They say he came out of the Georgia hills, way up north near the Tennessee state line. Walked out of them woods with a guitar on his back and a dream, back in those wilder days. He'd wander from town to town, singing songs with power in them, songs that called to the lonely and the desperate and the strange. Every town he went through, one or two or five of these misfits would just pick up and follow him when he left. He never asked, and he never offered. They just came, and put their faith in him. Pretty soon what had been one man with song on his lips turned into a traveling carnival, a circus where folks slotted themselves into roles they discovered they had all been born to play. They got big enough so that real circus acts heard tell of them and joined up too. Made things respectable, at least on the outside.

The circus followed the roads, going wherever he wanted. It got a bit of a rep, too. A little dirty, a little dangerous, and while he'd always come out to sing and make the ladies swoon, in the back alleys behind the tents there'd be darker stuff going on.

We sat down with Hunt veteran Post Malone for an exclusive Q&A!
From dream Traits to the perfect loadout and tons more, check out the full interview now.

Hunters,

We are back again to discuss a hot topic in any gaming community: monetization. With this post, we want to clarify our philosophy around monetization in Hunt: Showdown 1896 and provide transparency to how we have reached those decisions.

Ultimately, the key message we want you to take away is this: Our central goal with monetizing is to support live service operations, updates, and new content going forward.

We want to ensure our processes around monetization are fair and transparent, and we will discuss some instances where we missed the mark as well as some examples of successes. We acknowledge we do not always get it right on the first try, but it is important to us that you understand that the money you spend in-game funds all aspects of Hunt’s development and ongoing operations.

Base Game Sales

Earlier this year, we reduced the price of the base game globally—in some regions this reduction was as much as 30%. We made this decision to ensure Hunt was accessible and affordable, while also staying competitive in the market. The results from these adjustments have been positive, and we are confident this was the right call.

DLCs and Blood Bond Content

Our approach to premium content is that it should be optional for all players, rather than creating restrictions for those that choose not to buy.

We felt that putting a Blood Bond cost on basic features that influence the outcome of gameplay was unfair and posed restrictions on the player. As such, we have decided to remove all Blood Bond costs previously affiliated with such features, such as respec options for Traits and Health Chunks on Hunters.

By eliminating any 'forceful' spending options we also want to focus on the fact that Blood Bonds is a premium currency that is crucial to help continue fund the development of the game. As such, we have decided to cut Blood Bonds earned from the post-Mission accolades, while keeping some that can be still earned from Weekly Challenges through dedicated play.

One topic that came up with the launch of Update 2.0 was how Blood Bond content is displayed within your Gear Screen. We have taken steps in recent patches to make it clearer which Skins you own and provide some barrier in the form of a golden pop-up to reduce unintended purchases. We will continue to make improvements to these menus as we ship more updates. We in no way want people to purchase premium items by accident, as it’s a clear pain point and quickly becomes a customer service issue which is frustrating for you and costly for us.

Item Rarities and Future Availability

With Update 2.0, we introduced a new item rarity system to our premium cosmetics that is intended to reduce player confusion about content pricing, quality, and availability. To review, the new item rarities are as follows:

• Uncommon
  
• Rare
  
• Epic
  
• Legendary
  
• Mythic

One of our main goals with the rarity system was to establish a fairer pricing scheme by taking the visual complexity and the development costs of content into account. This also meant that we needed to revisit and adjust the pricing of premium content we have so far released in the past. As a result, we have reduced the price of a vast majority of premium items across the board, thus making them more accessible. To name a few, the Tainted Resin (New Army) skin had its price reduced from 900 to 200 Blood Bonds, whereas the Old Faithful (Romero 77) skin from 800 to 200. The Noose (Vetterli 71) skin is yet another great example that shows how basic design changes allow us to offer more accessible cosmetics, with its adjusted rarity now reflecting a more reasonable price (reduced from 900 to 300 Blood Bonds).

Item rarity is meant to reflect the level of which an item’s base model is changed through color, decoration, and/or theme. Uncommon items might have minor color changes or dressing, but a Legendary item should have strong model, theme, or color changes.

Mythic is slightly different, however, and is a level of rarity reserved for time-limited items only. This means it is only attributed to items that will not return after their availability window as part of Battle Passes or other special events.

