In which I, a somewhat experienced player, explain things about Hunt that would be useful for new(er) players to learn. A lot of these things I learnt from guides/videos I’ve seen, so credit goes to them, I’ll probably link a few. The reason I’m making this guide is so that people can use it as a springboard and see a lot of broad information all in one place, helping them to get started learning Hunt and how Hunt plays. They can supplement the information in this guide by looking at more specialised resources to learn more about the game and further develop the foundational feel and game sense this guide helps create.
 
 
Good luck out there in the bayou! Maybe we’ll even meet each other.
 
 

Intro

The description pretty much says it all. I’m still learning more and more about Hunt, and I’m not the best player by any means. I’ve logged a fair amount of playtime and I’ve never reached 5-star MMR or higher. I don’t claim to know everything there is to know about Hunt, and this guide won’t contain everything I know about Hunt. This guide is just to give you the idea of what Hunt is about, how to play it but most importantly, it’ll give you a better insight into developing a feel for Hunt, which I haven’t seen many – if any – guides/tutorials talk about. Hopefully after reading this you’ll be able to make better judgements in game, be able to ask and potentially answer more complex and interesting questions about the way Hunt plays and lastly, improve your enjoyment and performance in Hunt.
 
 
This guide is the kind of thing that would’ve been nice to have when I first started out and if it wasn’t for my dad starting to play Hunt, I probably wouldn’t have made this at all. Initially I was just going to write all this down in a notebook for him but then I realised that he’s not the only new player to Hunt, and that if I uploaded this then I’d be helping other new players too. The convenience of having an explanation for developing game feel, plus access to lots of general information about the game and its systems would’ve made the start of my Hunt journey a lot easier, so hopefully this guide does for someone else.
 
 
This guide will contain a lot of theory stuff, that’ll give you more of an idea about how Hunt actually plays. I’ll glance at the theory behind the equipment designs. This guide is not going to contain in-depth weapon/item an*lysis down to the number. Again, the intent is more about how to develop a feel for the game, there are already plenty of guides and tutorials out there that explain every map, weapon and item in more detail. This guide a*sumes you already know the basics, like controls, how to see weapon stats, etc, though some stuff, like health, will be covered to cater for new players.
 
 
Some sections may also have a Writer’s Opinion (WO) section, ending with a / . This is where I’ll state my personal opinion. Take it or leave it, it’s there if you want it.
 
 
TLDR: This guide is for newer players, it’s broad and doesn’t go into deep an*lysis of each thing in the game, there are other guides for that. This guide will talk about general gameplay, dealing with players/AI, weapon theory and how to develop a feel for the game. It a*sumes you know the bare basics, but it’ll glance at some of them anyway. Some sections have a bit with my personal opinion starting with WO and ending with /.
 
 
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Thinking of getting Hunt Showdown?

Hi! If you’re reading this, you’ve clearly heard of Hunt and are considering getting it. In this section, I’ll explain my personal impressions of Hunt and whether I think it’s worth getting. Obviously this entire section is pretty much my opinion.
 
 
TLDR: I think Hunt is absolutely worth full price, but even better value if you get it on sale.
 
 
General tips:
 

• if you’ve got a friend who plays Hunt, maybe watch them play or play on their account for a while if you can, to see how the game plays and hopefully get some hands-on experience.

• Similar to the above, watch Hunt content creators, like RachtaZ, Geef, Psychoghost, Kerrty and JustBree.

• Let go of your expectations. You may have played similar games, and though that’ll certainly give you a headstart on learning Hunt, that doesn’t mean all of that experience will automatically translate.

 
First off, if you’re new to First Person Shooter games, you’ll probably find Hunt more difficult compared to veteran FPS players. Not only is Hunt a hardcore shooter game, it also plays very differently compared to other FPS, including similar games like Escape From Tarkov and Rainbow Six Siege. Hunt has a big learning curve (unsurprising, that’s standard for any hardcore game) and it can be very discouraging when you start out, especially if you’ve spent your own money to get it.
 
 
Hunt, by design, is fairly unforgiving. As I mention in other sections of this guide, Hunt’s gameplay is s*ripped back and gameplay is more understated compared to other games. Players aren’t bullet sponges, sound plays a particularly big role in how the game plays, resources are somewhat scarce, movement and verticality is somewhat limited, weapons have overall fairly low firerates and long reloads. The lack of defined cla*ses, different armor types, and no ways to dramatically emphasise your capabilities etc means that every Hunter is fundamentally identical, and it’s down to your loadout (at least in BH), but mostly your skill to define your capabilities and how well you do.
 
