Recent reviews by V ⊕º I D

One of my all-time favorite experiences. I still remember fondly seeing footage of this game for the first time back in 2011, and waiting until its March 2012 release date to buy it day-one on PSN, because I just couldn't stop thinking about it.

After revisiting it recently, I can safely say it is a timeless mood-piece, one that will keep enchanting and provoking deep thoughts about life, discovery, fear and purpose to anyone that is lucky enough to stumble upon it.

It also helps that the game will never stop looking gorgeous and sounding amazing, due to its stylized aesthetic which brought Matt Nava to my attention, and a brilliant award-winning soundtrack by Austin Wintory.

Once you're done with this one, I highly recommend playing Abzû, The Pathless and eventually Sword of the Sea (once it releases) by Giant Squid - which Nava formed after he left thatgamecompany.

A stunning journey up a mountain that left me wanting more.

This game oozes charm, with its painterly textures, soft melodies and evocative writing. The gameplay feels great, but it ended sooner than I was expecting, so I really wish we had at least 3 or 4 more chapters before the credits rolled in.

My biggest hope is that we get a sequel someday, because there's plenty of room to expand these mechanics, and make the game more complex and challenging. Puzzles would also be a great addition to this, since the game already plays well with verticality and a massive sense of scale - so more gameplay variety would only help make it more dynamic.

In conclusion, a spectacular experience, that you should get on a sale so you won't feel disappointed once you quickly reach the finish line.

The surprise of the year for me, which feels immediately engaging with its blend of tactics and action.

The fact they created real-life dioramas of the levels gives the game such a unique feel. The soundtrack and audio design evoke that classic Japanese sound, and remind me of playing Okami on my PS3 many years ago.

I really hope this game sells well, so Capcom has more reasons to fund interesting smaller projects, such as this one. Hopefully it'll get a sequel. The game has an excellent foundation to build upon, both in terms of its combat and strategic elements.

I highly recommend it to anyone that enjoys hack and slashes and real time tactical games.

I purchased this on discount and it's given me more content than I even asked for.

Devs keep adding new systems as well as revamping entire systems already in the game, while adding a stream of quality-of-life improvements and new content in a short amount of time.

If you enjoy Bullet Heavens, you will love this game. Well worth it!

* Hint: Turn the spell opacity down to about 20-30% visibility, you can thank me later ;)

BOMB RUSH CYBERFUNK
Return of the Funky Uncle

A promising first release by Wolfeye Studios, spearheaded by the veteran Raphaël Colantonio and other former Arkane Studios' developers. If you enjoyed titles such as Dishonored and Prey (2017) - which he was a creative director on, this might be a great game for you.

[TL/DR] 🏃

Weird West is a really fun game, although its isometric perspective doesn't allow for the most intuitive of shooting experiences - at first, it compensates this with a lot of player freedom and memorability due to its very chaotic nature. The soundtrack is often gloomy but also quite beat-heavy, which builds up tension when combat begins and you're frantically trying to find any explosive items in your proximity to blow up your enemies with. As a whole the game looks gorgeous, and can leave some truly unique lasting memories through its quests and world-building. It's a worthy title for immersive sim fans, but one that could use more content and balancing to be truly perfect.

[VISUALS] 🔮

The cell-shaded look fits the overall vibe of the game very well, its effects and lighting creating really gorgeous scenarios for you to fight in, but when you zoom in closer you'll notice models on human characters aren't exactly the most detailed, but since for the majority of your playtime you'll be spent zooming your camera out as far back as you can, this won't be much of an issue. Overall, an interesting take on the western genre.

[AUDIO] 🎼

The soundtrack was composed by Matt Piersall and goes from slow distant guitar tones that make you wish you were a cowboy, to frantic techno beats that demand your attention during combat. Its a wonderful little collection of tracks that had me hooked the entire time, it shows the composers' love for psychedelic music and I hope they expand on it in coming updates.

[GAMEPLAY] 🐷🔪🤠

One of the major reasons this game is so much fun to play is the chaotic nature of its combat. You're sneaking around one minute, attempting to choke out several guards until one of them spots you and in a moment's notice you switch from your bow and arrow to your revolver, start aiming at lanterns, explosive barrels and blowing up everything careless enough to get within 20 meters of you. Those that survive the initial flourish of bullets get sent off to hell with a blast from your shotgun and the occasional stick of dynamite, it's fast, it's messy but it's so enjoyable.