We do have some seasonal items that return annually during holiday seasons, and for this reason seasonal items do not meet the criteria to be Mythic, despite being time-limited in their own seasons.

Rarity Corrections

When we first introduced item rarity, there were a few errors with some of the Skins announced. For example, within the Scorched Earth Battle Pass, we featured items that are part of a matching set but were given different levels of rarity: Thunderstroke (Epic), Covert Messenger (Legendary), and Shrewd Savior (Rare).

This variation was not intentional. These items were not available for individual sale, and the rarities have been updated along with several others. A full list of items that had their rarity updated was released as a part of the Update 2.1 Release Notes. We hope that item rarity can serve as a clear indication of pricing, quality, visual complexity, and availability going forward.

Thank you for your patience, support, feedback, and criticisms. We do not want to shy away from the monetization topic just because it is uncomfortable. We want to create a system that is fair and consistent to you, the player, and one that allows us to fund the continued development and operation of the live services.

We've got another Developer Insight video for you, and this one is all about UI improvements.

After taking critical feedback from the community, we're working hard to streamline and improve the usability of this latest iteration.

Take a look and see for yourself.

Taker of Trophies, our latest DLC, is now available to wishlist!

Skulls are the true mark of a Hunter's worth, greater than any story of slaughtered prey. Armed with Hidden Strike (Krag Sniper) and Liar's Bite (Sparks Pistol), Skull Taker has his fair share of trophies. Should he catch you in his traps... your skull will be next.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3204810/Hunt_Showdown_1896__Taker_of_Trophies/

Hello, Hunters!

Today, we're pulling back the curtain to discuss more on our development process, giving you a clearer picture of how we prioritize and work on new content, bug fixes, and feedback-driven changes.

As a live-service title, Hunt requires a detailed roadmap that takes into account lead times of 6 to 9 months for most major features and Events. When it comes to planning and rolling out new content, the process isn’t about decision making week-to-week, but rather setting larger course adjustments based on your feedback and our long-term goals for the game.

It’s important to note that every new feature, balance change, or content update has undergone extensive planning and development before it reaches you. This means that when you see large updates or new content, they’ve likely been in motion for months, built from a foundation of feedback, data analysis, and internal discussions.

As we move towards the new year, we are pivoting heavily towards bug fixes, UI, and quality-of-life improvements, with our first two updates of the year focusing exclusively on these. We will be looking to release a new roadmap for 2025 and beyond to provide some insight into what players can expect to see over the next few months.

This approach was set into motion as soon as these critical issues surfaced with the launch of 1896. While we have worked on implementing fixes and improvements wherever possible since then, it illustrates how the turnaround time for major changes in a live-service project can be shaped by development plans established months earlier.

We’re dedicating resources to improving stability and performance, squashing long-standing bugs, and refining the UI. Since August, we’ve rolled out lists of fixes and improvements in each update, and you can expect even more throughout December and well into the future. We intend to keep this momentum going, with enhancements taking precedence over new weapons, mechanics, or Event content at the start of the new year.

We understand how valuable a roadmap is for the community, and they’re a great tool for setting a clear course of action on the game—but they’re not perfect. When we release our plans for over a year or more, they’re vulnerable to delays and technical challenges that are a normal part of game development. This can sometimes cause missed deliveries to look like broken promises, when in reality those features are just taking us longer than expected.

We will be continuing to drop more Developer Insights over the next few weeks to show you more of what we have been working on behind the scenes, including UI, monetization, network & matchmaking, fair play, Hunter evolution, and more.

Every bug report, survey response, and community discussion shapes what we prioritize and how we develop.

Thank you for taking part in shaping the future of Hunt.

Hunters,

Cosplay has been a huge cornerstone of the community since the beginning of Hunt! As part of our Halloween celebrations, we ran our latest cosplay contest: Dressed to Die. We were blown away by your response and the creative ideas you came up with! Our panel of judges had the painstaking task of whittling it down to 12 cosplays and you, the community, have now decided on your winners!

