By combining elements of co-op and competitive play with a 19th century supernatural horror aesthetic, Hunt: Showdown has just rocketed to the top of my 'list of things I seriously need to keep an eye on'. Haven't heard of the game before? Neither had I. Watch the dev diary and learn some of the design inspirations behind it:
Hunt started as a third-person game similar to Left 4 Dead, completely co-op in nature. After a studio reshuffling, the project was reimagined as... I honestly don't even know what to call it. It's not completely co-op PvE, though you can team up with friends to take down boss monsters, and it's not entirely competitive, though you are racing against other hunters and can take them out if you so choose. Competitive first-person monster hunting, I guess?
There are parallels you can draw to Player Unknown's Battlegrounds with the 'you've been dropped into an open map, other people probably want to kill you, okay have fun' design, and I even get a bit of The Division vibe thanks to the banishment phase where you have to defend your 'resources' (in this case a giant spider) as it's extracted from the map.
There's no release window, but Hunt will be coming to PC, PS4, and Xbox One. In any case, teamwork-oriented monster hunting in the Victorian era? Sign me the hell up.
