Hunt: Showdown 1896 News

Hunters,

We are pleased to share that a feature mentioned in our roadmap, which has been long requested by the community, is about to enter its testing phase: more Hunters per Mission!

As many of you have noted on social media and in our surveys, Hunt has great combat moments. Adding more players to the lobby means you'll be able to experience more combat opportunities per Mission!

The team has been working hard on this change, and we have now reached the final stages of development. The best part? We want to test it together with you on live servers to better understand how it impacts gameplay flow, win rates, and the in-game economy. This will help us make final decisions and fine-tune overall game balance.

What is happening?

Starting February 4th, we will run a test featuring Missions with up to 15 players. During this period, you may encounter Missions with 12 to 15 players, as we will be experimenting with different player constellations to gather data across multiple scenarios.

This means you will not always experience 15-player Missions, and we may temporarily revert to a 12-player cap between tests. You can always find out how many players you had in your Mission on the Team Details screen.

Which game modes are affected?

The increased player count will apply to Bounty Hunt and Soul Survivor.

There will be no changes to Bounty Clash during this test.

And when does it end?

The plan is to finish the test on Wednesday, February 11th.

As always, your feedback will be essential. We will be closely monitoring both gameplay data and your experience throughout the test. Once testing concludes, we will share a survey to learn how this change felt and whether it is something we should consider keeping permanently or refining further.

We are incredibly excited to roll out this test and cannot wait for you to jump into this new Hunt experience.

Thanks, and happy hunting!

Hunters,

Update 2.6.0.2 is now live! The patch notes can be found below.

Happy hunting!

• Changed some of the Challenges of the “On the Winds of Midwinter” Story Challenge so that they can now be completed even after Post Malone’s Murder Circus Encore.
  
  • Chapter 1 – Changed “Hit a High Striker” to “Collect Clues or Hit High Strikers”.
    
  • Chapter 2 – Changed “Destroy Balloons” to “Destroy Balloons or Kill Monsters”.
    
  • Chapter 3 – Changed “Kill Circus Grunts” to “Kill Armoreds or Circus Grunts”.
    
  • Chapter 3 – Changed “Acquire Traits of any Troupe” to “Acquire Traits in Missions” and decreased goal requirement from 15 to 10.
    

• Fixed a texture memory allocation issue on PS5 and PS5 Pro that could cause memory leaks and crashes
  
• Resolved several rare, hard-to-reproduce crashes and freezes
  
• Fixed an issue in the Basic Tutorial where progression could be blocked if the player collected the first Clue before the “Locate and investigate the Clue” objective appeared
  
• Fixed an issue where Centennial Trauma did not progress the melee damage challenge in the "On the Winds of Winter” Story Challenge
  
• Fixed an issue where, when using the Gunslinger control scheme with the Lowering State option enabled, the weapon did not return to the lowering state after aiming down sights. The option now correctly affects this behavior
  
• Fixed an issue where the Flame Rifle displayed a visible, duplicated mesh in a specific area
  
• Fixed an issue where Ewe’s Horn (Charm) was missing textures
  
• Fixed an issue where, when using Celestial Scream (Drilling) and all its variants, swapping between shotgun and medium ammo firing modes did not update the iron sight position
  
• Fixed an issue where the iron sights of The Elephant’s Promise: Silencer (Frontier 73C) were using a larger version instead of the new, smaller one
  
• Fixed an issue where multiple requirements in Story Challenges were cut off in Italian and Turkish
  
• Fixed an issue where Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Dark Dynamite Satchel) did not detonate from nearby explosions (e.g. explosive ammo, dynamite, or other Dark Dynamite Satchels).
  
• Fixed incorrect unlock condition text for the Expert Marksman, Expert Deadeye, and Expert Sniper titles in Player Profile customization
  
• Fixed an issue where players could see enemy loadouts on the “View Team Loadouts” screen while loading into a Mission under specific conditions
  
• Fixed an issue where The Strongman’s mustache appeared overly glossy
  
• Fixed an issue where the unlock requirements for Tennessee Morgan (Bloodline Progression Hunter) were missing. This affected all three tiers and was present across all languages
  

The Live Servers will be taken offline tomorrow, 21 Jan, at 09:00 CET to deploy Update 2.6.0.2. This update will introduce promised changes to the Story Challenge "Winds of Midwinter" completion conditions as well as bring a number of fixes with it. The list of fixes can be found below.

Est. Downtime ~3 hours.

We will inform you when the servers are up again. Thanks for your patience!

• Changed some of the Challenges of the “On the Winds of Midwinter” Story Challenge so that they can now be completed even after Post Malone’s Murder Circus Encore.
  
  • Chapter 1 – Changed “Hit a High Striker” to “Collect Clues or Hit High Strikers”.
    
  • Chapter 2 – Changed “Destroy Balloons” to “Destroy Balloons or Kill Monsters”.
    
  • Chapter 3 – Changed “Kill Circus Grunts” to “Kill Armoreds or Circus Grunts”.
    
