When Crytek announced that they would be running a multi-phase closed beta for their upcoming horror shooter Hunt: Showdown, it got my heart pumping just a bit faster. A permadeath, team-based hunting game where you contend with beasts from hell and, even worse, other players vying for blood? Sign me up. Crytek has now announced that you won’t need to wait long if you are one of the lucky few selected for the alpha: the first wave of invites will go out on January 31.
Players can still sign up on the game’s site here.
The closed alpha will be used to test gameplay, balance, and game functionality, and Crytek will be collecting feedback from the Hunt: Showdown community about how to improve the game. Throughout the alpha period, Crytek will continue to test and release a wide variety of content, including new weapons, equipment, traits, and ranks.
Hunt: Showdown is a competitive multiplayer bounty hunting game set in a dangerous sandbox environment. Players can work solo or in teams of two to hunt down a bounty off of a dangerous monster, or you can just let another player do the dirty work so you can kill them and steal the bounty off their corpse. It looks beautiful, it looks intense, and it looks like a white-knuckle different take on a competitive multiplayer shooter.
The closed alpha will begin on January 31, but few other details are available on Hunt: Showdown. It is unknown how many people will participate in the beta, how long it will stay open, but a major release like this will need quite a bit of live testing if it wants to make an impact in a crowded genre. No release date for the full product has been announced, either; the Steam page just says “Coming Soon.” We will keep you updated on Hunt: Showdown as more details become available.
