Reviews
‘Hunt: Showdown 1896’ Is a Great Update to the Original Game, Despite Its New Flaws
Last week, Hunt: Showdown, the horror-tinged extraction shooter, received its largest update since it was released from Early Access about five years ago. This new version, now titled Hunt: Showdown 1896, includes an engine upgrade, revamped UI, additional roaming target, and a whole new map, the first in three years. Hunt is one of the few multiplayer games that keeps me coming back for more, so needless to say I was excited to see what this update would bring to the table.
For those that don’t know, Hunt: Showdown is a PvPvE shooter set in the late 1800s where you are competing with other hunters to track down horrible beasts and safely extract with the bounty. Given the time period of the game, the pace is a lot more deliberate, with slower firing weapons that require bullet by bullet reloading. In addition to making every shot count, you also have to be careful with how much noise you’re making, as stealth is key to getting the advantage on other hunters that you’re up against. It’s tense, punishing, but easily the most rewarding competitive multiplayer game I’ve come across.
So how is the new update? You can’t really talk about it without talking first about the elephant in the room: the audience reaction. Currently, the game is sitting at “Mostly Negative” in the recent reviews section on Steam, with over ten thousand being considered ‘recent.’ If you look at all reviews, it’s still at “Mostly Positive,” so you can see how much of a sharp change has been just from this review. While many of the reviews are citing bugs and performance issues, the majority of the issues stem from the new UI, which has been completely redesigned from the bottom up. It’s not chasing people away, Hunt was setting concurrent player records for the game and seems to be steadily climbing in player count, but the reaction has been swift and extreme. The devs have already put out a video responding to the UI controversy, promising some changes and showing some quick mockups of things they’ve already been working on to help remedy the situation.
Before I launched the game, it was hard to tell if this reaction was warranted or if it was just people complaining about changes that they will probably just get used to in the near future, but I did find some pain points with the new layout. On the bright side, it does look clean and modern, but every action seems to require way more clicks than it used to. Even launching a new match felt like it required more work than it should. Picking your loadout was one of the main problems for me, as there was no way to look at what you have equipped while picking your weapons from the inventory screen. It might not sound like a huge deal, but it’s one of many small things about the UI that add up.
A lot of other menu pages seemed really weirdly balanced with negative space, forcing some of the icons to be too small and hard to parse. The perk page in particular did this to me, and they seemed to be listed in a different order by default, causing me to take way longer to make sense of the page and slow down my hunter upgrading process. I could be wrong about this, but it appears they’ve also removed the monster encyclopedia, which contained all the lore for the game’s many creatures. As a video game lorehound, I always appreciated this feature and definitely will mss it, especially with the introduction of a new roaming boss.
This new boss is called the Hellborn, a massive fire-ball throwing humanoid creature. After last year’s Rotjaw, the Hellborn is the second roaming target, a boss monster that does not have a specific lair and instead can be found in open areas of the map. Instead of finding clues to track it down like a traditional boss, you listen for its screams while you’re using Dark Vision to narrow down its location. This means it can be a bit harder for you to locate it, but when you do it’s a pretty fun fight. Since the Hellborn’s main attack is throwing massive fireballs, it’s a boss you’ll really want to take out a distance, which feels cool to do in an open area rather than a lair fight. It is a very loud creature, meaning the risk of having other hunters run up on you while you’re fighting is something you’ll need to take into consideration, adding another layer of decision making to the encounter. Overall, I have more fun with this guy than I did with Rotjaw, which always felt more time consuming if you didn’t get the drop on it correctly.