The other side of its fun factor comes from simply exploring the world's numerous locations, finding new characters to talk to, taking on side quests, finding better loot and utilizing your character's specific abilities. Each main character, of which there are 5, can get up to 4 unique abilities which are specific to their journey.

The most unique aspect of the game, is that not only do you follow the stories of 5 different characters from often conflicting backgrounds, but also the fact that after you've moved on to the next one, you can return to your previous characters' locations and recruit them to your posse. Although you are basically starting out a new journey with an unleveled character each time, since you can recruit the leveled ones for your group, you're always making progress. This also means any abilities you unlock during your time with them will be used by your posse members during combat, making for even more fun, chaotic and memorable moments.

Another interesting aspect of this system is the fact you can immediately access your posse member's inventory once you recruit them, making it so you can take any loot they're currently holding, which means that any items that your previous characters had on them once their journey ended, can be obtained after you start the following journey, effectively retaining a linear progression despite the 5 separate storylines.

The game includes Revolvers, Shotguns, Rifles, Bows and Melee weapons to play around with, each of them complemented well by their weapon abilities, tying their progression to each character. There is also another skill tree this time shared between all 5 characters, but this one only provides stat bonuses RPG-style, they don't do much to improve gameplay besides functioning as quality of life improvements.

Speaking of the aforementioned memorable moments, I'll never forget burying several posse members that died along the way, and since the game remembers where graves are made, I actually returned to these locations to pay my respects - a detail which I loved. I'll never forget burying several enemies as well, their graves in towns where I got ambushed as part of a silly vendetta brought on me by delivering a bounty target alive (for a cash bonus) to the nearest prison cell, which then led to them fleeing prison and attacking me by surprise. I'll never forget getting caught in a fire tornado because I got surrounded by fire after I threw some molotov cocktails at some oil barrels, and my native american friend deciding it was the best moment to use his tornado ability (which picks up any status effects from the environment as a buff) and caught me in it.

Iconic moments such as these happen due to the systemic nature of the game which makes it really engaging, such as kicking anything in the game which causes objects like barrels containing liquids to pour them unto the battlefield which you can use to your advantage. This works to both create a hazard or to stop one - such as pouring a barrel of water unto fire to put it out or throwing a lantern at tall grass to start one instead. You can also kick people from higher ground for an instant kill, you can grab items to create temporary platforms to reach higher places which will often hide special loot out of view for you to find. You can find keys, important documents, special weapons and all kinds of resources if you look hard enough, so there's always a reason to keep exploring. You can go down a well with a rope to search its depths, you can also enter rooms through a chimney with a rope and you can rob any house at night when no one's looking - including stores and banks, you can also kill almost any NPC in the game even the quest givers and the game will find ways to keep the story going.

The world map is divided into dozens of small locations that you access through a fast travel system, and exploration is really rewarding for those who enjoy looking around every corner and inside every container. Much like their previous work back at Arkane, this game also lets players discover many secrets and interesting facts about the world, its inhabitants and its history through written documents you find across each location. These were often entertaining, short but sweet footnotes on an interesting if a bit shallow world compared to the past titles they've worked on.

[FINAL WORDS] 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

I enjoyed my time with all 5 characters' story-arcs, since there was a nice build-up until the finale and I was left curious how everything would wrap up so I'm very glad I wasn't disappointed. There are two endings, but they don't require a new playthrough to experience them both, so your replay value will rest on making different choices throughout multiple playthroughs, and if you're like me 100% completing the game, which was fun and allowed me to find out many details, secret rooms and optional paths I hadn't noticed my first time through.

Weird West is a game I had tremendous fun with, it's a testament to how talented these developers are so I'm glad I supported it day 1 based solely on past projects they've worked on. I was also extremely pleased in learning they've announced several content and balancing updates coming in the future, which was exactly what I felt was missing to truly complete the experience.

It's not a perfect game, but it's an amazing game for those looking for unique and immersive sims. I highly recommend it.

I feel this game is ideal for those looking for an arcade space shooter with some light exploration, puzzle and navigation mechanics added to the mix. Don't expect it to be perfect, but what is here is well done enough that it might even warrant a purchase at full price.

