Hunt demons with us as we live-stream the ‘Hunt: Showdown’ closed alpha

By Phil Hornshaw January 30, 2018

Hunt: Showdown, developer Crytek’s new multiplayer team-based demon-hunting PC shooter, is about to kick off a closed alpha. The Digital Trends gaming crew is getting an early look at the game, so we’re showing off our gunslinging skills on a live-stream to share it with you.

You can follow along with Hanif Jackson and Phil Hornshaw as we delve into dark swamps, armed with six-shooters, Winchesters, and our wits. We’re teaming up to stalk hellspawn and take out any other teams that get in our way.

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Crytek is best known for its first-person shooter franchise Crysis, but Hunt is pretty different from the developer’s previous titles. It’s an online multiplayer shooter that could be described as a bit of a combination of Evolve and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Set in Louisiana in 1895, it imagines a world where demons are breaking out of hell and invading the bayou. It’s your job to send them back — and collect a bounty.

Part of Hunt: Showdown is the “hunt” part, in which you and a partner track a boss creature through the map, gathering clues to pin down its location. Once you kill it, you have to “banish” it to collect the bounty, which takes time. Trouble is, you and your partner are not the only team out hunting the creature, and you need to hold off the attacks of other duos who want to steal your claim and snag your cash. On the flip side, if another team takes down the boss, you’re going to want to do everything you can to relieve them of their winnings. Even once you have the bounty, you have to escape the bayou alive to keep it. We first saw Hunt: Showdown at E3 2017, and while we didn’t get to play it then, we were impressed by what we saw.

The official start date for Hunt: Showdown‘s closed alpha test is Wednesday, January 31, and invitations for the test are going out to a random selection of players who sign up on the game’s website, huntshowdown.com. Crytek said on its Hunt blog that invites are going out in multiple waves, so if you’re hoping to check out the game yourself, signing up now might give you a chance.

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On June 11 at 5 p.m. (ET) -- a day earlier than its usual press conference -- Microsoft will host the Xbox E3 briefing. It will be viewable on several difference services, including the company's YouTube channel, Twitch, Facebook, Twitter, as well as on Xbox.com and through the Xbox One console. It will also be available on the Beam streaming service, which should include interactivity not found through the other options. You can also watch it right here on Digital Trends!
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Unlike Sony and Nintendo, Microsoft is likely to focus much of its time on hardware during its E3 2017 briefing. Project Scorpio's technical specifications were revealed through Eurogamer already, but the final design of the console -- as well as its name and a look at games running on the platform -- have still not been revealed. Given the console's massive increase in power, we would not be surprised if Microsoft also announced a partnership with Oculus to bring select Rift games to Scorpio at launch.

Rare's Sea of Thieves, a multiplayer pirate adventure that has made good first impressions in preview events, is a sure thing for the show. The game looks to be a return to the creativity and whimsy that Rare was known for in the 1990s, and its colorful visual style separates it from the browns and grays found in other first-party Xbox One games.

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3 years later, ‘Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age’ resurfaces as ‘Hunt: Showdown’

hunt showdown teaser

It's not unheard of for an in-development game to go missing for long stretches of time, but it's not typically a good sign. This was the case for Hunt: Horrors of the Gilded Age, a cooperative third-person shooter from Crytek. Originally announced in June 2014, you'd be forgiven if now, three years later, you have forgotten about it. Well, against the odds, Horrors of the Gilded Age has resurfaced as Hunt: Showdown.

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