A once legendary game. Since the re-release of this game and re-branding of 1896, the DEVS have completely lost the plot. A once functional game has become riddled with bugs. Maps have been taken out of rotation for months. The UI is now harder to navigate and requires twice as much clicking to do anything.

And yet nothing has slowed the ever-grinding gears of skin DLC.

Perversely, they rename the game Hunt: Showdown 1896 and continue to add modern content: GhostFace, from the 1990's horror movie. Post Malone - a modern musician.

The previous governing philosophy of this game has been abandoned. How long until they do a Pirates of the Caribbean crossover? Maybe some Marvel superhero crossover next? What a sad, sad joke this game has become.

I do not recommend this product and I will no longer support it.

Hunt: Showdown was a one of a kind PVP extraction shooter. Hunt: Showdown was a unique gem, it was slow paced, suspenseful, and well made. It made players truly appreciate stealth and guns that fire faster than the other persons guns. Hunt: Showdown was my favorite FPS video game and I would have defended and loved this game with everything I had. But that all changed when the 1896 attached...

The Scorched Earth update ruined the game for me. The new UI was horrendous, un-optimized, confusing, and should have never been added in the first place. Sure, while the old UI did need some work, as it was annoying to navigate for new players, once you got used to it, it was smooth sailing. The new UI is a downright monstrosity. It is supposed to be tailored to console users, but it just ends up being way worse than the old UI, as it makes the starting menu a lot more difficult to navigate for all platforms. Why do I need to open so many sub-menus!? Not only is the new UI frustrating to use, for a significant period after the update, many players (include myself) could not play the game, due to the "graphical improvements". Even after the developers made the game playable, many players continually experiencing major game breaking lag spikes that were not a problem before the update. These lag spikes might still be a problem.

While the Scorched Earth update was filled with bugs, un-optimized menus, and very questionable inclusions, the worst part of this update that completely ruined the game for me was the developers themselves. The developers have continually ignored the community and have done everything in their power to make their game nothing but a digital identity crisis. As demonstrated in the Harvest of Ghosts update, the Scream legendary hunter DLC, the Post Malone Q&A, and the upcoming Post Malone's Murder Circus, Hunt: Showdown 1896 is becoming CoD: 1896. The game is trying to absorb as many pop culture icons as they can, regardless of if it fits the aesthetic or not (no matter how hard you try to explain, in my opinion the plastic mask wearing Scream character does not fit the aesthetic in the slightest) all the while changing to become a fast paced close quarter FPS shooter filled with semiauto or fully automatic guns. The game has been tailored to make Solo game play unfun and nearly impossible while confusingly buffing teams using the same logic the developers used to debuffed Solo game play. Hunt: Showdown 1896 is rapidly sprinting away from its roots, trying desperately to go mainstream by forcibly replacing its aesthetic, game play, and old player base.

It is clear to me that the game I loved, Hunt: Showdown is dead. In its place is a disappointing mockery of what it once was. If you like the new direction Hunt: Showdown 1896 is going, I am happy for you, I am glad that the game is improving for you. But heed my warning, the developers will stop at nothing to cater to the mainstream audience. Everything you enjoy about the game will be destroyed, either by bugs, poor balancing, or both. If you have any technical issues with the game, you WILL be left behind. The developers will not listen.

TL;DR Old Hunt: Showdown dead, its becoming Fortnite or CoD. Angry rant. Buy game at your own caution, do not become attached to game.