I've spent several hundred hours on Hunt:Showdown and much of this information comes with experience. I've also watched videos and gone through the Wiki to collect information such as direct XP amounts, certain weaknesses, and neat mechanics that are not widely known (in my opinion, anyway).

Think of this game as a survival horror crossed with PvP. After you get used to the AI, it transitions into a PvP with PvE elements. Tactical FPS, sneaky beaky players hiding in bushes to steal your hard-earned bounties, Ninjas silently stalking you... The game really has plenty of jump scare factors that are brought in by PVP. As a new player, you will die - a lot. The game has a short time period in which you will not lose your hunter or your items... Bloodline rank 10, which is separate from your hunter rank. After you hit this threshold, your hunters are permadeath when killed and items non-recoverable. Death will always be following you, and you must always be on the lookout for deathtraps and sightlines. Sound is going to be the most likely culprit in you dying in the majority of your deaths as everything you do makes a sound - perks can make that sound quieter, but it does not completely go away.

The very first thing you need to know is that not every "zombie" needs to die. Do not go out of your way to hunt down each zombie as they offer minimal XP and are often extremely loud to take down. There are priority targets that you should go after, such as hives and immolators, due to their ability to cause massive damage to yourself and your team. A lot of how to go about removing these threats will come with experience in the game. If you plan on zombie hunting, kill the ones carrying torches or blades first to avoid status effects.

The second is that every hunter starts with 150HP, UNLESS they start the round with a destroyed health bar.

The third is that you have 2 different stamina bars. One bar is visible and yellow, the other you can not see. The visible bar is what I will call the stamina bar, and the invisible one the fatigue bar. The stamina bar is actions you can take to deal damage, such as swinging a weapon in a melee attack or throwing a knife, which will consume this bar. The Fatigue bar is purely running and jumping. The fatigue bar is, again, invisible, but you can tell how much you have left based on your characters breathing - the more ragged the breathing, the lower the bar. When you are out of the fatigue bar, a lung icon appears in the lower left hand of your screen and your running speed is dramatically reduced as well as your breathing sound dramatically increased.

Status Effects;
Bleeding deals damage based on the severity of the bleed inflicted, which has light, medium, or heavy as its modifiers. Moving or taking action while bleeding will worsen the bleeding, and bleeding will deal continuous damage over time (DOT) but will not deal permanent damage. Your character will "Oh" and "Ah" until healed, a rather loud sound cue that will mess you up. Using a bandage will pause the bleeding while activating, but using a syringe will NOT stop the bleeding while activating - but it will stop it when the animation is fully completed.

Burning deals damage to maximum health, which starts by afflicting your furthest right health bar with gray ash. Taking fire damage after having ash on the health bar will cause you to burst into flames and glow like a torch. Not only is this bad for keeping your position hidden, you will make loud sound cues such as crackling and groaning. Burned off health bars (appearing hollow with a gray outline) can not be recovered unless you banish the boss in the game in which you lost the health, or spend upgrade points to recover the lost bars (1 for a small [25 HP], 3 for a large [50HP]) after the game has ended. Burning is extinguished by holding the action key, running into a choke bomb, or running into deep water. ADDITIONALLY you must be cautious while burning... Walking into barrels will make the barrels explode and inflict additional burning or kill you instantly.

DNBO (Down but not out) occurs when you have been "killed" by something, typically a hunter. You can be revived, but you lose the furthest right health bar. Enemy hunters can burn you while down, causing continuous health bar damage and potentially burning you out of the game (Burned Out status). You are considered DNBO status as long as one of your team mates is still alive, and you have not been burned out. Being killed while on your last health bar is perma death, and you can not be revived. Maximum revive capability occurs from 4 small health bars and 1 big bar, but comes with the downside of taking more damage and requiring more med use to keep health full.

Dead. Can be revived only by a hunter carrying a bounty token Death occurs when you have no health chunks remaining to lose and you are killed. Even a burned out hunter can be revived in this method. Costs health to revive a Dead hunter.

Poison is a very difficult effect. It does not deal damage past the initial exposure unless standing in a poison cloud. Your health bars turn green, your vision is turned green, your incoming audio is muffled and your screen adequately describes what it looks like to be extremely drunk (beer goggles, for reference). Worst of all? You are NOT able to heal until the effect goes away.

