August 2024. TL;DR at the bottom.

I had to change my review to "not recommend". The recent big update was supposed to be the great overhaul of this already more than 5 years old game. However, at the moment it feels more like an Overwatch 2.0 desaster.

I haven't had too much experience in "Hunt: Showdown 1896" so far, so this review might change in the future (again).

Cons
- can't really say it's a graphics update, since I have to play on low-ish settings in order to have a good performance (was able to play "the old hunt" basically on ultra without issues - which looked imo better than it does now)
- the incredibly horrendous UI. How was it possible to come up with theses "solutions"??? WTF. The UI is designed to use shortcuts - okay. So most shortcuts are keys close to the WASD-standard-gaming-finger position. AND THEN: Most actions have to be confirmed by pressing Enter !? Crytek, where is Enter located on the keyboard compared to WASD??? Do you notice a problem here? (and obviously the 2nd hand has to hold the mouse, which is also not close to Enter ...)
- the UI again: I wasn't able to figure out how it is supposed to be organised (probably because it is not). It needs so many actions to for example find your statistics, you can't see your MMR except for after a match, if you open a secondary sub-menu. Why do you always jump back to the hunter screen when you bought one (1!) tool or consumable, why not stay in the buying screen, so that we don't have to swap screens around so often ...
Why are the filters not safed. I basically ALWAYS have to see all the skins I don't own mixed with the ones I do own, this does not help the UI situation ...
- the UI again: Why does it look like an interface, where I'm supposed (or at least allowed) to scroll, but then you can't. I think this UI would look decent for a mobile game maybe, or better a tablet game. But for PC it's a nightmare (can't say for console, but they might be used to that kind of suffering, who knows.)
- another thing about the UI: For example the option to quit the game. You have to open a whole menu by clicking an icon, then in this screen covering menu you have one (1 !!!) single option: to quit the game. You click that and a pop up window opens asking you to confirm the action.
Did no one of you guys had the slightest feeling, that maybe one (or even more) of these steps could be unnecessary? (and thus confusing and a burden)

Pros
+ it's neat, that you unlock all the custom ammo types straight away
+ it's neat, that the health regeneration consumables now have their own colour (blue)
+ it's neat, that you can now choose a centered or a lower (the classical) crosshair placement

Let's see, there might be more to come.

TL;DR:
If you want to see an UI design, which either requires as much training as some low tier esport titles or a lobotomy - go ahead and give this game a go.
If, for some reasons, this doesn't sound exciting to you, then maybe wait for further changes, orther titles or get ready to suffer.

The mixture of the sandboxy playground, overall possible destruction, speedrunish optimazation of the routes and the relaxing atmosphere of those northern european settings ist just amazing!
A really well put together game. :)
The stroy, told via in game mails, is also quite fun and gives a good background for those missions.

My favourite were the the classic prepare with no time limit - then 60 sec action to escape missions and the variants with 'keeping the safes dry' and 'estinguish the fires while running around' missions.
Personally I really hated the 'beat the track record'-racing mission - but that's most likely just me (I hate driving games ...).

Fun thing to add could be: another creating-tool, like a fast hardend foam or scaffolding you can place. Has to be tested I reckon, since they might make the gameplay too easy :D

Looking forward to part 2!
Cheers

Edit: Some sort of cooperative mode would be amazing! :3