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Hunt: Showdown 1896 News

Server Downtime at 09:00 CET on February 10



Hunters,

The Live Servers will be taken offline at 09:00 CET tomorrow, February 10, to deploy Update 2.2.2. This update will mark the conclusion of the event, introducing new weapons and consumables into the regular progression, along with several bug fixes.

Estimated downtime: ~3 hours.



Weekly Challenges:
  • Updated Weekly Challenge sets.




[h2]META[/h2]

The following new weapons, variants, and Custom Ammo have been incorporated into the progression system:

  • Rifles
    • 1865 Carbine Aperture – 2nd unlock in the 1865 Carbine Family
    • Maynard Sniper Silencer – 2nd unlock in the Maynard Sniper Family
    • Krag Silencer – 4th unlock in the Krag Family
    • Chu Ko Nu – Bloodline Rank 1
  • Pistols
    • Sparks Pistol Silencer – 5th unlock in the Sparks Family
  • Special
    • Chu Ko Nu Explosive Bolt – Bloodline Rank 1
    • Chu Ko Nu Incendiary Bolt – Bloodline Rank 1
  • Consumables
    • Recovery Shot – Bloodline Rank 1




  • Fixed an issue where the purchase confirmation audio would get stuck if a Bloodline purchase was canceled while holding down the "Yes" button or pressing the space bar
  • Fixed an issue preventing progress in the "Make Hunters Bleed" Weekly Challenge when landing headshots with the Shredder, Centennial, or Scottfield
  • Fixed an issue where the description of Jesse Buchanan: Survivor overlapped with the Unlock Requirement lock icon and text when the game was set to the French language
  • Fixed an issue where the description of Oliver Whitman: Survivor overlapped with the Unlock Requirement lock icon and text when the game was set to the French language
  • Fixed an issue where the last chambering sound would be incorrect when reloading a completely empty Specter
  • Fixed an issue with the description text of the "Ambrose Hazen: Veteran" Hunter in the Japanese, Polish, and German languages, where the text was overlapping, making it difficult to read and understand

Developer Insight – Ongoing Commitments



Hunters,

Last year we had several outstanding issues that we planned to address, but that we weren’t able roll out when we initially wanted. Today, we want to give an update on some topics that players have been expecting, letting you know where they’re at now and potentially when we think you can expect to see the improvements live.

Ping Limits

Ping discrepancies have long been a large topic among players, both within and outside of the dev team. Many of you have pointed out to us that the existing hard limits can be circumvented, leading to games that are frustrating for both parties.

We have been investigating solutions that take ping into account in the matchmaking process. The aim is to create sessions between players on roughly equal footing.

There’s a balance to be struck here, because overcorrecting can worsen the experience of people playing during off-hours or in smaller regions by complicating their matchmaking process. Accordingly, we spent time dedicated to collecting data and running simulations.

We now have a solution that will go into a limited, experimental roll-out shortly. We will share more on this over the coming few weeks.

Decentralized Backend

In 2023, we realized that in order to reliably support more players on our system, we would have to decentralize our Backend.

The Backend is the part of Hunt’s system that handles your account, progress, matchmaking requests, and so on. The aim was to move these features to be housed in the specific region each player is connecting from—the same way the Session Servers were already distributed closer to where you are.

The Decentralized Backend went live quietly ahead of 2.0 and after a short adjustment period, has been running reliably.

Alongside this, we intended to optimize updates so that the game would require very little downtime during roll out. There was a multi-step development challenge behind this, but we are now pleased to confirm that we successfully served our very first zero-downtime update earlier this week, thanks to tremendous efforts from our technical teams!

Duos Can Queue with a Random Third

This is something we are working on for this year, but it has come into competition with necessary stability and bug fixing work that community feedback has made clear stands at a higher priority overall.

We don’t have a set date for when this feature will be scheduled for delivery yet, but keep an eye on future updates where we fill announce finalized roll out date as soon as we can.

Fair Play Task Force

Since our last update on November 22nd, we have banned an additional 2,472 proven cheaters from the game. We will continue to give regular updates about the topic within the next year and look forward to sharing more with you.

