with a big sale(opens in new tab) and a new DLC hunter. While there's much to look back on, Crytek's eyes are fixed on the future with plans to update Hunt from an aging 5.6 legacy version of CryEngine to the latest 5.11 build. 

«The game currently runs on a legacy version of CryEngine from four years ago,» David Fifield, general manager at Crytek, explained to PC Gamer. “So one of our major talking points across 2023 is gonna be about updating to the latest 5.11 version of CryEngine which is four years newer."  

Upgrading an engine from one decimal to a slightly higher decimal doesn't sound like a significant change, but it's a much larger undertaking than updating the firmware on your phone. It's exceedingly rare for a years-old game with an established development pipeline to replace the base on which it sits—it's the game dev equivalent of swapping out your car's chassis for a new one that's theoretically better, but could introduce new problems. Last year, Epic transitioned Fortnite to Unreal Engine 5 with impressive results(opens in new tab). 

Ideally, the 5.11 Hunt update will bring improvements to the game's already outstanding graphics, but also promises to bring gameplay enhancements (though Crytek did not offer any examples).

«It is gonna be a long technical road, so people shouldn't expect it soon but it is a thing that's underway. As we go and as we hit meaningful milestones of readiness, we'll talk more and more about what it means to take the game from CryEngine 5.6 up to CryEngine 5.11,» said Fifield.

While this big update is a while away, players can still expect plenty of other updates including an overhaul of its onboarding tools for new