Hunt : Showdown 1896

Hunt: Showdown 1896 is a first-person bounty-hunting shooter by Crytek in which up to 12 players hunt monsters and each other in the same match. It began as Hunt: Showdown, released in Steam Early Access on February 22, 2018, reached a full PC release on August 27, 2019, and came to Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2019 and 2020. On August 15, 2024 Crytek relaunched it as Hunt: Showdown 1896 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with an upgraded engine and a new map, and delisted the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions. Director Scott Lussier has said 1896 is not a sequel but a “new era” of the same game. The original release earned Metacritic scores of 81 on PC and PS4 and 76 on Xbox One.

If you search for “Hunt: Showdown” and see 1896, they are the same game: 1896 replaced the original release on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S rather than being sold beside it. Before 2017 the project was a different idea altogether, Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age, a co-op game announced at Crytek USA in 2014.

Technical Specifications

How a Hunt Works

Each match in the main mode, Bounty Hunt, sends you after one or two of the game’s six boss monsters across the map. You gather clues to find the boss’s lair, kill it, and then banish it, a process that takes several minutes, cannot be paused or canceled, and marks your location with a burning effect that every other hunter can see. After the banishing, the boss drops two bounty tokens; each hunter can carry only one. You then have to reach an extraction point before another team takes the prize. Claiming a bounty also reveals your position to everyone, and players can steal a bounty by killing its holder. Ammunition is scarce, and traps and decoys are part of the toolkit.

Dark Sight and Sound

Dark Sight, an ability you hold a button to activate, shows clues and the next objective, and it marks players who carry a bounty token as lightning, making them easy to ambush on their way out. Sound is the other main tool. Gunfire, water, and wooden planks are loud, so the Fandom wiki’s beginner guide advises you to listen as much as you shoot, and SuperJump Magazine’s guide recommends the knife for quiet kills on the AI enemies, because shots carry and attract other teams.

Permadeath, Hunters, and the Bloodline

Before a match you recruit a hunter and equip a loadout. If your hunter dies, the hunter and the gear are gone for good, but the experience you earned carries over to your account’s Bloodline, which unlocks weapons and hunters; according to the Fandom wiki, only half of it transfers when you die. Survivors keep their hunter, gain levels, and unlock traits. Legendary hunters are cosmetic only, so they do not give a competitive advantage. This loss-and-recovery cycle is the core of the game’s tension: an expensive loadout is a bigger loss than a cheap one, so beginner guides such as the one at games.gg advise learning the maps with an inexpensive setup first.

Bosses

The game has six boss monsters, each with its own weaknesses, which should shape which contract you accept and which weapons you bring. Examples from SuperJump Magazine’s guide are the Assassin (fast, causes bleeding, creates clones, weak to poison and explosives), the Butcher (sets you on fire, immune to fire, weak to shotguns), the Spider (pounces and spits poison, weak to fire and blunt damage), and the Scrapbeak (hoards medkits and melee weapons, best fought up close). The Hellborn, added with the 1896 relaunch, is a fire-and-flesh creature that you can track by sound in Dark Sight, and its howls draw other hunters.

Modes

Bounty Hunt is the main mode and the one beginner guides recommend learning first. Soul Survivor, formerly called Quickplay, is a 15-minute battle royale in which players activate Rifts and a Wellspring; a winner can recruit their Soul Survivor into Bounty Hunt. Bounty Clash, added in October 2024, is a faster mode set in a single compound, where players fight over a bounty and the extraction.

Maps

The game’s maps are Stillwater Bayou, Lawson Delta, DeSalle, and, since 1896, Mammon’s Gulch, a Colorado mountain map with 16 compounds, torched towns, and mines. It was the first new map in three years, and Crytek said it showcases the upgraded engine. Lussier told PC Gamer that the older bayou maps would get higher-resolution textures, more story props, and tactical layout changes, and be reintroduced gradually.

What 1896 Changed

The relaunch upgraded the engine to CRYENGINE 5.11, which Crytek said overhauled visuals, audio, and rendering performance. PC Gamer’s interview lists improved global illumination, a new water shader, 3D Dolby Atmos support, lower input latency, better controller support, and DLSS/FSR upscaling, with higher minimum system requirements as the trade-off. On consoles, Crytek announced native 4K at 60 FPS on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and 60 FPS at 2K on Series S. Gunplay and gameplay were adjusted, and new wildlife was added.

Crossplay and Progression

Crossplay has been limited. According to Sportskeeda, PlayStation players can party with PlayStation players and Xbox players with Xbox players, PlayStation and Xbox can meet in random matchmaking if crossplay is switched on, and PC does not play with consoles. There is no cross-progression, so progress stays on the platform where you earned it. Because platform policies change, check the in-game settings before you plan a party across systems.

Where to Play It

Crytek lists the game on Steam for PC, the PlayStation Store for PlayStation 5, the Xbox Store for Xbox Series X|S, and the Crytek Store. The older PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions were delisted when 1896 launched. Prices vary by store and change with sales, so check the store page. The game is rated M by the ESRB and 18 by PEGI and USK, and the Steam page asks for an age check.