[TL/DR] 🏃

I enjoyed my time with Chorus, it's arcadey combat was fun and its presentation beautiful, so it managed to keep me going until the end, although its story elements felt all too familiar and provided very few surprises to make it memorable. It could also have done facial animations, progression and balancing much better, and those elements keep it from being a truly amazing experience. It's a game that manages to be uncanny and serviceable at its worse, and good even throwing a bit of greatness at you at its best, but never reaching the heights you expected it to, from the striking first impression it creates for itself.

[VISUALS] 🌌

I was impressed with the game's visuals the first time I played it, it felt indie but it looked a few leagues above the typical smaller title, and that feeling never went away throughout my time with the game. It looks smooth from the ship animations, to the visual effects and the levels all looking highly detailed and well textured.

Facial animations on the other hand look uncanny specially the closer they zoom in on Nara's face, which happened often throughout the game. This mainly occurs during cutscenes which are well utilized to further the plot and her character development, I just wish they had spent more time polishing the way her mouth moves in particular, which often looked very robotic and removed my focus from the story being told.

As a whole, a beautiful looking game with moments of awe created through its vistas, which are helped by some amazing skyboxes that greatly distinguish every level you travel to throughout the campaign. I took several screenshots with the simple yet effective in-game photomode, a very welcome feature within a AA title that I've certainly grown accustomed to from bigger AAA titles.

[AUDIO] 🎼

As soon as you reach the main menu for the first time, the game hits you like a brick with a very dramatic and tribal sounding track, that immediately made me think I was in for a wild ride. Thankfully the rest of the game sounds great as well, but never to the level of that main menu theme, which is a shame since more of that would have elevated the experience so much more.

It's also hard to focus on the soundtrack while in combat, because the game's sound effects, while great in their own right, are on the front of the audio landscape which leads to the combat tracks feeling like a background mood setter, and not a major part of the experience like in other games. I'd recommend toning the effects volume down a notch, so more of the soundtrack can be better appreciated.

It was composed by my compatriot Pedro Macedo Camacho, one of the best composers of Portuguese descent currently practicing. I highly recommend listening to his "Requiem Inês de Castro" concert, as it's freely available online.

[GAMEPLAY] ✈️

The game is played as an arcade third person shooter, and for the most part it's a pleasant experience. The main flaws I find with combat come from a feeling of heaviness to the ship itself, making it somewhat hard to brake and turn at the last minute during a dogfight. There is a mechanic for this, but you never feel you can brake fast enough when you're going full speed into an object, making it hard to avoid collisions during some of the more hectic fights.

There are 3 different types of weapons in the game, all very distinct and fun to play around with. This weapon system is complemented with a nice variety of enemy ship designs to fight, which have different movement and attack patterns. The game isn't hard for the most part, except for some key moments early in the campaign where I had to restart fights 10-15 times in order to succeed. Given most of the time the game feels approachable, even on Extreme difficulty which I played in, it felt as if some missions were simply unbalanced and requiring patching.

There are several weapons grades you unlock throughout the game, and although some felt like true improvements, others felt very lacking to the point of switching back to my previously unlocked ones after I tried them. A very light RPG style point system exists, which allows you to equip weapons and items that provide better stats for your build, but given the lack of variety and quality in several of the weapon variants, this system felt tacked on and in need of a serious overhaul.

The best part of the combat system are the Rites, which function as literal supernatural powers that Nara can utilize to both defeats her enemies, as well as to traverse the environment and solve simple puzzles. I enjoyed the fact they went for a less is more mindset with this system, and allowed each power to have different applications, although some of them are utilized more in the beginning of the campaign and quickly forgotten about, only making an appearance again in the final mission which was a bit disappointing.

Overall, a fun combat system which does some things well but lacks the finesse of a more experienced development team in terms of balancing and creativity.

[BOSS BATTLES] 💀

Boss encounters were a disappointment, because they all felt outright uninspired in their design, the best of which only reaching the quality level of merely serviceable. It's not a good sign, when mid-way through an important story event you'd gladly press a skip button to end it early, but that was my recurring feeling for the majority of them.

[FINAL WORDS] 🌟🌟🌟

If you'd like to 100% the game, keep in mind that several combat achievements have to be farmed during certain missions, so you can complete them before you finish everything in the game. If you play every side mission before you move unto a new area, you likely won't be able to finish every challenge before the game ends.