1st Place
Taking first place is Cyperian Workshop with your awesome cosplay of Harvest! Congratulations from us and all of the community! You have won the top prize which includes some exclusive Hunt merch*, a Hunt Displate*, 5 DLC, a Hunt base game key, and 2,000 Blood Bonds!
2nd Place
The second-place winner is Daria Madra with your insane Frau Perchta cosplay. You have won yourself a Hunt Displate*, 2 DLC, a Hunt base game key, and 2,000 Blood Bonds!
3rd Place
The third-place winner is Courtney Leigh with your beautiful rendition of Llorona’s Heir. You’ve won yourself 2 DLC, a Hunt base game key, and 500 Blood Bonds!
4th Place
The fourth-place winner is Tete Cosplay with your killer portrayal of Luz Mala! Congrats—you have won 2 DLC, a Hunt base game key, and 500 Blood Bonds!
5th Place
The fifth-place winner is Irllydidnothing with your stunning cosplay of Daughter of Decay. Well done! You have won 2 DLC, a Hunt base game key, and 500 Blood Bonds!
Special Mention
As part of the cosplay contest, we asked our friends at Raptobot to choose a winner from their side. Raptobot is a cosplay company who took a shine to Hunt and has created awesome cosplay, booths, and weapons throughout the years. Check out their designs on Instagram [www.instagram.com]and Tik Tok[www.tiktok.com]!

We invited them to select their favorite cosplay as an extra reward for someone from the community. Raptobot chose Dragon and their Hail Mary cosplay! Congrats, you have won 2 DLC of your choice, a Hunt base game key, and 500 Blood Bonds.
Thank you to all who participated. We were amazed at your creativity and skills to make all the magnificent cosplays! The Hunt community never disappoints when it comes to your passion, and this cosplay competition was no exception!

For all winners—you will be contacted by a member of our team to claim your prize.

Thank you again, and we look forward to seeing what you cook up in our next competition.

*Availability may vary by region

Hello, Hunters,

Performance is an evergreen focus for our development teams, and today we’re sharing some of the latest improvements we’ve been working on to ensure smooth, stable, and consistent gameplay across all platforms. We have tons of changes coming in Update 2.2 later this year, but here is a breakdown of some key updates that can give you a clear view of our ongoing efforts towards optimization.

One of the most common issues we tackled on PC was related to VRAM usage. With this fix, VRAM management has been improved. This should improve the overall experience for players, particularly those who spent extended periods in the game and occasionally ran into VRAM overload across multiple rounds which caused a performance decrease. Rarely could a single gameplay session cause this issue as well.

On the topic of extended gameplay sessions, we received some reports of intermittent stalling and have targeted the most common sources of these disruptions. We tackled a variety of factors across PC, PS5 and Xbox and successfully eliminated several causes for the issue. This update should provide a smoother experience and more consistent FPS by resolving performance hiccups that occurred in single and longer gameplay sessions.

Our Art and Level Design teams have also made key optimizations across several maps to improve performance. These changes have targeted specific areas known to cause frame drops or stutters on each platform. Both PC and console players alike should notice a more consistent framerate and a smoother experience, including significant improvements to performance in high-traffic areas.

Lastly, we identified some underlying factors leading to longer loading times across gameplay sessions. Mainly console players and some PC specifications should now experience faster load times and a shorter wait between rounds.

As always, thank you for your feedback, which guides our improvements and helps us pinpoint what matters most.

~Crytek Team

Hey everyone,

Today, we want to give you a deeper look into the bug fixes and exploits we have been tackling and those on deck for future updates. It’s not unusual for live service projects like ours to have an extensive list of bugs that need addressing, and oftentimes, resolving these is not a straightforward process.

One of the realities of game development is that tackling one issue can inadvertently create another. Projects like Hunt rely on a vast number of complex and highly interconnected systems; for example, tweaking a movement mechanic might unintentionally affect animations or server responses. We conduct rigorous testing on all fixes before they roll out, but as many of you know, some issues slip by until they’re live and exposed to thousands of unique play styles.

