Hunt: Showdown 1896 News

Hunters,

Story Challenges are a new feature which we added to the game in Update 2.6 and will keep expanding on. Story Challenges provide you with new rewards, unique lore, as well as some new challenges to take on. We’re excited to announce that there will be a new Story Challenge titled “Game of Skill” releasing on the 10th of February which will celebrate the Lunar New Year. This new Story Challenge will be a Premium one and will cost 1250 Blood Bonds and will be available for purchase until 7th of April 2026. It includes even more rewards than the first Premium Story Challenge:

• Ironshod Bandit (Hunter & Player Profile Avatar)
  
• Bandit’s Oath (Mosin-Nagant)
  
• Centering Breath (First Aid Kit)
  
• Rich Man’s Luck (Cavalry Saber)
  
• Game of Skill (Player Profile Badge & Frame)
  
• Green Dragon (Player Profile Title)
  
• Event Points, Hunt Dollars, Bloodline XP, etc.
  

As this will be a Premium Story Challenge, the value of items are reflected in both the price, and the time you need to invest. The value of the whole bundle is cheaper than if you were to purchase items individually.

When we first launched Story Challenges, we had a lot of feedback from the community and we made sure to immediately act on it. Some of the key changes included making sure that there were no time limits once purchased, more value was added, and the player objectives were challenging enough to be fun but not overwhelming. We have continued to keep this feedback front of mind with “Game of Skill”.

When it comes to the difficulty of Challenges we saw in the “On the Winds of Midwinter” that the majority of players were able to complete the challenges within two weeks of play. We’re continuing to keep a close eye on challenge difficulty balance with Game of Skill and the future Story Challenges we put out. We want these to present you with a fun set of challenges that feel rewarding for your time and skill. We don’t want Premium Story Challenges to become multi-month grind fests for our players.

We have previous Year of the Snake items in the in-game Store too, so you can get your hands on Zhuge Liu (Hunter), Spring Rain (Chu Ko Nu), and the Snake Bell (Charm). These items are bundled together for a discount in the Coiled Serpent Bundle. You can also claim the Gift of Peace charm for free in the Store. These items will be available between the 10th Feb to the 17th March 2026.

[h3]Other Updates[/h3]

As we ease into the end of the event we have some more good news. We’ve decided to extend Pledge Marks into the core game instead of being exclusive to events only. This means that any Pledge Marks you earn during this event will be rolled over into the core game and you’ll carry them when the event ends. All previous Pledge Mark sources will be available after the event ends apart from the 25 Event Points source.

You will now see various themed Supply Points that can spawn in the world and are shown on the map with custom icons. These all have some unique loot that you can spend Pledge Marks for:

• Postal Supply Points:
  
  • Has an assortment of Sealed Envelopes and a guaranteed Pledge Mark Envelope.
• Clockmaker’s Supply Points:
  
  • Has Destiny’s Dial, a chance of a Tarot Card, and the chance of a Sealed Bounty.
  
  
• Sealed Hoard:
  
  • Has a Health Restoration Kit, a chance for a Scarce Weapon Box, or a Full Ammo Resupply Box.

Finally, a new Battle Pass will be available when our new Update launches in March. While we acknowledge that there is no free path for the Game of Skill Story Challenge, we want to make clear that with every major update there will be free additional free Story Challenges available to all players.

We hope you enjoy the upcoming Story Challenges and we look forward to sharing more in our next update… coming soon!

Your Hunt: Showdown 1896 team

This month, we’re delighted to say that Port Sulphur Band have amassed 100 million streams! To celebrate, the band are releasing a Deluxe version of their fourth album, Shadows Wake, on Steam. Good news: if you’ve already purchased Shadows Wake on Steam, your album will be automatically upgraded.

Formed in the muds of the Lawson Delta bayou, Port Sulphur Band walks the line between fiction and reality. Both a meta element of Hunt and an in-house band of game developers at Crytek, Port Sulphur Band began as a vehicle to tell stories from the world of Hunt, a supernatural shooter set at the dawn of blues and jazz in 1890s.​

If you’ve played Hunt, you’ve heard the music of Port Sulphur Band in the menu and on in-game pianos and gramophones, and you’ll recognize the game’s iconic theme song Rise Up Dead Man, often referred to as the “Humming Theme.”

