Hunt: Showdown 1896 News

Crysis 4 has been put "on hold", developer Crytek has announced, as it becomes the latest in the ever-growing line of games companies to push the big layoffs button. It's let go an estimated 15% of its 400 staff, meaning in the region of 60 people are affected.

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Back in December, we released an Event trailer that featured first look at an upcoming Hunter—Desert Rose. Immediately we saw a huge response from the community, with many of you clearly excited to see her drop.

Today, we're excited to finally bring Mercy Scribner, the sharp shooting Desert Rose, to the Hunt store. As she becomes available in-game for the first time, we thought we'd share a little backstory and character lore to introduce our latest Hunter.

Desert Rose: Broken Mirror

She could only hope that it wasn't too late.

With the barrel of her Bornheim still smoking, Mercy Scribner exited the arena to thunderous applause, just like she always did after a performance for Carter's show. This time though, her heart was racing. Not from the thrill of the success, but from the dread that had bloomed in her stomach upon seeing the audience member in the front row—a little girl—who clutched a stuffed teddy bear. Memories from before she'd left the circus dominated her mind's eye with sudden, hellish visions:

Two beautiful circus bears, roaring in agony as their bodies were pulled together by the Corruption, amalgamating into a single being of untamable rage and pain and fear.

People running, screaming for their lives as they were chased by cackling clowns holding meat cleavers.

The look on the ringmaster's face when he realized she'd been right all along.

As the memories haunted her, Mercy busted through the swinging door to her powder room, then sat on the little stool before the vanity. The sight of her reflection, which showed no hint of the upset within, was the straw that broke the horse's back. You should have tried harder to stop it. Without even meaning to, she clenched her fist and broke the mirror with one hard punch. Ribbons of blood curled around her knuckles, but she hardly noticed.

She'd tried to warn him. That “stone" had trouble written all over it from the start—nothing good ever came from unprompted promises of great power. Of course, the ringmaster thought he knew best, laughing off her concerns as though she were a child who thought that shooting stars were a sign of end times.

But the more time that passed, the more convinced she'd become that it was just a regular rock peddled by some unhinged snake oil salesman. That the real trouble was all the result of the ringmaster's dream for something better for his traveling show, that the Corruption had sensed his desperation and passion and saw an opportunity, taking root in his circus from behind the mask of that worthless stone.

Putting herself in danger was hardly a worry—when it came down to it, Mercy had known that she could hold her own with a blindfold on. But those little girls who came to see her land all those impossible bullseyes would have been exposed to the danger as well. She'd refused to accept it in the end, leaving without so much as a goodbye.

“You okay, little miss Blue Skies?" Carter filled the open doorway behind her. She hadn't even noticed him appear. “Thought I heard some sort of commotion in here."

She stared at the broken glass on the vanity and the floor, the destroyed mirror. “I've got to go back," she said, just above a whisper, only fully realizing the truth of it once it fell from her lips. The shattered mirror before her was how she saw the ringmaster now—fragmented, in pieces. Despite her anger over everything that'd happened, she couldn't bring herself to let him go down like this.

“Pardon?" Carter shifted his weight nervously as he watched her stand and start packing her guns. “Go? Mercy, you're the best act we've got—"

“There are more important things," she responded curtly. “It's time for me to be a little less Blue Skies and a little more Dust Devil."

Carter knew her well enough to realize that trying to reason with her would be pointless. He let out an exasperated sigh as he watched her finish packing.

“What if you don't find what you're looking for?" he asked as she headed out.

Mercy paused, looked to the side as she considered how to answer. “I'll either find what I'm looking for," she told him, “or I'll die trying. Goodbye, Carter. Thanks for everything."

And then she was off, headed to the place called Mammon's Gulch, where the circus was last rumored to be spotted. After days of riding and eating rattlesnakes roasted over the campfire, she saw the first sign: a lone, lime-green balloon, tied to a supply post, its rubbery skin unnaturally warm and lined with impossible veins.

She pulled a pin from her hair and popped the balloon, almost swearing that she could hear the fading screams of trapped souls in the burst before all was quiet again...

Hunters,

Update 2.2.2 is live! Check out the full list of changes below.



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
  

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
  

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!