Hunt: Showdown 1896 – the huge new update that necessitated an engine upgrade and introduced all new UI – has just hit an all-new concurrent player peak of over 60,000.
Up until the 1896 update dropped on 15th August, the extraction shooter’s simultaneous player record – set back in October 2023 – sat at a modest 42,000ish players.
The new update, however, has ushered in a rush of new and returning players, upping its concurrent peak to 60,124 players
You’d think this would be good news for the player base, but that aforementioned UI update has actually seen the game’s hitherto “mostly positive” Steam review score tumble to “mostly negative”.
“Hunt 1896 is an unbearable garbage. All the bugs in game make in-game experience completely unsatisfying,” said one unhappy player who has clocked up over 500 playing it.
“Also the new UI… whoever made it should be deprived from ever developing video games. I’ve played 500+ hours and enjoyed this game, but after such a spit into players’ faces, Crytek deserves only bad reviews.”
“Y’all chill out about the UI,” suggested one less aggravated player. “New players are coming to the game [right now], and the first thing they’re seeing is ‘Mostly Negative’ reviews. The dev’s gon’ fix it.”
“The bad steam reviews are coming from people who don’t realise the UI was always a slog since 2019,” added another.
Hunt: Showdown 1896 popped up on the ESRB website last month, although, at the time, we weren’t sure if this was a full sequel or the eagerly-anticipated update big enough to necessitate a new rating. Turns out it was the latter.
Hunt: Showdown got its full launch back in 2021 after a few years in early access. Eurogamer contributor Edwin Evans-Thirlwell liked it a lot on release, calling it a “stealth survival game like few others” in his review.