While the versions of the songs that you’ll find on streaming platforms have been produced for the modern ear, they are inspired by the music people were listening to at the time Hunt is set. As such, Port Sulphur Band’s songs are not just part of the game’s Sound Design, but also the Narrative Design. Every song tells a story from that world, and lyrics are written from the perspective of someone who either was there or heard something about what was going on in the bayou in 1895 and 1896.

Death Is a Bird Flying and Bullet’s Lullaby are both part of Boss Scrapbeak’s story, for example, while The Devil’s in the Details hints at what happened with villians Mr. Chary and Mary Ochenkov. Every new Hunt Event is accompanied by an exclusive single, and each of those songs feature a new tale or character from that update. The people behind the music are part of Hunt’s Audio and Narrative teams.

Since their first album released in 2019, Port Sulphur Band has become a cult phenomenon.  Their first vinyl collection, The Devil's Fee, hit #62 on the German charts—an industry first in Germany for video game soundtracks—and their second vinyl collection, Shadows Calling, hit #63.  

Shadows Wake released in December, 2025, and Shadows Wake (Deluxe) adds 25 more tracks to the original collection of dark western tunes from the world of Hunt. On a total of 45 tracks, listeners will receive instrumental versions—and a few un-released variations—of every song on the original album, a vocal version of Devil’s Door, and two “field recordings” of The Rain in DeSalle. Get your copy on Steam now!

Want to know more?

Find out how it all started here.

Watch the Rise Up Dead Man music video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-R45HrsDOk

See the band live in Paris here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1XpvFvTkLo

Or listen on Spotify, Tidal, Apple Music, or the streaming platform of your choice.

Hunters,

We are pleased to share that a feature mentioned in our roadmap, which has been long requested by the community, is about to enter its testing phase: more Hunters per Mission!

As many of you have noted on social media and in our surveys, Hunt has great combat moments. Adding more players to the lobby means you'll be able to experience more combat opportunities per Mission!

The team has been working hard on this change, and we have now reached the final stages of development. The best part? We want to test it together with you on live servers to better understand how it impacts gameplay flow, win rates, and the in-game economy. This will help us make final decisions and fine-tune overall game balance.

What is happening?

Starting February 4th, we will run a test featuring Missions with up to 15 players. During this period, you may encounter Missions with 12 to 15 players, as we will be experimenting with different player constellations to gather data across multiple scenarios.

This means you will not always experience 15-player Missions, and we may temporarily revert to a 12-player cap between tests. You can always find out how many players you had in your Mission on the Team Details screen.

Which game modes are affected?

The increased player count will apply to Bounty Hunt and Soul Survivor.

There will be no changes to Bounty Clash during this test.

And when does it end?

The plan is to finish the test on Wednesday, February 11th.

As always, your feedback will be essential. We will be closely monitoring both gameplay data and your experience throughout the test. Once testing concludes, we will share a survey to learn how this change felt and whether it is something we should consider keeping permanently or refining further.

We are incredibly excited to roll out this test and cannot wait for you to jump into this new Hunt experience.

Thanks, and happy hunting!

Hunters,

Update 2.6.0.2 is now live! The patch notes can be found below.

Happy hunting!

• Changed some of the Challenges of the “On the Winds of Midwinter” Story Challenge so that they can now be completed even after Post Malone’s Murder Circus Encore.
  
  • Chapter 1 – Changed “Hit a High Striker” to “Collect Clues or Hit High Strikers”.
    
  • Chapter 2 – Changed “Destroy Balloons” to “Destroy Balloons or Kill Monsters”.
    
  • Chapter 3 – Changed “Kill Circus Grunts” to “Kill Armoreds or Circus Grunts”.
    
  • Chapter 3 – Changed “Acquire Traits of any Troupe” to “Acquire Traits in Missions” and decreased goal requirement from 15 to 10.
    

