Hunt: Showdown’s lead designer on sneaking through the new map

Crytek’s Hunt: Showdown isn’t one of those games that is setting the world on fire. But the two-person team shooter has a creepy setting and a cult following, and it was nice to see the game’s booth crowded at the recent TwitchCon event in San Jose, California.

Hunt: Showdown is a good example of how a developer is sticking with one of its live games in an attempt to grow the audience, nine months after its debut on Steam Early Access.

At the event, a number of influencers streamed their gameplay on the new map, dubbed Lawson Delta, coming out on the Steam Early Access game. I played a round of the game in the new map, and I managed to take out a couple of players before I went down. Then, I interviewed Dennis Schwarz, lead designer of the game, about the latest update.

The new map is in the Louisiana bayou in the post-Civil War era, with plenty of zombie-like creatures. In the game, you team up with another player and take on four other teams, as you look for a macabre creature. You take down the beast, all the while avoiding being killed by the other teams, and then, you have to either take out all those teams or escape through a map exit. It’s a very tense game.

The new 3.0 update coming will include the new map as well as skill-based matchmaking and an anti-team mechanic, which prevents four or more players ganging up on others.

Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: Where are we as far as updates go? What have you done so far?

Dennis Schwarz: We started our early access journey in February. From there on, it’s been about nine months now. We’re approaching update 3.0, the third major update. We’ve had a couple of more incremental patches in between. 3.0 is a big one for us because we have new engine features coming in, new input features we’ve been sitting on for the last two months that we can finally bring out.

From a road map perspective, we want this game to be in Early Access for a long time so that we have a chance to bring it to a high level of quality. Originally, we said we wanted to be there for at least a year, and that’s still true. We’re well into that, but it’s not over yet.

GamesBeat: What content is coming up with this update? We’re getting a new map?

Schwarz: Right, one of the highlights is our second map. We call it Lawson Delta. It’s like the bayou of southern Louisiana but with different locations. You have a lot of derelict Civil War-era stuff in there — like an old fort that’s been abandoned. We’re in the year 1895, so the war has been over a long time, and places have been repurposed. They’ve built a prison in part of the fort.

But obviously, the horror has come to the nearby town. We’re facing the same enemies, the same zombies, but in different locations. It’s more industrial. It’s less in the deep bayou, more in the outskirts. There’s more town landscape to explore.

GamesBeat: Did any fan requests go into building this one?

Schwarz: Yes, that’s very important to us. Since we started, we’ve been working very closely with the community, trying to incorporate features they want. Only together with the community can we make this the game it should be and reach the full potential of what it can become.

For example, with the latest update, we’re introducing a skill-based matchmaking system. When we started, we didn’t have time to finish that, so we put in a very basic rank-based system. The problem with that, obviously, is that if you play a lot, but you’re not the best player, you end up playing against the very best players. Now, with this update, the system depends where you sit in the rankings and tries to match you up properly. Everything will be fairer going forward.

Another feature we’re putting in alongside that is an anti-teaming mechanic. We’ve seen players trying to bypass the two-player team restrictions. Four people queue in at the same time and try to get in the same match. With 10 players total, having four players working together on the same side can be a problem for balance. We have mechanics to counter that, so we can separate players into different matches and ensure a fairer map for everyone.

GamesBeat: What have you noticed about how people play the game?

Schwarz: It’s interesting. We anticipated people playing in a specific way, and, of course, they haven’t done that. This is why it’s so important for us to work with them. We can see what the community is doing, what meta emerges, what weapons might dominate, what specific strategies are popular.

In the first half of Early Access, we had some issues with camping, for example. We introduced additional mechanics, like the darkside boost, which gives the guy who’s going for the bounty a fair fighting chance. He can counter people camping him. That encouraged people to go out and fight the bosses, rather than sitting back to wait until someone else was at a disadvantage. Finding the right balance there and adjusting for the meta is very important for us from day to day.