The game rewards creativity, planning and game sense. Reactions and aiming ability do help, but they don’t factor in as much as you’d expect. Your game sense (combination of your awareness, knowledge of the game, tactical mind and judgement ability) is the main deciding factor in the outcome of situations.
 
 
Hunt is not pay-to-win. It has DLCs, but they are all cosmetic (which can grant small advantages as you would expect, but nothing OP and no advantages you couldn’t get without money). For reasons explained in the Hunter-focused sections of this guide, you do not lose your DLC stuff, even if your Hunter dies (this is a question commonly asked by potential buyers).
 
 
Hunt has its share of issues, but overall the game is reliable. The most notable problems are either network or optimisation related. The developers consistently pay attention to the community and the game, rolling out patches, fixes and new content ranging from fairly often to often (I haven’t been part of the game’s community long enough to be more specific). I personally haven’t had any major issues playing Hunt, but I have encountered most if not all of the minor and trivial bugs. Hackers do occur too, but I haven’t personally seen or at least noticed any.
 
 
Hunt definitely has a not-insignificant base price, but even then, I think it’s worth it. I’ve spent so much time on the game in such a short time period compared to other games I’ve played because I like it so much. I also played Dead By Daylight and For Honor – which I got on sale and for free respectively – for 500ish hours each, but much more of that time felt like a slog, where I felt like I was playing just to get perks or characters or gear, instead of playing the game because I actually enjoyed playing it. Hunt has been the opposite. I blinked and I’m several hundred hours in, with a fair amount of Prestiges under my belt that I’m still contributing towards and I don’t even feel the grind (which is actually pretty decent compared to most other games). My point is, in terms of time spent vs money spent, I got the game on sale but I definitely would’ve paid full price if I knew how much I’d like the game. The DLCs are pretty fairly priced too in my opinion, especially when they go on sale. Some of them are a little lacklustre IMHO compared to others, but I definitely think there’s going to be at least one that you’d find appealing.
 
 
So all in all, my opinion is that Hunt is worth its full price if you’ve enjoyed similar games, so if it’s on sale that’s even better. If you’re new to shooter/hardcore games, maybe get Hunt when it’s on sale instead, so that if you don’t like it you won’t have lost as much money. IMO, the two hour refund period that Steam has, is generally not long enough for you to have gauged whether you’ll enjoy a particular game.
 
 
 

Gameplay Overview

Hunt Showdown (or Hunt/HS for short) is a hardcore PvPvE first-person shooter game in the extraction genre (Extraction in this case meaning you can leave the game and keep what you’ve earned regardless of whether you’ve “won” or not). The extraction genre is similar to the Battle Royale genre, the difference being in extraction games your options aren’t simply survive fighting against other people or die. PvPvE is Player vs Player vs Enemy — basically means you’re in a match with Players and AI enemies. Hardcore games are particularly challenging by design and definition, and while Hunt is not an exception, it’s somewhat tamer compared to other similar games – like Escape From Tarkov – which have more hardcore elements compared to Hunt.
 
 
Hunt has a horror theme. Set in the late 1800s Louisiana Bayou, in the midst of a horrific outbreak in which the dead seem unwilling to stay dead, you play the role of Hunters trying to survive in this hellish land, defeat this evil force or get rich even if you don’t. You’ll uncover bits of lore through the Book of Arms (BoA) and the Book of Monsters (BoM) as you play the game, glimpsing the true nature of this apocalypse.
 
 
Players play as Hunters, individuals who have been sworn into a secretive organisation with the mission of combating the malevolent threat that has dug its claws into the Bayou for some time. Although motivations vary from Hunter to Hunter, one thing is certain: it’s a dangerous world out there, and those you trust can turn on you in the blink of an eye.
 
 
To be a Hunter does not imply kinship. You will encounter other Hunters satisfied with forging friendships, Hunters that would be much more entertained by your blood being spilled, and Hunters anywhere in between. You do not have to kill each other, as VoIP (proximity-based voice and text chat) allows you to communicate with your teammates and enemies. You can attempt to negotiate compromises and parlays, stage daring duels, or sit on the roof of a barn to chat/insult each other’s mothers, but most games go along the lines of people shooting first and asking questions later, if they even do.
 
 
Hunt has three maps: Stillwater Bayou, Lawson Delta and DeSalle.
 