The game thankfully saves every little progress you make in the Mastery tab (which are combat and traversal challenges you can complete) even when you die during a checkpoint, so you can do several of them at key points in the story by either dying to enemies or crashing on purpose to reset the fight. This method only works because your progress will keep going up no matter how many times you restart those checkpoints. This is another aspect of the game that shows lack of polish, since you should easily be able to finish every challenge playing regularly without resorting to farming methods.

I finished the campaign, which had no new game + mode in its release build, and it also demands you return to a previous save file after you finish the final story missions. This was extremely disappointing, given the game has several side missions you can complete which are necessary if you want to see everything it has to offer, it makes no sense to demand the player finish such side activities before they move on with the main storyline. That choice should be left to the player, and considering the final missions don't even provide a visible impact on the world, it makes this poor design decision feel even more out of place, specially in 2021.

It took me about 29 hours to see everything and I believe I started feeling a bit burned out at the 20 hour mark. The game is fun, feels great and looks amazing but it has enough little flaws that start taking over your enjoyment and replace it with annoyance.

I'd recommend getting it on a sale, and if the developers spend some time fixing its several issues, then it might be worth its full asking price.

A perfect game for those who enjoy titles such as Journey, Abzû, Shadow of Colossus and The Last Guardian. A very enjoyable experience from start to finish, which never becomes too hard or too boring, since luckily no part of it overstays its welcome.

[TL/DR] 🏃

The Pathless provides a fluid movement system, interesting puzzle design and a gorgeous presentation, both visually and auditorily. The soundtrack is often very soothing, until the tension starts building up and both the imagery and sound accompany this build up beautifully. It's an incredibly solid and pleasant experience, even in it's short playtime, which is worthy of game of the year accolades.

[VISUALS] 🦅

Much like it's predecessor Abzû, this game was very well designed. I could see visual influences from eurasian nomads (mongolia, russia, etc) in character's clothing, themes of falconry and in its soundtrack, several egyptian influences when it came to stone carvings on walls and 2D representations of people and deities in decorative banners, as well as aztec influences in terms of statue design.

Given the immense amount of visual diversity present here, you'd think it would become a mess, but rather it combines to create a very strong and unique aesthetic which adding to its immense scale, made me want to explore every corner of its world.

Matthew Nava is an extremely talented artist and director, since this game is the fourth I've played with him at the helm of either Art Direction, Creative Direction or both, and all four of those games - Flower, Journey, Abzû and The Pathless, back my claim. I even own the book "The Art of Journey" (signed by him and Jenova Chen) which he wrote and designed about the creation of the game, and it's one of my most prized possessions. I highly recommend grabbing a copy of it, if you can find one.

[AUDIO] 🎼

As I stated previously, the game draws heavily on eurasian steppe's music for their signature sound, which originated in southern Siberia as well as western Mongolia, commonly known as throatsinging. The soundtrack was composed by the amazing Austin Wintory of Journey fame, who managed to secure two BAFTA awards in 2013 for his work on one of 2012's best titles.

It's a remarkable soundtrack, one that grabs hold of you and never lets go, one that manages to both intrigue and excite, one of the main pillars of the this game's appeal and more than enough reason to buy this game and support these incredible artists. It's so good, in fact, that you'll most likely be listening to it long after you finish the game, since its uniqueness is not easily replaced elsewhere. Another banger from Austin, and certainly the best soundtrack in 2020.

[GAMEPLAY] 🏹

The game is made up of two main types of gameplay, puzzle solving and exploration. Each of these is supplemented by a movement system which is quite unique to the game, and that will have you running, jumping and gliding across grassy plains, dense forests, flowing rivers and snowy mountaintops with immense ease and an incredible sense of speed.

Puzzles are intuitive and while they frequently reutilize their mechanics, they do so in fresh contexts to create somewhat unique head-scratchers that fortunately never feel too hard nor too easy (excluding the bell puzzles which could have had more complex patterns to follow - they're far too easy). Every puzzle type demanded at least a good analysis of the surrounding environment, which always felt fun.

Most puzzles are complex enough to make you spend a few hours in each of the game's four main areas, and although I do wish some would have made me think on their solutions for a while longer, the truth is the current difficulty adds enough intentionality and reward to the gameplay as it stands. This also means you'll never have to consult an online guide to finish anything in this game, if you think things through and look around for clues, you'll solve everything rather quickly.

