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As the sun sets, a wilderness town appears with yellow sand flying everywhere.

The two cowboys stared at each other, their hands holstered and ready to go. The spectators in the tavern drank beer and ran out of the door, leaning on the railing to watch this thrilling moment...

This is the romantic fantasy that the American West gave to people in the 19th century. Artists used various classic works to create tragic songs of outlaws for this desolate and wild land, which also left me with the "ideological stamp" that western-themed works must have cowboy showdowns and slow rhythms.

So when a friend recommended "Hunted: Showdown" to me and said it was a western-themed escape FPS game, my brain froze.

No brothers, can Western, Evacuation, FPS... all these things be put together?

However, after being dragged into playing for a few days, I looked at my gaming time and found that I could not escape Wang Jingze's "True Fragrance Law" after all.

MD, this game is really addictive.

Back to the 19th century

At the end of the 19th century, a town in the western United States called "Bayou Town" became infested with monsters due to a virus outbreak, and the entire area was blocked. But at the same time, someone offered a reward for these monsters, hoping that the hardcore ruthless people in the west could solve these troubles in Bayou Town.

Although the people who offered these bounties actually had more unknown purposes, the Western heroes who came for the bounties were unaware of this. They broke through the blockade, hoping to find their own "treasure" on the monsters in the river mouth town, and this setting developed the basic gameplay of the game: the hunter controlled by the player needs to kill the boss in the river mouth town, take the bounty, and evacuate the river mouth town safely under the watchful eyes of other hunters.

From this perspective, although "Hunting: Showdown" is a very typical escape game, when I actually played it, the experience it gave me was quite unique.

In terms of the PVE gameplay, the game does not allow players to lock the BOSS location in one step, but instead divides the location information into three clues on the map that need to be unlocked in sequence. After defeating the BOSS, players still need to wait for a few minutes of "exile" to get the bounty.

In this process, the game's special feature called "Dark Vision" comes in handy. It allows players to lock onto clues and locations of the BOSS. After the player receives the bounty, the "Dark Vision" system can also help the player find the locations of other nearby hunters, or find other players who have already defeated the BOSS.

It should be said that such a detailed gameplay process brings extremely clear game objectives to the game. Even a new hunter who is not familiar with the map and has no idea how to kill the boss can know where to go and what to do at each stage through these basic objectives and the "Dark Vision" function, thus avoiding the three soul-searching questions of "Who am I, where am I, and what should I do?"

When the boss is banished, Dark Vision will use "lightning" to indicate the location of players who have defeated the boss.

After finding the target, it is natural to start thinking about how to fight. As a pure "firepower advantage theory" enthusiast, I once firmly believed that there is nothing in the world that a few rifles cannot do.

But in Hunt: Showdown, I miscalculated.

In the game, bullets have to be loaded one by one, and the amount of ammunition that can be carried is not sufficient at all. The firing mode of the guns follows the rules of the bolt-action era, which can be said to faithfully restore the performance of weapons in that era. Different types and models of guns also have different types of bullets to match, resulting in different damage effects. Each weapon has a unique feel experience, and the gunfight experience has become very hardcore.

Through such a hardcore gun system, it is not difficult to see that the game does not actually encourage players to mindlessly shoot. In this vast West, the pure "firepower advantage doctrine" does not work at all, and players must adopt more flexible strategies to survive in the river mouth town.

Therefore, in addition to guns, the game provides players with a large number of melee weapons and various props of different types. Especially in the game, the damage types are divided into "bleeding, poisoning" and other subdivisions, the damage attributes of monsters are different, and the game process focuses on using environmental factors for strategic battles. Under the gameplay design, these props and melee weapons sometimes seem to be even more important than guns.

For example, when dealing with flammable and explosive monsters like "Fire Man", only blunt weapons can help you escape unscathed.

At the same time, in order to match such a flexible and diverse combat mechanism, the game also provides a detailed character ability training system. A series of character skills called "traits" such as "single action rapid fire" and "lever principle" can achieve the effect of increasing the player's firing rate, thereby helping the player to make up for the shortcomings of the character's combat ability.

Other non-combat traits can also effectively help players create favorable conditions in the game, or provide strong support for the entire team. Not to mention that traits such as "Necromancer" can also have the effect of self-resurrection if used properly, so that lone wolf players will not be at a disadvantage.