The big centerpiece of this update for me, and probably most players, is Mammon’s Gulch, an all new map, bringing the total map count up to four. It walks the line between feeling like a genuinely new place and still fitting within the existing style of Hunt: Showdown. It’s the first map that takes place outside of the Louisiana setting, bringing you to a mountainous location in Colorado. It’s wonderful to have new locations to learn, offering surprises both in the visual and level design elements. There was a really wonderful burned down town that took my breath away the first time I saw it, and scattered oil derricks add a great visual variety. While other maps had some tunnel sections added to them, the mines in Mammon’s Gulch are extensive and fun to traverse, feeling both claustrophobic and just big enough to have a satisfying firefight in. One of the great joys of the game is learning the ins and outs of the locations to figure out how to use their layouts to your advantage, so having a whole new map is extremely exciting.
Aside from the obviously new visual assets that were made to build out Mammon’s Gulch, it’s clear that the visuals have been upgraded in the new engine. The lighting and water effects in particular look better to me, making an already pretty game even more beautiful. I have noticed some performance issues in my matches, and many recent Steam reviews seem to be seeing these as well, but I’m guessing this has more to do with the server issues cropping up due to the high volume of players. There were definitely lag spikes that I was experiencing from time to time that hurt my play experience, and I kept getting disconnected when I was trying to play duos with my buddy, which was frustrating to say the least.
To draw people in and reward players, there’s a new event going on called Scorched Earth. This features some new player perks, along with a battle pass that has new weapons and skins for players to earn. Even without buying the premium battle pass, there’s some nice things to earn, and the new perks are a fun way to add wrinkles to the familiar gameplay.
While there are some issues with the new UI, I think the negative reaction has been a bit overblown. Aside from the connection issues which will hopefully be ironed out soon, the Hunt: Showdown 1896 update feels great to me, and I can’t wait to continue to explore and learn everything that Mammon’s Gulch has to offer. It provides a change of scenery that reinvigorates the game without feeling out of place in the game’s world, featuring great level design and art direction. It’s an exciting new era for Hunt, and I’m sure that Crytek can smooth out the annoyances of the UI now that it’s out in the wild and they can see players interacting with it. I’m really hoping that the review bombing doesn’t dissuade new players from checking it out, because it feels like all the new additions make an excellent game even better.
Hunt: Showdown 1896 is now available for PC via Steam, PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series. Previous owners of Hunt: Showdown on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One will automatically receive an upgrade to the new version at no additional cost on their current-gen counterpart, including all past purchases and progress.
Reviews
‘Hungry’ Review – Finally, a Film Brave Enough to Call Out Hippos for the Monsters They Truly Are
When it comes to the animal attack subgenre of horror, there’s a hierarchy of sorts with the wildlife in question. Killer shark movies are easily the most ubiquitous, while alligators/crocodiles, dogs, bears, and snakes probably lead the rest of the pack.
It’s often worth paying attention, though, when a filmmaker targets a more atypical animal threat, including the likes of Jonathan King’s Black Sheep or Juan Piquer Simón’s Slugs. A new contender rumbles its way onto the screen this month, and while we all grew up thinking hippos are rotund cuties, the truth is far more frightening – this hippo is Hungry.
Sistine (Madison Davenport) and her best friend, Hannah (Olivia Bernstone), are enjoying a vacation in New Orleans, hoping to drown out their troubles back home. They sign up for an early morning bayou tour known for its alligator sightings and are joined by four other tourists and the boat’s skipper, Rodrigo (Michel Curiel). An uneventful trip sees Rodrigo take the group off the beaten path, but when an animal in the water capsizes their boat, the group finds themselves trapped in the swamp by something unexpected and deadly.
It’s a hippo. There’s a hippo in the bayou, and it’s not happy about all these pesky people.
From Joy Houck’s Creature from Black Lake to Walter Hill’s Southern Comfort to Adam Green’s Hatchet, the movies have warned us time and again not to go into the swampy bayous of Louisiana. Those cautionary tales are appreciated, though, as bigfoot, inbred hicks, and undead serial killers are a very real threat. But hippos? In the bayou? Well, that just seems silly.
