Hunt Showdown: Beginners Guide

Hunt: Showdown is a permadeath FPS with account progression.  If you love older guns with a risk reward gameplay you'll probably love Hunt: Showdown. It has a PvE world, but the main focus is on the PvP. You will need to find 3 clues on the map and then move towards the final boss. The only issue is the other plays have the same goal as you.

The main focus is to get 3 separate clues, and head for the boss. The main issue is the other hunters who are also gunning for that boss, and the sweet sweet exp from killing you. The second biggest issue is the PvE elements. The game has 3 main bosses at this time the Spider, Butcher, and assassin. The 3 bosses all have some of the same rules. For example none of the bosses will leave their buildings. You can run in and heavy melee them twice and run right back out.  Once you kill a boss you will need to banish it. Banish takes a few minutes, and during that time everyone on the map will know where you are by using their dark sight. Once the boss is banished a token will drop. Each boss can drop 2 tokens. You can only carry 1 token per boss. Getting the tokens and extracting is the objective of the game.

The spider is probably one of my favorite bosses. He will run around on the walls and ceilings as he chases you. The spider is weak to fire so you should try lanterns or fire nades.

The butcher is the boss you will face in the tutorial. He will burn you on hit, and he causes random fires. Fire will lower you health, and can't be restored right away. Fire will also burn your body. I find the butcher is easiest of the three bosses to kill with melee. Find a sludge hammer and just go to town on him. The thing to note is when he dies he will do one big swing which will one shot you.

I absolutely hate the assassin. I just find him to be the most annoying of the three. You have to run around and chase him forever. One well thrown big dynamite will kill him, and like all bosses a sticky nade will take him to 1/4 health. He has a lot of bleeding attacks and is weak to poison. His clones can be killed with a swipe of a knife.

As you can see from above there are a lot of different zombies in the game. Starting from the top left to right we will cover each zombie. It's important to know how to deal with each of these zombies. First is a normal zombie grunt. The come in different shapes and sizes, but most zombies you see are grunts. If they are holding knives or cleavers they will bleed you on hit. If they have the old doctor saw they will poison on hit. A strong melee attack will make quick work of these.

Next up is the Meathead. He is blind and cannot see you. His slugs around him however are very aware of where you are. If they hit you they will apply a poison to you, and then he can see you. He does a massive amount of damage, it's best to avoid these guys if possible.

Next is an armored zombie. Just heavy attack 3 times with a knife will kill this bad boy. Watch out for the ones covered in barbed wire. They will inflict bleed on you when you hit them!

The hellhounds will tear you to pieces if you're not paying attention. They will bleed you every hit, and they come in packs. Avoid these if you can!

The Hive is the bee zombie. She will ruin everything you're trying to do. The bees are annoying. They do constant damage and poison you. They can get them off you by using a melee attack 2 times. However, its best to just kill her to get them off you.

Immolators will explode on anything piercing  their skin. Use the stock of your gun to melee them, or bring knuckle dusters to make quick work of them. If you take them too deep water you can pierce their skin and they will not explode.

When you die in game you will lose your hunter. All traits and loot will be gone. The hunter is dead forever and you cannot bring them back. The only exception to this is for new players under level 11. If you are under level 11 use the same hunter as much as you can. If the hunter hits level 25 you can retire them for blood line exp. Blood line exp is persistent and is essentially your account level. Each hunter will have their own load out when you recruit them. The exception is legendary hunters who have no load out, but get 3 random perks. To get a new hunter all you have to do is click the recruit hunter button on the left. If you don't see the recruit hunter make sure you have enough slots unlocked!

Once you select recruit hunter you will be shown 4 hunters. They have semi full kits, and the higher the tier the more perks they have. The more stuff they have the more expensive they will be. Once your bloodline level is high enough you will see higher tier hunters. There will always be a free hunter. Every game you play win or lose will give you a free reshuffle. This way you will never be without a hunter.

Legendary hunters are unique skins you pay for with blood bonds. Once you unlock the legendary hunter you can come back here and pay with the normal currency to recruit them again when they die. You do not have to keep paying blood bonds!

Traits are gained by either finding them out in the world or by using trait points. You get trait points by leveling your hunter. Legendary hunters get 3 of these randomly. I highly recommend Determination and Gator Legs. I find these 2 to be super useful. Determination will cause your stamina to start regenerating quicker, and Gator Legs let you move quicker through water.

The store is where you will pick up your weapons/legendary weapons/tools/consumables as well. The legendary weapons work just like the legendary hunters. Unlock once with blood bonds and then you can use normal currency to get them again.

Blood bonds can be bought with real money. They allow you to unlock the legendary skins for weapons and hunters. If you don't want to buy them you can play the game normally and get a few here and there. The tutorial also gives you quite a few of these so make sure you completed all 3 tutorials!

Hopefully this helps get you started on the game. Don't forget if you have any questions feel free to reach out to me on twitter. I'll gladly try and answer any additional questions I can. Don't get discouraged if you have a rough start. The game takes a bit of getting use to.