Combo Bleeding, Poison, and Burning for a hidden achievement! All must be occurring at the same time...

Bosses
There are currently 4 bosses in-game including: Spider, Butcher, Assassin, Scrapbeak. Bosses make a ridiculous amount of noise when approached carelessly and when fighting them, meaning you won't be able to hear hunters if you are too close by or fighting the boss actively. Bosses have an enraged mode where they take approximately 50-60% reduced damage and move at a much higher speed while striking rapidly with their weapon.

The Spider is a giant spider hell bent on making you fire your gun AND missing every shot. He dashes around constantly all the time on the walls, floors, and ceilings. It spits poison out from time to time, dealing continuous damage while inflicting what we call beer-goggles in Kansas. The Spider can also do a jump attack which pins you to the floor for 3 seconds and deals a huge amount of damage. Immune to poison, naturally. When it runs through you, it deals about 10 damage per encounter which is quite annoying as you can imagine.

The Butcher is a glorified Meathead that sets himself on fire and uses fire damage to remove health chunks rapidly. He typically uses a big cleaver that strangely does not inflict bleeds. When rampaging, he sets himself on fire and throws big fireballs while also dropping fire puddles on the ground, all of which can set you on fire and burn off those precious health chunks. The Butcher is immune to fire. If you want to make this fight easier and less dangerous, throw a choke bomb to extinguish the fire the Butcher wears.

The Assassin is a weird monster to describe, but it appears to be made out of bugs that form into a humanoid shape. Poison and fire are your best friends dealing with this one as he can clone himself and turn into "racecar" mode sending his clones to suicide bomb you with bugs that deal some damage and ruin your aim and obscure vision for about 10 seconds. He can also shoot a bolt that deals splash bleeding damage as though it explodes into shrapnel, both the explosion and the direct hits deal a large amount of damage and inflict medium to heavy bleeding. Does not seem to have any specific immunity to damage.

Scrapbeak is a giant bird monster that makes armor out of scrap it finds on the ground. Unlike other boss lairs, Scrapbeak does not have many items laying around at all because it makes armor out of them. In order to preserve the items, use poison and stabbing/piercing attacks. If you don't care about the items, Scrapbeak is very weak to burning damage, explosive damage is always a good choice when taking down a boss. Scrapbeak also does not seem to have a specific immunity, but takes massively reduced damage from the back unless using a stabbing weapon such as a bayonet or cavalry sabre.

Base Monsters
This will cover the regular monsters of the Bayou. All of them, with the exception of the armor-head hellhound, are weak to headshots.

Starting with Leeches, they are by far the weakest enemy in the game but also underestimated. They are generated by MeatHeads and will poison you on attack, which will in turn cause the MeatHead to rush you and deal 50+ damage in 1 attack while possibly inflicting bleeds. MeatHeads generate Leeches in swarms of 5 (6?) at random intervals, and are best described as the forward scouts and eyes of the MeatHead. Killing one is 10 XP.

Grunts; They come in many forms and the newest one indigenous to DeSalle is the Miner Grunt who is equipped with a gas powered helmet. Any damage to the head will cause a small burst of flame which inflicts burning on all nearby objects. Grunts may carry blades which will deal low damage but inflict bleeding damage over time (DOT). They may also carry bonesaws (nurse uniform grunt) which inflict poison. They also can carry torches which inflict burn damage starting as ash, the second hit setting you on fire. Nurse zombies will drop a med-kit on death. 10 XP for killing a grunt.

Hellhounds; Usually spawn in packs of 2 to 5, quadrupedal enemies that rush at you with bites and jump attacks that will screw with your aim. These enemies have a mild Area of Effect (AOE) that will get you in serious trouble when there are immolators about (slash damage will activate an immolator, and you will not like a hellhound immolator pack chewing on you). Hellhounds will inflict bleed every hit which can escalate. Best advice is to kill the pack before you heal, but in the chance you need to heal, try to jump over a fence or through a window for some extra space. Climbing ladders works too. Armor-head dogs are essentially immune to headshots but have a few sweet spots that a headshot can be attempted... Its not worth it if you don't have perfect aim. Aim for the body for best results on armor-head dogs. 20xp on kill per hound.