There are also several hidden puzzles, rooms and currency throughout the world to be discovered, which repay close attention to your surroundings and always left me with the thought of how well designed everything looked and felt. If you enjoy exploring open worlds and finding interesting things to look at, you'll really appreciate what Giant Squid have made here.

The game has a minimalist yet interesting world to explore, and the tidbits of lore scattered across the map allow players to discover what the ideology and life of its inhabitants was before their demise, which also helps make exploration fun, engaging and the world feel more fleshed out.

[BOSS BATTLES] 💀

Each main area ends with a boss fight which functions as a puzzle itself, and they all felt interesting, but were not in any way groundbreaking. The outcome of the fights felt rewarding as well, as did 100%ing every area which rewards you with a special mechanical boost to help you along the journey.

[FINAL WORDS] 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

I highly recommend 100% completing the game, the achievements are approachable and excluding 2 of them, I did every single one on my own basically on my first and only run of the game.

It took me about 11 hours to see everything and 100% the game, I feel this was a fair amount of hours and one of those cases where more playtime would actually detract from the experience, so I'm glad the developers knew when to end the journey and keep it cohesive.

If this playtime seems short to you, just get the game on sale but make sure you pick it up because games as unique, well-designed and enjoyable as this don't come along everyday and we should support developers making worthwhile experiences on a small budget. If you can, consider picking it up at full price, because you won't regret it and the developers surely deserve it.

I would like to preface my review with a quick buyer's guide for those unsure if this game is for them or not.

-- B U Y E R ' S G U I D E --

It took me about 24-25 hours to finish the story once, and another 22-23 hours to finish all of the content including all achievements.

For Arkane fans: It's a game that boasts the quality we've come to expect from Arkane titles. It's well worth your time, although with a few shortcomings.

For Action/Roguelite fans: It's a fast-paced shooter with some great weighty guns that look and feel really powerful. Sound also hits really hard which further emphasizes that heavy feel for all firearms and supernatural powers across the board. It also has elements of a Roguelite in terms of progression which is made in small to medium doses, leading to a satisfying feeling after each successful loop.

For Immersive Sim fans: Sadly for those looking for a deeper player-driven experience you won't find the same quality as in Prey. It has great moments of exploration and world-building but it won't scratch the itch left by Arkane's 2017 instant classic. With that said, there are plenty of secrets you can easily miss, so exploring levels fully is advised, and also greatly rewarded both narratively and mechanicly.

-- R E V I E W --

I had three major gripes during my time with the game, my biggest being its lackluster multiplayer mode, contrasting its otherwise great singleplayer counterpart. In case you don't know already, you have to kill 8 targets in this game to break the perpetual time loop the protagonist Colt Vahn has inexplicably found himself in.

One of those targets, Juliana Blake, can be a player controlled character but the combat in this game isn't complex enough to warrant this Demon's Souls' style invasion system. Rewards for killing Juliana aren't amazing either, and there are no significant differences between an AI or player controlled Juliana, just that it might be considerably harder if a talented and creative player invades your game.

I played the mode as Juliana to invade other players, mainly to take a break from the singleplayer mode as curiosity for its multiplayer side overcame me, but also to get the two achievements associated with it. After a few matches I got bored of the long matchmaking periods (on release week of all times) and decided to retire not only from it, but to turn off the feature entirely so I could finish the experience on singleplayer mode in peace. I did not miss it until the end of my playthrough, which further cemented the feeling of its unwanted and unneeded existence.

My second gripe with the game was the fact that there's only one real sequence of events you can take to reach the end of the game. You need to kill all 8 targets in a very specific order, which is fine the first time you do it, but since the game's nature is in looping continuously, there aren't many reasons to keep playing after you see the credits, unless you're like me and enjoy reaching that 100% in Arkane titles. Something I highly recommend because the achievements are very fun and allow you to see almost everything the game has to offer leading to a more complete, varied and prolonged experience.

My third and final gripe with the game were the unfulfilling endings. There are two different endings both of which felt rushed and without a decent payoff or sense of real conclusion to speak of. It really felt as if the developers just rolled with the excuse of the infinite time loop, and decided not to make a meaningful ending to allow the game and player some closure. This was the only instance during my time with the game where the narrative felt weak and uninspired.