GamesBeat: Do you have any particular advice for people who are approaching the bosses right now? I’ve noticed that it’s hard to tell if you’ve hit the spider on target and how much health it might still have.

Schwarz: What we’ve seen is that people panic the first time they encounter a boss. It’s intimidating, especially if you don’t like spiders [laughs]. We have, at the top left, a health bar for the boss, so you can see how much health it has left. Also, the boss is just like the normal AI in that they have weak spots. If you manage to hit the spider in the head, you do a lot more damage than if you just hit one of the limbs.

Figuring out the depth of these mechanics is very important. Certain weapons work just a bit better against certain things. My advice for players is to build a mental map of what the current session is doing. Listen to the sounds, the clues. If you see birds taking off, there might be something coming from that direction. We intentionally withhold information from the players. We want them to keep track of certain things on their own. We think depriving players of information is important to the game. We want to encourage a healthy level of paranoia.

If you want to be on the safe side, listen for the cues around you. If you know there are people around the boss, maybe you don’t want to attack the boss right now, or maybe that’s your moment to move in and strike. You have a lot of tactical options in the game for things like that.

GamesBeat: What do you notice about the most successful players? What are they doing?

Schwarz: The veterans who’ve played the game a lot, they know the game inside out. They know what weapons to use in what situations. Anybody can pick up and play the game variously, but it can be frustrating in the beginning. We’ve introduced a feature where new players, in the first couple of ranks, don’t lose their hunters. Only once you cross out of the training mode will you then be exposed to the normal mechanics that affect veterans. As I say, the veterans know exactly what the game is doing. They know exactly how to lead with the weapons.

You should be careful about standing in the open. Keep moving around and keep listening to the sounds around you. Fire and maneuver is the key. Don’t get bogged down in one spot because someone could always just figure out where you are and throw dynamite at you. Always relocate and keep moving. That’s usually a good strategy.

GamesBeat: The game seems successful enough so far. You see it a lot on Twitch, streaming and talking about it. Has it met your expectations as far as the following so far?

Schwarz: As I said, Early Access is going to be a long road. You build up your following, and you create a community. You want to cater to them, and you also want to add new features to address new players. With this new update now, we’re introducing the new map, for example, which will help bring some players back to the game, but it will also draw new people.

In general, working with the community is so important. We can see how the veterans play, how the new players play, and hit that middle ground. We want to grow the community, which we’ve actively been working on, and that’s been going very well. We have a strong core following of dedicated streamers. They’re really enjoying the game, and they’re evangelists for us. We have a lot of cool people coming in and trying the game thanks to them.

GamesBeat: Is there anything on the road map that players are still asking for?

Schwarz: Yes. Next thing we’re going to do is introduce a new mode called quick play. That’s a second game mode. We’re talking about this in detail in the next few weeks. It’s a more streamlined version of the mission you’re playing at the moment. It will let you start with a random hunter and find weapons along the way. That’s actually a feature we’re also introducing to the main mode, from 3.0 onward. Everybody you kill, you can take their weapons. In this new game mode, you can also find weapons scattered around the world.

There can only be one winner in this mode, and if you win the game, you keep the hunter that you played, and you can take them into the main mode. We’re trying to create some synergy, so people don’t split up between the two modes. We want them to move back and forth as they please.

GamesBeat: Originally, this seemed like a game you guys pivoted into.

Schwarz: Right. It started as a very different product.

GamesBeat: Are you happy with how that new direction has gone?

Schwarz: The original game was already promising, the model of a four-player co-op game. But what we’ve made out of that — introducing the PvP and PvE elements, bridging that gap a bit, offering something very few other games can offer — that’s been very good for us. We first came out with the game at E3 last year, and we’ve seen a lot of positive reception ever since. That encouraged us to continue on this road, and we don’t regret it. It’s a very strong new idea, and it’s very different from other games on the market.