Waterdevils; As the name suggests, these are native to the water. They hide in the water in a small animated pool that you can usually hear long before you see it. Stepping into the water of a Waterdevil activates it, causing it to make large amounts of noise. Staying in the way causes it to attack - which induces moderate bleeding and deals medium damage per hit. These are VERY painful, and will kill you if you don't know how to handle them. Shotguns are a 1 shot kill center mass, which are of course loud... Bomblance Melee is good for Waterdevils. Most will avoid waters with devils in them, but if you need to cross, use a throwable to distract the devil and make it attack something other than you. Decoys, deactivated lanterns, throwing knives, suppressed weapons are all good for distracting water devils from you. 20xp per kill.

Hives; The only basic enemy immune to poison. They shriek when you get close and spray out a swarm of bugs that inflict poison damage and continuous minor damage that stacks up rapidly. They are lopsided, so in order to get a headshot you must shoot the head on the side of the body. They have a weird gray peak where the spinal column would be, this is not the headshot area but is considered full upper torso damage. 30xp per kill.

Immolators; The annoying, loud, glow in the dark ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ that screams and chases you, giving your opponents a free opportunity to shoot it and burn off your health chunks. Blunt weapons and poison are the safest way to remove these threats, alternatively you may use a choke bomb. If you hit one with a knife or a bullet, they activate in a large AOE fireball which will detonate barrels and set everything nearby on fire. They chase super fast when activated and every strike deals burning damage. 50xp per kill.

Armored; Loud and annoying. Tanky enemy weak to poison, fire, and piercing damage. Hits for about 30 damage a strike. Comes in 2 forms, regular and concertina wired. Concertina inflicts bleed within a small radius around it. Stabbing in the face is the fastest way to eliminate these enemies, or you can burn them and make a lot of noise. Loud enemy, so you may as well do the safest thing when it comes down to it, which is burning them before they can get near you. 60xp per kill.

Meathead; Bullet sponge of the game. Sends leeches to scout for enemies. Penny shot, explosives, and poison are the best way to kill these enemies. May inflict bleed if holding a sword or scythe. 200xp per kill.

What Exactly IS a Hunter?
Well... Its you. More or less, what you are soon to become. From your run of the mill add characters to Bayou legends, Hunters come in many shapes. Your goal is to extract a bounty. How you choose to extract that bounty is of your choosing. The question is how will you obtain and leave with the bounty? Hunter of monsters, hunter of men, or both. Hunters possess a supernatural talent known as dark sight which connects you to the world around you by highlighting traces of enemies - including bounty tokens.

Equipment
Skipping further silly intros of the game and moving straight into the action, HUNT has continued adding equipment and weapons. Melee, pistols, rifles, shotguns... Traps. Grenades.

Melee Types - Melee weapons will often have more than one damage type. Pay attention to each one to know what is most appropriate to use in which situation.

• Slashing weapons - Inflict rending, ranging from mild to severe, which is another word for bleeding.
  
• Piercing weapons - penetrate armor, nearly always a 1 shot kill upper body to head. At most, 2 hits.
  
• Blunt weapons - Useful for taking down Immolators and small packs of enemies

Standard munitions - The basic munitions that are in the game. No added effects from hits. All calibers can ignite flammable barrels. In general restocked from basic ammo crates

• Compact
  
• Medium
  
• Rifle
  
• Shotgun
  
• Nitro Express - Special type standard munition, restocked from special ammo crates

Status Munitions - Only restocked from special ammo crates

• Poison - Adds poison effect to bullet. Not a DOT.
  
• Dumdum - Adds bleeding to bullet. DOT
  
• Full Metal Jacket - Increased Terrain Piercing.
  
• High Velocity - Significantly increased bullet velocity (usually 1.5x)
  
• Incendiary - Adds burning effect to bullet. Requires 2 hits to ignite target for DOT damage. Can cause permanent health chunk loss.
  
• Explosive - AOE shot. No other effect.
  
• Bolts - Vary from type to type. Base bolt causes Bleed. Can be altered to cause an explosion, shotgun shell scatter shot, poison clouds, choke clouds, and chaos bomb effects
  
• Arrows - Base type causes bleed. Can cause a concertina blast or frag blast with alternate munitions