this is the specific brand of hyper-alienating, misery-laden, no-easy-answers experience i enjoy in multiplayer games. its overwhelming willingness to flood the match with a thoroughly unpredictable set of unknown variables keeps things tense and frightening, and as you explore the dimensions of its mechanics you start to realize that there are a few more loose bricks in the wall than first appearances would suggest. there's a 12 player cap, but you never actually know how many are in there with you, and you certainly don't know their names. youre not even notified when you kill someone. in fact, it's entirely possible that matchmaking couldn't find 12 bodies to pair you up with, and in practical terms that means the fog of war is the norm. you might spawn into a match where almost everyone is on a team of three but you; conversely, there may be instances where it's you and an ally against 10 other solo queuers. you have a broad goal that's always explicitly spelled out to you, but within that framework there's enough faith in the players to figure out their own strategies. accumulating the most treasured resources needed to extract out of any given mission will, in simplest terms, require going through a boss battle, holding out in a dilipidated structure while everyone is alerted to your presence, and cleanly escaping, contract completed (although enemies will still be able to roughly approximate your position). so the fact is that at every stage, the game is merciless, but there's enough (surprising!) variability in the games set of verbs to offset that fact. after all, no one said you were beholden to the guidelines, and whether or not you want to skip a couple of sequential steps is left to your jurisdiction. govern yourself accordingly. maybe i'll wait to start banishment rituals when another team starts the second banishment ritual on the map, thus forcing opponents on the map to scatter haphazardly and spread antagonistic forces thin. maybe i'll camp out by extraction points and wait to see who arrives to make their getaway, plucking the bounty away from them when their escape seems all but guaranteed. maybe i dont even want to collect contracts! maybe i decided if i want to keep my hunter around (since permadeath exists that will reset all progression upon death, which includes weapons and perks), all i've gotta do is stay calm and composed enough to kill anyone in my way. maybe i'll just intercept hot zones and pick off stragglers for some easy xp gain and then depart, leaving the rogues none the wiser. the possibilities go on into the infinite.
of course, as with most games of its caliber, the experience on offer is both alone in execution and fundamentally disjointed. this level of meticulous attention paid towards audio design ensures a shrewd and cunning approach is required at all times - after all, an errant snap of a twig under the weight of your boots may signal your location to wary onlookers - but the teamwork required to succeed with friends usually necessitates a third-party voice chat application, which then typically renders some of that audio design a bit inert. that said, it's not as though there isn't fun to be had with the right partner - the sound of a murder of crows dispersing seemingly unprompted within my vicinity, for instance, was usually enough to bring a sharp end to whatever conversation i was having, forcing my friend and i to agonizingly scrutinize the ambience for half a minute of silence, waiting for any footsteps or gunshots to pierce the veil. and this applies to any number of sounds in the bayou - the rattle of chains, the onslaught of PVE enemies, the roiling of a stagnant lake, the cacophony of gunfire in the distance. still, your senses are capable of failing you, as even dead silence can be a real killer - who knows how my quarry felt when i plugged a thin rusted bullet through his skull, with a reticle trained on him some 50m away through the slits of barn boards? and there's something to be said for the kind of player that will fully immerse themselves here by using the voice chat function to essentially larp. hunt has some of the strongest binaural audio in games, and at one point i was pinned down by a team of three in a desolate former prison, all the while my stalkers taunted me with southern drawl from afar while they tried to triangulate my position (i was kinda shitting my pants). and then at another point after dealing with an intense firefight between four posses, my friend and i, who assumed the coast had been made forcibly clear, set to work on the banishment ritual, only to be interrupted by someone with no weapons who claimed to just want mercy and to be granted passage. more than a little hopped up on adrenaline and unfortunately quite trigger happy, we both screamed and immediately shot his jaw clean off mid-monologue. those are the kinds of little things that can happen in hunt. the schema's pretty widely accommodating and always engaging. being able to outplay and outgun people in a shooter this tense has always appealed to my sensibilities; im never going to claim that its any more or less cerebral than the best early aughts deathmatches per se but it offers a kind of thrill thats impossible to experience anywhere else. for my money? throw me right back into that bayou, dead man walking, ive got something needs proving
of course, as with most games of its caliber, the experience on offer is both alone in execution and fundamentally disjointed. this level of meticulous attention paid towards audio design ensures a shrewd and cunning approach is required at all times - after all, an errant snap of a twig under the weight of your boots may signal your location to wary onlookers - but the teamwork required to succeed with friends usually necessitates a third-party voice chat application, which then typically renders some of that audio design a bit inert. that said, it's not as though there isn't fun to be had with the right partner - the sound of a murder of crows dispersing seemingly unprompted within my vicinity, for instance, was usually enough to bring a sharp end to whatever conversation i was having, forcing my friend and i to agonizingly scrutinize the ambience for half a minute of silence, waiting for any footsteps or gunshots to pierce the veil. and this applies to any number of sounds in the bayou - the rattle of chains, the onslaught of PVE enemies, the roiling of a stagnant lake, the cacophony of gunfire in the distance. still, your senses are capable of failing you, as even dead silence can be a real killer - who knows how my quarry felt when i plugged a thin rusted bullet through his skull, with a reticle trained on him some 50m away through the slits of barn boards? and there's something to be said for the kind of player that will fully immerse themselves here by using the voice chat function to essentially larp. hunt has some of the strongest binaural audio in games, and at one point i was pinned down by a team of three in a desolate former prison, all the while my stalkers taunted me with southern drawl from afar while they tried to triangulate my position (i was kinda shitting my pants). and then at another point after dealing with an intense firefight between four posses, my friend and i, who assumed the coast had been made forcibly clear, set to work on the banishment ritual, only to be interrupted by someone with no weapons who claimed to just want mercy and to be granted passage. more than a little hopped up on adrenaline and unfortunately quite trigger happy, we both screamed and immediately shot his jaw clean off mid-monologue. those are the kinds of little things that can happen in hunt. the schema's pretty widely accommodating and always engaging. being able to outplay and outgun people in a shooter this tense has always appealed to my sensibilities; im never going to claim that its any more or less cerebral than the best early aughts deathmatches per se but it offers a kind of thrill thats impossible to experience anywhere else. for my money? throw me right back into that bayou, dead man walking, ive got something needs proving