Every other aspect of this game is otherwise well realized, from its shooting, to its exploration and world design the game shines with the typical polish we've come to expect from this artist-filled studio. Arkane are industry leaders when it comes to creating unique worlds filled with interesting corners begging to be scrounged through. This game is no different, although it takes a unique approach to their usual formula.

The world is open in nature, an island divided into 4 zones functioning as sandboxes, which are comparable to smaller Dishonored levels. They provide several different routes from which to approach your targets, and player freedom is fully realized through its vertical and interconnected level structure. Deepening this segmented world structure, is a time-of-day feature which further divides the game into 4 different time periods, Morning, Noon, Afternoon and Evening after which the day ends, the loop finishes and the player returns to the beginning of the original day.

Almost all 4 island regions have variants for each time of day (14 variants in total), where the environment, enemy locations, target availability and unique side activities change and become locked or available, giving the player answers to events happening earlier in the day only later at the end of it, and vice-versa. This ensures you'll have plenty of reasons to search every corner of every map during the day's entirety to maximize all possible gameplay opportunities, and finish all of the side content available. Some of which can and will be skipped by less attentive players.

To provide a sense of progression the game includes a mechanic which allows for all 12 weapons, all 14 weapon trinkets (which function as perks for your guns) all 7 powers, all 20 power upgrades and all 33 character trinkets to be permanently attached to Colt, ensuring that when the next loop unsurprisingly comes, either by finishing it, skipping it or dying during it, players will be able to keep their favorite finds during each go around. This mechanic is directly tied to exploration, so the game gives you several reasons to explore levels to their fullest. There are also a couple of unique weapon variants with special properties which can be obtained by killing targets, stronger NPCs around the world and some optional side content.

There are 7 powers in total, 2 of which are character specific, one for Colt which functions more as a passive ability and another for Juliana. The catch here is that unlike in the Dishonored franchise, you can't have all of your powers equipped during missions as you unlock them, having to choose only 2 before every level along with a maximum of 2 corresponding upgrades for each of them. This felt to me like a balancing decision from the developers accounting for the multiplayer portion of the game, which ultimately removed mechanical depth, freedom of choice and roleplaying value away from the singleplayer portion of the game. Something Dishonored 2 and Prey gave us in droves and we have yet to see Arkane do better since.

Visuals are gorgeous, sound is great across the board, the soundtrack is very interesting because it brings 60's rock and jazz to an Arkane title, where they fit right in, and overall the presentation even down to its UI is very saturated and stylish.

You can really feel this game could have used more development time to increase its various narrative outcomes, and perhaps refine some of its gameplay systems, but even so, I still thoroughly enjoyed my time with Deathloop, even after several distasteful realizations the game still found ways to keep me hooked, because at its core it's still an Arkane title and so it's right up my alley with its unique blend of narrative and gameplay.

I would score the game a 7/10. I subtracted a point for the lackluster multiplayer integration, another point for the lack of freedom in combining powers and abilities like we've come to expect from their previous titles and another point for the unfulfilling endings. It has been a fun and positive experience, so I still do recommend it.

Don't listen to recent reviews. Yeah you there, listen to me for a sec.

Look, people are raging for all sorts of silly things about this game at the moment, but you know what? They're plain misinformed. Let me tell you how, this is what they're complaining about:

- "The game is pay to win now" - This is a BIG FAT LIE because not only are the added cosmetics simply that, COSMETICS, they do not change balancing or mechanics within the game. Legendary Hunter skins don't give you different hit-boxes, those remain the same and Legendary Weapon skins don't provide any stat boosts whatsoever, they are simply better looking skins you can unlock.

- "Locked content behind premium currency" - This is half true, the truth is that yes there is a premium currency now in 1.0, they're called Blood Bonds. The other half of this statement however is absolutely FALSE, meaning that you can easily gain that same premium currency by playing the game and it's very easy to farm.

- "New UI sucks" - This one is down to personal preference, but I think many people are just jumping on the hate bandwagon due to the premium currency and skins they've added unto the game, so the UI gets the same treatment because it's a very noticeable change. Every aesthetic change they've made since Early Access launched has kept within Hunt's original look and feel, the developers don't make weird pink unicorn skins as they kept everything grounded in their photo-realistic and supernatural western look. The UI follows the same principal.