It should be said that as one of the games that deeply cultivates the evacuation type of gameplay, "Hunt: Showdown" has made great efforts in the gameplay mechanism, laying a good foundation for the game. The hunters in the estuary area have also been able to rely on the various mechanisms in the game to develop various imaginative playing methods.

This also creates one of the core charms of the game: the psychological game that is always present during the game.

Danger is everywhere

The overall goal of the game is clear: find the BOSS, kill the guys who get in the way, and get your own One Piece.

But how to achieve this goal requires players to consider a lot.

You can take the initiative to attack and snatch the fruits of victory from other players; or you can use the boss or clues as bait to wait and see, and use the environment to have a thrilling "house attack battle". This also causes players to have various psychological games in each game: Should I fight monsters or raid other teams? Is the opponent a lone wolf? Is he cheating by not fighting the boss...

Many times, the BOSS is really just a part of the play between you and other hunters when hunting each other.

At the same time, different map environments will also lead to different tactical strategies. From simple traps, explosives, or "psychological warfare", firing blanks and pretending to run out of bullets, and then switching to a secondary gun to catch the enemy off guard when the enemy is careless. It can be said that there are various strategies in the game, only you can't think of them, but there is nothing that this game can't do.

It can be said that it is precisely because of these ubiquitous strategic games that every game in the game can be called suspenseful, especially since the game also has a setting similar to "real death". If the hunter used by the player dies in the game, he must recruit a new hunter to continue the game, which puts the player under the real threat of death at all times, and the tension of the game is doubled.

However, when talking about the game's creation of a tense atmosphere, we cannot avoid the sound design of "Hunting: Showdown" which is almost unique in the industry.

After all, whether it is glass shards on the ground, branches, iron hooks and bottles in the house, or horses, chicken coops, crows on the roadside... all kinds of elements in the environment have different timbres and textures of sound effects. In Hekou Town, an environment that emphasizes psychological games and is full of enemies, almost any noise will alert the player and become a fatal factor in exposing the information of their own team.

But on the other hand, players can also rely on these things to grasp the movements of other hunters or monsters, especially when setting traps for other players, how to make noise, how to accurately identify the direction, how to set up traps step by step... Many actions are inseparable from the player's precise control of the surrounding sound conditions. Sound information has almost become the core of all strategies, and together with rich tactical gameplay and hardcore gun battle experience, it constitutes the dangerous and thrilling game group portrait of Hekou Town.

Finally, after a few days of fun, I was completely immersed in this western world, and one match after another stimulated my adrenaline. I felt like a real bayou hunter, experiencing the thrill of hunting and the thrill of being the prey. It was not until I quit the game that I realized that my sense of time had been exiled by "Hunted: Showdown" without realizing it.

Conclusion

During this period, Hunt: Showdown brought me a very unforgettable western horror experience. Through one exciting match after another, the game gradually helped me get rid of my previous impressions of western-themed works, and often made me exclaim:

"So FPS can be played like this?"

Of course, as an online game, it is not immune to problems such as server delays, matching mechanisms that need to be optimized, and rampant plug-ins. However, the official has also taken a very sincere attitude towards these problems. Whether it is back-end optimization of the server, setting up a fair game group to combat plug-ins, or constantly improving its own optimization mechanism, the developer Crytek has been working hard to improve these problems.

However, for all the estuary hunters, the upcoming major version update on August 15 may be more eye-catching. The official announced that this update will upgrade the game engine, bring more new maps, and modify and improve various mechanisms. The official also launched the new name "Hunting: Showdown 1896", which vaguely shows the arrival of the "Hunting 2.0" era.

At the same time, due to the game's unique gameplay style, the reputation of "Hunting: Showdown" in China is becoming more and more famous through word of mouth among players. As a result, the official has also paid more and more attention to the Chinese market, and the feedback to domestic players has become faster and faster. More Asian hunters and weapons have also been added to the game, which will surely attract more Chinese players to play.

Perhaps the word "thriving" is indeed the best summary of the current status of the game. And I also believe that this dark, damp, dangerous and bizarre West will eventually conquer more players with its unique Western charm, just like other excellent Western-themed works.

At the same time, in order to let everyone feel this charming western world, Youmi Community has also prepared four CD KEYs of "Hunted: Showdown" for everyone. Click the link to participate in the lucky draw>>>