Going live today with Update 2.1.0.2, we have addressed primarily Critical and Major bugs that directly affected gameplay, and rolled out fixes for the following:

• Fixed a crash occurring during client start-up, which was among the top three most frequent crashes in the current live version
  
• Fixed a rare crash issue occurring on dedicated servers
  
• Fixed a crash occurring while browsing the Hunter store on PlayStation 5
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented Custom Ammo from being available for the Bomb Lance despite unlocking correctly
  
• Fixed a bug causing Rotjaw to drop only one Bounty Token instead of two
  
• Fixed a bug causing slight misalignment in the iron sights of the Frontier 73C Silencer and its Skins
  
• Fixed an exploit allowing players to mantle onto Dark Dynamite Satchel and use it for climbing to new areas
  
• Fixed an issue when selecting certain Skins in the menu that could lead to accidental purchase or wrong Skin being applied
  
• Fixed a corrupted cloak on Hex Breaker
  
• Fixed an issue that prevented purchasing certain Blood Bond packs in Taiwan dollars on Steam

In our next Update 2.1.1, we were able to address a large list of tickets including several severe Category A bugs:

• Fixed a startup crash that could occur when launching the client on PlayStation 5
  
• Fixed a bug where the mouse cursor would occasionally appear randomly in-game and could move outside the game window when in windowed mode 
  
• Fixed a rare crash in Xbox lobbies that likely occurred during the ready-up or matchmaking process
  
• Fixed a crash that occasionally caused the client to crash when Dark Sight was activated 
  
• Fixed a rare freeze that could occur upon loading into Bounty Clash 
  
• Fixed an issue that caused black artifacts to appear with the Dark Sight Boost effect on Xbox 
  
• Fixed a bug that applied the "Against Teams of 3" bonus to a team of two, even when "Against Teams of Two" was selected 
  
• Fixed a glitch that caused the Martini Henry to render incorrectly 
  
• Fixed a bug where Dark Sight would turn red when HDR was enabled 
  
• Fixed a bug where the burning animation on the map would occasionally be missing 
  
• Fixed an issue where the "Select Starting Equipment" option might be missing in the Soul Survivor lobby, causing incorrect text (e.g., "Invalid Index: -1") to appear. 
  
• Fixed a bug where certain items had low-resolution textures 
  
• Fixed an issue where filters couldn’t be activated on any store page, with the button appearing greyed out 
  
• Fixed a bug where, when activating a filter after equipping a Tool, would occasionally cause the user to get stuck on the Gear screen 
  
• Fixed a bug that caused the shortcuts to disappear when clicking on filters activated in the search bar 
  
• Fixed a bug where Traits were displayed in the wrong order 
  
• Fixed a bug preventing the Scottfield Swift from being equipped as a dual-wield when the "Brave Charge" Skin is applied 
  
• Fixed an issue where the Hellborn model was missing on the Death Screen after a kill, and the cause of death might be displayed inaccurately 
  
• Fixed a bug where placing a Dark Dynamite Satchel outside an opponent’s hearing range prevented them from hearing, even if they walked right up to it 
  
• Fixed a bug that could cause owned Hunter Skins to disappear from recruit screens 
  
• Resolved an exploit allowing a specific type of Dynamite to respawn and be looted again after exploding 

We are always addressing and working on new bugs that come in, so our next update will have several more fixes. The following is a snapshot of the issues being addressed in Update 2.2, which is still in development:

• Working on an issue where the mouse cursor would remain visible during a Mission after using Alt+Tab
  
• Fixed over 30 rare crashes and freezes with a reproducibility rate of less than 10%
  
• Resolved player-stuck spots in Mammon’s Gulch and Stillwater Bayou
  
• Fixed multiple issues with LOD popping, rendering artifacts, and visual glitches
  
• Fixed issues preventing Weapons and Tools from rendering properly
  
• Fixed over 280 UI-related bugs to enhance usability
  
• Fixed an issue where the Anti-Aliasing option was missing from the Graphics Settings and couldn’t be interacted with
  
• Fixed an issue where visiting the Team Details with the Dark Sight filter active would disable the filter, causing the world to appear in red
  
• Fixed an issue where Arrows and other pick-up items could become uncollectible if they fell through assets when a defeated AI de-spawned
  
• Fixed an exploit where non-waterproof explosives would still detonate after landing in water or in a Choke Bomb cloud
  
• Fixed an issue where Motion Blur would be amplified and distorted when Super Resolution was enabled
  
• Fixed an issue where the Dark Sight switch wouldn't activate properly when in Beetle View

Once Update 2.2 is live, a complete list will be available in the full Patch Notes.

When it comes to facilitating the identification and resolution of bugs, player feedback is indispensable. Thousands of bugs we’ve addressed have come directly from player reports, complete with detailed descriptions that help our QA and dev teams dive into the root cause faster.

Thank you for sticking with us, sharing your feedback, and helping us keep the game strong.