Hunt: Showdown Adds New Zombie Enemy Designed to Annoy Campers – “Love This!”

With the 1.8.1 update comes a lot of new content in the horror shooter Hunt: Showdown. Including new types of zombies (grunts), which, among other things, should heat up the campers. We at MeinMMO summarize.

What is this update? Last week, the developers of Hunt: Showdown presented the upcoming update 1.8.1 in a developer live stream. It follows the rather critically viewed update 1.8.0 and should be released in the coming weeks.

In addition to extensive bug fixes, new legendary hunters and weapon skins, you can expect completely new gameplay content. These include minor revisions to various maps as well as two new types of zombie NPC opponents, also known as grunts.

The highlights of the upcoming patch:

• Changes to the monetization system – Here Crytek would like to be able to rely more on the sales of the game than on DLCs. Changes are necessary for this. What exactly they will look like is not yet known.
• A completely new quest system – There should be more different daily and weekly tasks. You can then collect points throughout the week by completing daily quests, which are then rewarded. The system should also be further expanded after update 1.8.1.
• 2 new types of Grunts coming to the game with the update. Also, some of the Grunts that are already in the game are changing.
• Some balance changes, including brass knuckles weapons – These now deal as much damage as the brass knuckles themselves.

New grunt shoots back, annoying campers

The Pistol Grunt: One of the two new zombie variations carries a firearm for the first time and is primarily intended to increase the general speed of the game. The zombies equipped with guns are supposed to spawn on all maps and even carry different weapons.

However, a zombie brain is not able to actually shoot with it. The Grunts use the guns in close combat. If one of them hits you with it, a shot is fired from the weapon, which can be heard from a distance.

With this, the new pistol grunt serves as a sound trap, similar to the ravens and snapping branches that already exist. It’s just louder and more confusing, since you can’t tell from the sound alone whether a zombie or a player is shooting there.

Also, like everyone else now, the Grunt will drop his weapons if you kill him. However, if it fired a shot beforehand, it is broken and can no longer be picked up.

Why is he annoying campers? So it is important to kill the new Grunts before they can attack you if you want to be quiet. But since you can’t always move quietly and quickly, the pistol grunts will significantly speed up the general gameplay and especially annoy campers.

For them it is not only more difficult to move silently. Estimating whether two teams are fighting or a pistol grunt is at work is also becoming more difficult. This generally makes you feel less secure in Hunt’s maps and pushes you to keep moving.

The Lantern Grunt: The second undead fellow that is new to the game carries a lantern around with him. This is coincidentally either already ignited or extinguished. If the zombie then attacks you, the lamp he is carrying will break.

• Once it’s lit, he sets you on fire with the first hit
• When it goes out, the lamp shatters and leaves a puddle of oil on the ground

These puddles of oil can then be set on fire with any source of fire as well, and will then burn for significantly longer than normal fire would. If you kill the Grunt before he attacks you, he will also drop his lantern and you can use it like any other lamp you find in the game world.

Players are still skeptical after the frustration of the last update

How is the community reacting? Basically, the announced changes are well received by the fans of the shooter, but the mood is currently rather subdued. This was due to various wrong decisions in the past, including with update 1.8.0 and the Traitor’s Moon event.

Developer Crytek explained in a live stream and apologized for the latest updates. They said they want to learn from their mistakes. Many fans are still not entirely convinced of this. Some say you need to address fundamental issues before tackling new content.

There is currently a bug in the game that lets you look through walls and shoot. Furthermore, server problems are the order of the day and just last week some players reported in a thread that they had apparently been banned for no reason (via reddit).

In general, however, the community hopes that the developers will keep their word, get the errors under control and that the new update will be a success again. Because the announced changes are generally very well received by the fans.

What are the players saying? in one Thread on reddit discussing the new updatethe comments are quite positive:

• TheRoot_ writes, “Having ammo boxes making a sound is really interesting.”
• fcvino writes: “I’m a big fan of the pistol grunt. It will definitely make players feel more anxious and move more. I love that!”
• Canadiancookie also agrees: “These sound traps only make the game worse if you keep stopping in the same place. Namely where they went up. The changes are great.”
• Ontyyy takes it with more humor: “More ways to get destroyed by the NPCs. I love it haha.”

What do you think of the changes? Are you currently actively playing Hunt: Showdown and have you been following the latest updates? Or are you not that active at the moment and are you taking update 1.8.1 as a reason to take another look at the shooter?

MeinMMO author Mark Sellner would endorse this, saying, “I played Hunt: Showdown for over 700 hours in 2021, so you should too.”