  • Chapter 3 – Changed “Acquire Traits of any Troupe” to “Acquire Traits in Missions” and decreased goal requirement from 15 to 10.
    

• Fixed a texture memory allocation issue on PS5 and PS5 Pro that could cause memory leaks and crashes
  
• Resolved several rare, hard-to-reproduce crashes and freezes
  
• Fixed an issue in the Basic Tutorial where progression could be blocked if the player collected the first Clue before the “Locate and investigate the Clue” objective appeared
  
• Fixed an issue where Centennial Trauma did not progress the melee damage challenge in the "On the Winds of Winter” Story Challenge
  
• Fixed an issue where, when using the Gunslinger control scheme with the Lowering State option enabled, the weapon did not return to the lowering state after aiming down sights. The option now correctly affects this behavior
  
• Fixed an issue where the Flame Rifle displayed a visible, duplicated mesh in a specific area
  
• Fixed an issue where Ewe’s Horn (Charm) was missing textures
  
• Fixed an issue where, when using Celestial Scream (Drilling) and all its variants, swapping between shotgun and medium ammo firing modes did not update the iron sight position
  
• Fixed an issue where the iron sights of The Elephant’s Promise: Silencer (Frontier 73C) were using a larger version instead of the new, smaller one
  
• Fixed an issue where multiple requirements in Story Challenges were cut off in Italian and Turkish
  
• Fixed an issue where Self-Fulfilling Prophecy (Dark Dynamite Satchel) did not detonate from nearby explosions (e.g. explosive ammo, dynamite, or other Dark Dynamite Satchels). This behavior now correctly applies to this Skin only and not to Evil Eye (Dark Dynamite Satchel) or nearby fire sources (Fire Bombs, lanterns, Flare Guns, etc.)
  
• Fixed incorrect unlock condition text for the Expert Marksman, Expert Deadeye, and Expert Sniper titles in Player Profile customization
  
• Fixed an issue where players could see enemy loadouts on the “View Team Loadouts” screen while loading into a Mission under specific conditions
  
• Fixed an issue where The Strongman’s mustache appeared overly glossy
  
• Fixed an issue where the unlock requirements for Tennessee Morgan (Bloodline Progression Hunter) were missing. This affected all three tiers and was present across all languages
  

We are live! 🔥

Join our Developers on Twitch and YouTube for a full showcase of our mid-event update Ignite the Blight including our brand new Flame Rifle in action, Bileweaver map changes and more.

See you in chat.

Watch here on Steam and also on:

Twitch - https://www.twitch.tv/crytek
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKMuArzPFd4

[h2]Bileweavers Return [/h2]

Bileweavers have returned and overrun the bayou, infesting a number of locations! Fight back against the infestation with the latest addition to the arsenal: the Flame Rifle.

[h3]Bileweaver Compounds [/h3]

• Infested compounds feature new webbed structures built by the Bileweavers, opening up new routes, creating new cover, and adding more loot to existing compounds.
  
• Bileweavers can now move through shallow waters.
  
• The following compounds have been overrun:
  
  • Stillwater Bayou
    
    • Davant Ranch
      
    • Darrow Livestock
      
    • Lockbay Docks
      
    • Alice Farm
      
    • Healing-Waters Church
  • Lawson Delta
    
    • Maw Battery
      
    • Sweetbell Flour
      
    • Arden Parish
      
    • Lawson Station
      
    • Fort Carmick
  • DeSalle
    
    • Forked River Fishery
      
    • Ash Creek Lumber
      
    • Seven Sisters Estate
      
    • Weeping Stone Mill
      
    • First Testimonial Church
  • Mammon’s Gulch
    
    • Monteros Malt
      
    • Deadfall Timber
      
    • Oro Gordo Mine
      
    • Kingfisher Foundry
  Note: Compounds are overrun in both Bounty Hunt and Bounty Clash.
• Overrun compounds loot includes:
  
  • Cocooned Hunter corpses
    
  • Traits
    
  • Tarot Cards
    

[h2]New Scarce Weapon: Flame Rifle [/h2]

• The Flame Rifle is the newest addition to the list of Scarce Weapons, now available at the Circus. It’s a custom-made, medium slot rifle conversion that releases pressurized liquid which ignites upon ejection, producing a steady burst of flames. It can only be found at the Circus.
  
• Pressure and Oil: Shooting a barrage of flames will reduce the pressure built up as well as use the oil stored in the attached tank. Pressure directly affects how far the flames will jet from the weapon—the lower the pressure, the shorter the reach. Pressure is lost slowly while idling, so it’s important to keep an eye on the gauge!
  
• While firing, pressure drains quickly. Once depleted, it must be pumped up before it can fire again. Once the oil runs dry, it can only be resupplied from the yellow oil barrels found around the world.
  
• Propagation: Flames that hit walls or floors will propagate and produce patches of flaming oil that stick around for a short duration, allowing for some interesting uses while attacking and defending. Flames that hit smaller targets—like Hunters and Grunts, for example—will engulf them and continue past, allowing for multiple enemies to be hit by a single barrage.