Hunt Showdown sequel might actually be happening

Hunt Showdown has been a mainstay of multiplayer horror gaming for years now, standing alongside Dead by Daylight, The Outlast Trials, Phasmophobia, and GTFO as a top choice for fans of supernaturally tinged online play. Though it’s managed to keep itself relevant by supplying players with a steady output of new additions and updates, ensuring the game never becomes stale, it’s also been nearly five years since Hunt Showdown left Early Access. Considering its ongoing success, it isn’t much of a surprise to imagine that creator Crytek has been working on a sequel. It could be real, but it could be something else entirely.

Hunt Showdown‘s biggest update, which is set to upgrade and rework the multiplayer game, is coming on August 15. Potentially, this marks a soft relaunch for the shooter, but maybe, just maybe, something much bigger is cooking. An entry to the ESRB website lists a game under the title Hunt Showdown 1896, rates it (an expected) 17+ or Mature for containing “blood and gore” and “violence,” and lists its platforms as PC, PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series line.

The most interesting part of the page is its game description. Hunt Showdown 1896 will be an FPS “set in a fantastical version of the Victorian era” and see players using “bladed bats, clubs, brass knuckles, and pistols to kill zombie-like creatures and human rivals.” Because this introduces a ratings description, the page goes on to describe how the sequel will “allow players to cave in zombies’ heads or to cut off their limbs.” In its particularly gnarly conclusion, the description notes that “one type of zombie explodes into blood and viscera when killed” while “another type is depicted wearing human skin as a cape.”

Now, a lot of that might apply to the existing game, and this could just be part of the August update – perhaps Crytek is relaunching the entire game with lots of new material and changing the name as well. It makes sense title wise. As it stands Hunt Showdown is set in 1895. Renaming it to 1896 would fit the idea of marginal rather than totally transformative update.

But then again, maybe this is a new game entirely. Maybe this is the mythical Hunt Showdown 2, or a significantly sized spin-off. We’ll have to wait and see whether this leak is confirmed by Crytek with a proper sequel announcement, but, for now at least, this rating gives a decent overview of what Hunt Showdown fans might expect.