With its new upcoming game Hunt: Showdown, developer Crytek is aiming to present players with a different sort of online shooter experience, one which marries concepts of both PvE (player vs. environment) and PvP (player vs. player) into a single cohesive experience. However, when it comes to the white-hot battle royale trend, Crytek was adamant that it has no current plans to bring battle royale to Hunt: Showdown, though it isn’t shutting the battle royale door entirely either.
Speaking in a recent interview with Gamespot, Crytek product manager Angela de Castro said that, for the time being, the studio wants to focus on the default play mode for Hunt: Showdown, a mode which involves teams of players hunting supernatural monsters on an open map while also directly competing with other player teams. However, similar to Take Two’s stance regarding Red Dead Redemption 2 and Rare’s thoughts on Sea of Thieves, de Castro was also careful to inject a little “never say never” mentality as well:
“Right now we’re focused on making Hunt as we have it. But we know this is a flexible game. Because we’re in early access, this is really good for us; we can fine-tune it to what the community wants. If we were to make a battle royale mode or if we were to explore different kinds of modes for the game, we would also try to make it unique. We would also try to make it fit the mood and the spirit of Hunt.”
Hunt: Showdown’s level design director Chris Auty, who was also part of the Gamespot interview, echoed de Castro’s sentiments, saying that there are no current plans for a battle royale mode, and if such a mode were to ever be considered, it wouldn’t be a simple rehash of what previous battle royale games have already done:
“Hunt is a pretty unique game as it is. It sounds a bit arrogant to say that about your own game, but we have had feedback from people saying, ‘There’s not much else like this at the moment.’ And we’re quite proud of that fact. If we were to introduce a [battle royale] mode, it would have to be our take on it. We wouldn’t want to do a cookie cutter, same as everyone else. It would be detrimental to our playerbase.”
Hunt: Showdown is currently available as a Steam Early Access title for $29.99.