I have many people on my friend's list that will back me on the fact Crytek is doing an exceptional job with this game, it's unique, it's fun and it's a very rewarding shooter.

It's punishing, but it rewards patience and thoughtfulness with immense satisfaction. I can't tell you how good it feels to win a 1v3 after your teammates got downed, or how satisfying it is to get a double kill with a well placed dinamite stick, or how amazing it feels to clear a whole server of people, kill both bosses and extract just as the last few seconds close in on you and your teammates.

It's a game where the smarter and more accurate players survive, and if you have up to 2 buddies who can join you it's a perfect game to play with them.

This is a great twist on the western genre that is drenched in the supernatural waters of hell that reside in the Bayou. It's full of interesting weapons, gadgets and traits that you'll be able to equip in your hunters in your fight to conquer Crytek's twisted version of Louisiana in 1895.

~ ~ The Bayou beckons thee good Hunter, it whispers thy name ever so softly, like a fleeting flame begging to be kept burning. Will thy let it fade? Or have it rage like the fire I see in thy eyes?

The purpose you ask? Well good hunter, it is to banish all dreadful demons back to their eternal slumber... and as many times as it takes. ~ ~

--

Edit at 01:24, 25/05/2021 with 1,329.1 hrs on record.

I've been playing, supporting and enjoying this game for more than 3 years now. I've seen it rise in quality, although quite often at a snail's pace, but with each new update I always hoped that Crytek would fix the performance issues, while adding new interesting mechanics to the original formula.

Up until the most recent patch (1.5.2 to be exact), I would have told you that besides a few misses here and there, the developers had a pretty good balance going nowadays, and that most weapons were seeing playtime, which is always a good indicator of balance, when you don't have one or two meta loadouts that everyone cycles between.

This new update however, it killed Hunt for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm not exactly sensitive to changes in this game. I somehow managed to support the developers even when they made the bad calls of nerfing shotguns into oblivion (2 years ago), when they nerfed fanning, buffed compact ammo, added levering, removed quick swap, added dual pistols, added slugs (which completely contradicts the previous nerfs to shotguns btw), etc.

These changes on their own weren't technically bad decisions on the developers' part, they felt good at the time of their implementation. The problem is when after 3 years of said changes, you take a step back and look at the state of the game, and you somehow have a worse gameplay experience than you had when the game launched in 1.0.

These changes have only ensured that people that exploit the current balance, even when they're worse players, manage to win games. This game used to be about accuracy, positioning, reflexes, map knowledge and the balls to make risky but calculated plays in order to run the gauntlet and wipe a server. It used to be fun because of how challenging and rewarding to skillful plays it was.

Now, you basically bring a Dolch, dual pistols, a carbine and a shotgun with slugs and you win every game. It's about fire rate, nothing else. I consistently get killed because shotguns aren't accurate enough unless you bring slugs, many shots aren't registering accurately, vaulting is still bugged after 3 years, you still get stuck on the environment, get teleported after getting stuck, etc. It's nothing short of infuriating.

To add insult to injury, the developers had the BRILLIANT idea to add a penalty when you crouch twice in a row. So now, a move I have been doing since Beta to avoid getting shot, can no longer be used to avoid headshots, for some undisclosed reason.

Of all the more pressing issues with the game, this is what you decide to mess with Crytek? More restrictions on movement? Who asked for this, really? I had never seen one single person complain about crouch spamming in this game. People do it... sure, but it wasn't exploitative enough to cause any issues during gunfights. It's never been a problem.

All of this to say that with all of these changes, half of the strategies in the game are barely playable and the other half feel cheap and easy as hell. It leaves this bitter taste after so many years, that not only never went away, but technically became more and more apparent with each passing update.

I genuinely hope this game keeps thriving, and I'll come back here and there to check on things, but if they don't return the crouch to its former glory, I won't be able to play the game anymore due to being so used to how it originally worked. It sounds so stupid (believe me I know), but after 10+ games without a single kill due to the new slowdown associated with it, I realized just how impactful to my gameplay this seemingly small change really was.

If you haven't played it yet and are remotely interested in trying Hunt out, please go for it. I still think it's the best shooter on the market. I will surely miss it.