More Priorities

Other changes that will be incoming for 2025 include Ping Markers on the map for things like Cash Registers and Envelopes, as well as the return of the DeSalle map and much more.

UI is another topic which is at the forefront of our development efforts. We have made significant changes and introduced some new design ideas which we will be sharing an in-depth look at in a dedicated UI post next week.

We hope this addresses some of the topics that have been discussed within the community. We look forward to sharing more as the year unfolds!

Developer Insight – Improving Bounty Clash


Hunters,

Today we would like to share some insights into Bounty Clash and our future plans around the game mode. We launched Bounty Clash with the intention of providing a smaller scale, faster paced experience to those looking for a change of pace from Bounty Hunt. Initially the launch was experimental, with minimal content, but it was a huge hit with players around the world.

Ever since, we have been closely monitoring your feedback and available data to make improvements to the mode. With Bounty Clash quickly becoming a fan-favorite, here’s a little more detail on where the mode currently stands, and where we'd like to take it going forward:

Current Status and Issues:

Bounty Clash is doing well, and support for it will continue into 2025.

Around a third of active players are playing it on any given day, which is a very healthy number for a secondary game mode.

Overall, player feedback has been exceedingly positive, but there are still some shortfalls around rewards, compounds, and more that we’re looking to address to make Bounty Clash even stronger.

Rewards

On launch, the mode offered too few rewards for extracting with the Bounty Token. We've since taken steps to remedy this, by granting bonuses to solo and duo players for extraction as well as a flat Bounty Bonus to the token itself.

We have noted a positive impact since improving the offering and have been satisfied with the effects of these changes so far. As always, we are continuing to monitor your feedback and game analytics data to tweak Bounty rewards if necessary.

Compound Variety

Bounty Clash only offers a limited number of compounds to play on, which can get repetitive—especially for those who play a lot of Clash.

We are focusing on adding compounds that offer the best experience for the mode's balance and requirements. We're keenly aware of this issue and will continue adding more compounds to the Bounty Clash pool regularly, as well as curating the existing list of compounds based on your feedback.

MMR and Stat Separation

We're aware of the issues and frustrations that arise from Bounty Clash's stats and MMR being shared with Bounty Hunt, and are working on solutions for both. We will share more on this when we can.

Upcoming changes

In addition to working on the above topics, we'll also be making some balance changes to Bounty Clash in the near future:

  • The maximum number of teams in Bounty Clash will be reduced from 5 to 4. 
  • The maximum number of players in Bounty Clash will be reduced from 12 to 9. 


We are experimenting with slightly reducing the chaos factor of Clash by reducing the number of players in one lobby. With this change, we hope to promote more thoughtful gameplay and improve the experience for smaller team sizes.

Interesting Fact

A bonus factoid for you all: If you’ve ever wondered what the top-used weapons are in Bounty Clash to inform your future loadouts, we’ve gathered the top 10 for you below!

  • Scottfield
  • Romero 77
  • Nagant M1895
  • Conversion Pistol
  • Frontier 73C
  • Bow
  • Centennial
  • 1865 Carbine
  • Springfield 1866
  • Sparks LRR


As ever, your thoughts and feedback will be key in driving the direction of mode—please share it with us!

We're Live! - Twitch Drops Gameplay Stream


We’re going LIVE NOW with the Community team!

Join us for a gameplay live stream featuring Twitch Drops and exciting giveaways!

🎯 Twitch Drops Active
🎁 Giveaways for Viewers

Streaming here on Steam and on- Twitch Youtube Facebook

The Last Laugh DLC - Out Now!



The Last Laugh DLC is now available!

This DLC includes everything you need to unleash chaos:
  • The Hyena (Hunter)
  • Lion’s Roar (Centennial)
  • Banner Shot (Pax Trueshot)
  • Warm Embrace (Concertina Bomb)


Become The Hyena today! 👉
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3282880/Hunt_Showdown_1896__The_Last_Laugh/