• Fixed a texture memory allocation issue on PS5 and PS5 Pro that could cause memory leaks and crashes
  
• Resolved several rare, hard-to-reproduce crashes and freezes
  
• Fixed an issue in the Basic Tutorial where progression could be blocked if the player collected the first Clue before the “Locate and investigate the Clue” objective appeared
  
• Fixed an issue where Centennial Trauma did not progress the melee damage challenge in the "On the Winds of Winter” Story Challenge
  
• Fixed an issue where, when using the Gunslinger control scheme with the Lowering State option enabled, the weapon did not return to the lowering state after aiming down sights. The option now correctly affects this behavior
  
• Fixed an issue where the Flame Rifle displayed a visible, duplicated mesh in a specific area
  
• Fixed an issue where Ewe’s Horn (Charm) was missing textures
  
• Fixed an issue where, when using Celestial Scream (Drilling) and all its variants, swapping between shotgun and medium ammo firing modes did not update the iron sight position
  
• Fixed an issue where the iron sights of The Elephant’s Promise: Silencer (Frontier 73C) were using a larger version instead of the new, smaller one
  
• Fixed an issue where multiple requirements in Story Challenges were cut off in Italian and Turkish
  
• Fixed an issue where Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Dark Dynamite Satchel) did not detonate from nearby explosions (e.g. explosive ammo, dynamite, or other Dark Dynamite Satchels).
  
• Fixed incorrect unlock condition text for the Expert Marksman, Expert Deadeye, and Expert Sniper titles in Player Profile customization
  
• Fixed an issue where players could see enemy loadouts on the “View Team Loadouts” screen while loading into a Mission under specific conditions
  
• Fixed an issue where The Strongman’s mustache appeared overly glossy
  
• Fixed an issue where the unlock requirements for Tennessee Morgan (Bloodline Progression Hunter) were missing. This affected all three tiers and was present across all languages
  

The Live Servers will be taken offline tomorrow, 21 Jan, at 09:00 CET to deploy Update 2.6.0.2. This update will introduce promised changes to the Story Challenge "Winds of Midwinter" completion conditions as well as bring a number of fixes with it. The list of fixes can be found below.

Est. Downtime ~3 hours.

We will inform you when the servers are up again. Thanks for your patience!

• Changed some of the Challenges of the “On the Winds of Midwinter” Story Challenge so that they can now be completed even after Post Malone’s Murder Circus Encore.
  
  • Chapter 1 – Changed “Hit a High Striker” to “Collect Clues or Hit High Strikers”.
    
  • Chapter 2 – Changed “Destroy Balloons” to “Destroy Balloons or Kill Monsters”.
    
  • Chapter 3 – Changed “Kill Circus Grunts” to “Kill Armoreds or Circus Grunts”.
    
  • Chapter 3 – Changed “Acquire Traits of any Troupe” to “Acquire Traits in Missions” and decreased goal requirement from 15 to 10.
    

• Fixed a texture memory allocation issue on PS5 and PS5 Pro that could cause memory leaks and crashes
  
• Resolved several rare, hard-to-reproduce crashes and freezes
  
• Fixed an issue in the Basic Tutorial where progression could be blocked if the player collected the first Clue before the “Locate and investigate the Clue” objective appeared
  
• Fixed an issue where Centennial Trauma did not progress the melee damage challenge in the "On the Winds of Winter” Story Challenge
  
• Fixed an issue where, when using the Gunslinger control scheme with the Lowering State option enabled, the weapon did not return to the lowering state after aiming down sights. The option now correctly affects this behavior
  
• Fixed an issue where the Flame Rifle displayed a visible, duplicated mesh in a specific area
  
• Fixed an issue where Ewe’s Horn (Charm) was missing textures
  
• Fixed an issue where, when using Celestial Scream (Drilling) and all its variants, swapping between shotgun and medium ammo firing modes did not update the iron sight position
  
• Fixed an issue where the iron sights of The Elephant’s Promise: Silencer (Frontier 73C) were using a larger version instead of the new, smaller one
  
• Fixed an issue where multiple requirements in Story Challenges were cut off in Italian and Turkish
  
• Fixed an issue where Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Dark Dynamite Satchel) did not detonate from nearby explosions (e.g. explosive ammo, dynamite, or other Dark Dynamite Satchels). This behavior now correctly applies to this Skin only and not to Evil Eye (Dark Dynamite Satchel) or nearby fire sources (Fire Bombs, lanterns, Flare Guns, etc.)
  
• Fixed incorrect unlock condition text for the Expert Marksman, Expert Deadeye, and Expert Sniper titles in Player Profile customization
  
• Fixed an issue where players could see enemy loadouts on the “View Team Loadouts” screen while loading into a Mission under specific conditions
  
• Fixed an issue where The Strongman’s mustache appeared overly glossy
  
• Fixed an issue where the unlock requirements for Tennessee Morgan (Bloodline Progression Hunter) were missing. This affected all three tiers and was present across all languages