And yet, Hungry plays its blubbery, big-toothed threat with deadly seriousness, and it’s all the better for it. “But Rob,” I can already hear some of you saying, “just yesterday you reviewed the new shark attack film, Chum, and said it suffered from taking itself too seriously. What gives?” For one thing, you’re misquoting me, but more importantly, the reference there was more of an observation on the animal attack subgenre successes as a whole. The “fun” ones tend to succeed more often than their more serious counterparts, but a dramatic and thrilling time can still be found with filmmakers who know what they’re doing.
Chum may be serious, but it’s also poorly written/performed, lacking in any degree of tension, devoid of personality, and so on. By contrast, Hungry lets its suspense build on the backs of engaging characters, good performances, and believable writing. Only one of its ensemble is obnoxious – a major feat for this kind of film – but even then, their motivations are both well-written and understandable.
The rest of the characters are people you’d be happy to see survive the night, and rather than looking forward to the next kill, director James Nunn and his cast leave us uncertain and nervous about who’s going to go belly up. The nervous business traveler wanting to get back to her kids? The family of three celebrating lost loved ones while on their vacation? Joaquim de Almeida’s Walker, an old hunter, is introduced saying, “The only cute hippo is a dead hippo,” so you pretty much know where he’ll end up.
To that end, the film teases out its hippo’s first appearance until well into the ninety-minute running time. We get ripples and splashes, but it’s only around the midway point that we get our first real look at the beast, and it looks fantastic. Nunn goes on to show the hippo in all its glory, and it’s a convincing antagonist brought to life through practical prosthetic effects and digital work. From the ear twitches to the beast’s giant maw opening wide with awe and malice, the hippo’s presence feels part of the action. There’s a tangible nature to it, something practical effects excel at while digital effects sometimes fail to convince of, and both succeed here with quality work from all involved.
While we get brief exteriors early on and some visually appealing drone shots, the bulk of the film unfolds on what looks to be a highly believable, set-dressed water tank (but could very well be an actual location, in which case, kudos to the team). It’s wholly convincing as a section of the bayou, complete with shoulder-high water and arching, twisting trees emerging into the sky. The film was shot in Malta, which is, coincidentally, where Chum was filmed as well.
Nunn, who also wrote Hungry, is now ten films deep into a fairly interesting career as a genre filmmaker. He’s made four movies with Scott Adkins, three of which are certified action bangers (with 2016’s Eliminators in particular being an underrated gem). He dipped a toe into the animal attack subgenre back in 2022 with the aforementioned Shark Bait, and it’s clear he learned some lessons from that endeavor, as its first hour is an engaging, attractively shot feature that sinks fast as soon as its poorly rendered shark becomes a lead character. Hungry improves on every aspect of that film, with its biggest step up being in regard to the effects.
If there’s an area or two where Hungry lacks bite, it’s in both its gore and its ending. There are numerous kills here, but the nature of the attacks and the choices made by Nunn mean none of them result in gory assaults or outcomes. We’re shown the torn apart corpse of an alligator early on, but most of the human kills see them attacked and dragged underwater, leaving nothing but a blood spill behind. Similarly, while the ending encounter satisfies, it still feels like it should have been a bigger confrontation. Neither of these aspects really hurt the film, but a bolstering of the gore and ending antics would have definitely upped the film’s ultimate entertainment value and rewatchability.
When all is said and done, Hungry is a genuinely solid animal attack film that succeeds in making its creature threat thrilling, entertaining, and, dare I say, educational? Title notwithstanding, the film acknowledges that hippos are vegetarians, meaning the five hundred or so people they kill every year – a true fact! – are slaughtered not out of hunger, but out of spite, self-defense, or a desire to play “land orca” while tossing around us fragile humans like we’re little more than seals in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Characters are grounded and engaging, the film moves well between suspense, character beats, and action, and the effects used to bring the hippo to life are highly effective and never feel like distractions. Drop those expectations of a Hungry Hungry Hippo romp, and settle in for a terrific little survival thriller about an angry, angry hippo instead.
Chomp chomp.
Hungry releases in select theaters today, June 3, before arriving on VOD on June 23, 2026.
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