A Once-in-a-Generation Experience - Still Finding Its Way Back

I loved Hunt: Showdown before the 2.0 update.
I was genuinely hyped for everything that was promised… and then the update hit.
A catastrophe followed.

The game has been struggling ever since the engine upgrade. Performance issues, strange design choices, a loss of identity -> Hunt went through a rough phase that many long-time players felt deeply. But today, after several patches and improvements, the game is slowly recovering. It’s not fully back on its feet, but it’s finally starting to feel like Hunt again: creeping back into the very specific niche where it belongs, and where it truly shines.

Still, I fear we may never get the old Hunt back. Corporate influence has clearly tightened its grip.

just look at the rapid release cycle of paid DLCs and in-game microtransactions. There is a stain on the experience that the game can’t completely shake off.

What Made Hunt Special

Hunt: Showdown was never meant to be a run-and-gun shooter like Call of Duty.
It was never designed to be fast-food FPS entertainment.

Hunt rewarded something else entirely:

Map knowledge

Stealth, patience, and positioning

Reading sound cues and predicting enemy behavior

Timing, risk assessment, and tactical decision-making

It was, unapologetically, a hardcore game.
A game that did not bend over backwards to be accessible to everyone.
A game that embraced tension, punishments for mistakes, and high stakes.
A game where every bullet counted and every noise betrayed you.

This is what made Hunt unique - and why so many players fell in love with it.

Where We Stand Now

The fun is back. The tension is back. The core of Hunt still exists beneath all the turbulence.
But the past hangs over it. The identity has shifted, and some of the purity is gone.

Still, after all these years and all these changes, Hunt: Showdown remains an experience you won’t find anywhere else: atmospheric, brutal, tactical, and unforgettable.

If Crytek continues to steer the game back toward what made it exceptional, Hunt may yet reclaim its full potential.
For now, it’s imperfect, but still one of the most unique shooters ever made.

When the Genre Giant PayDay3 is actually just CBRC from Wish Temu
Edit 1: im a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Fossil, obviously its TEMU now!

Lost all my Bolts to Guards above some hidden Corrosive Cube Pit and had to melee the rest of the Sentry-Beam-Hell-of an Outpost.


10/10 would get harassed again.

love the arstyle. gameloop gets to boring, to soon, tho.

relaxing game when listening to podcasts

If you love ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and twisting your mind whilst trying to perfectionate your build: satisfactory!

Playing it since alpha on multiple accounts. can´t get enough of it.

Edit 1:
Well: 5years later im still very much in love with this game. It feels still fresh while keeping its core the same. the changes in the meta are some times quite drastic and sometimes quite minor. Also stuff that worked years ago and then stopped just made it back into the game (speaking of strats). which is something i absolutly love about siege. you can discover so much stuff, new stuff gets around, old stuff gets relevant again, there is always something new to explore about the game and maps.

can still fully recommend it.


Edit 2: may contain lots of frustration and anger, so take with a pinch of salt.

much hast changed since my last review. I cannot recommend the game anymore. Partially due to the direction the game has taken. Thats just personel preference and it doesent meet mine anymore. But more importantly for the reason of being just broken. There are so many gamebreaking bugs happening right now and everything gets delayed over and over again. Just look up the Mute Protocol Freeze incident. It would be hilarious if this game wasnt going into year 8.

Guess what they sell/greet you with when you first boot up the game: the welcome Pack for 50(!!!) Euros. Right after you bought the game. Thats some audacity going on right there.

What they are good at right now is making skins you can only buy for real money. Want to know how much the Halloween Skins collection would cost ME? (i already own parts of the collection, keep that in mind!)
A cheap and charming: 19170 R6 Credits. Or translated: almost 200Euro. Because ofc they have predatory currency packs. you always will have some credits left. so you either undershoot when you buy packs or overshoot. Some of you might say now "you dont have to pay for skins" and you are ABSOLUTLY right. But does that make it okay to have seasonal passes, battlepasses, main game to buy and tons of monetization while on the ther hand having a game thats not even playable for a major part of their community?

I have played and payed for the game since the closed alpha, because i either liked the skins or i wanted to keep the game alive. As i stated earlier, the game doesent meet my personel preference anymore when its coming to looks and how streamlined and quick the gameplay has become. Thats totally up to you. But if you want to play a game thats bug infested and still trying to milk the cow? well, i'd say theres nothing to be discussed about.