 
There are two multiplayer game modes (Bounty Hunt and Quickplay) and three singleplayer game modes (Training, Trials, Explore). Bounty Hunt has the option of enabling Skill-based Matchmaking(SBMM). SBMM is entirely disabled for Quickplay. You still need to have an internet connection to play Hunt Showdown, in order for the game to retrieve your account data and regardless of whether you intend to play singleplayer or multiplayer modes.
 
 
You’ll earn Experience Points (XP), Hunt Dollars (HD) and Blood Bonds (BB) through completing matches. XP is used to increase your Bloodline and Hunter Levels, Hunt Dollars are used to buy and equip your Hunters with gear. Blood Bonds are used to buy cosmetics, like Legendary Skins for Hunters, Weapons and Items. BBs are also used to change Traits, Clean weapons, and redistribute Hunters’ health chunks.
 
 
Hunt Dollars are the regular currency of Hunt, they are earned in a greater quantity and cannot be bought with Blood Bonds or real money. Blood Bonds are the premium currency, they are earned in smaller amounts and can be bought with real money through microtransactions.
 
 
There are Daily and Weekly challenges that yield Hunt Dollars, Blood Bonds and equipment when completed. There is also a Daily Reward system called the Dark Tribute, which rewards you for earning XP in a 24 hour time period, refreshing your progress each day and allowing you to earn more.
 
 
Hunt contains some rogue-like elements. This is where some of the hardcore-ness comes from.
 
 
Each Hunter you recruit, you can play as and they’ll level up as you use them. However, if they die, you lose any gear they carried, any loot they picked up and you’ll earn half the experience points and cash for that match. Hunters that reach a certain level threshold can be Retired for a hefty experience points (XP) bonus to your Bloodline that scales with the level of the Hunter, proposing a gamble; you can play it safe, retire a Hunter early and take longer to level up your Bloodline, or take the same Hunter into the Bayou again, hope you can survive and reap a bigger Retirement reward if you do.
 
 
Otherwise, Hunt is fairly similar to other role-playing games and online shooter games. Your player level, called a Bloodline, dictates what base weapons and items you have available. As you use weapons and items, you’ll unlock variants and other items, rewarding you for earning experience. Eventually, you can Prestige, which amongst other minor things, resets you back to Bloodline Level 1 (and thus all your Unlocks progress except the BoA and BoM) and allows you to pick one of various Prestige rewards.
 
 
 

Game Modes

Hunt contains two multiplayer game modes (Bounty Hunt and Quickplay) and three singleplayer modes (Trials, Explore and Training).
 
 
The Bosses (only in Bounty Hunt), map, time of day, Supply spawns, Item Spawns, Enemies and Sound Traps are basically all randomised per match (not 100% in the case of Trials and Training, more on that in the relevant sections). Plus, the spawns of Doors, Windows, Cages are changed, spawning them as open, closed, missing or mesh-covered/blocked. This is more of a general rule though; some of the things listed above spawn in a consistent state from match to match, you’ll see this as you play the game more. It’s difficult and time-consuming to explain each and everything that changes or doesn’t and I don’t even know them all, there’s guides out there for that.
 
 
Bounty Hunt and Quickplay are pretty similar; they have 12 players max, you’re competing to hold a Token of some kind and survive, and the randomisation is mostly identical. In BH, the Bounty Tokens are the objective. In Quickplay, it’s a combination of holding the Wellspring (essentially a Token) and/or being the last person alive. A key difference between the two is that you can choose your loadout for BH, in Quickplay you’re given a random Hunter with a random weapon based on your spawn option. Also, Quickplay is only Solos, whereas BH has the options of Solo, Duo or Trio.
 
 
Trials is basically Challenge mode. It has staged levels with Stars per level that are awarded for completing objectives of various difficulties (for example, get X number of headshots within X time). There’s rewards for earning Stars, including a few exclusive skins that can’t be bought.
 
 
Explore is pretty much half a game mode, it’s really simple so it’s probably not something you’ll be playing a lot. Explore allows you to explore each of Hunt’s maps with zero enemies, player or AI. You have no weapons/items, but you don’t need them.
 
 
Training is a combination mode, it’s the closest thing Hunt has to a built-in tutorial, although it isn’t that great because it doesn’t teach you most of the stuff you’ll find in guides like this. However, Training is still useful to new and seasoned players, because it also doubles as a kind of firing range, allowing you to test out loadouts and whatever without the pressure of being in a match. Training is also based on Bounty Hunt, it doesn’t really teach you anything about Quickplay.
 
 
 

Bounty Hunt

In Bounty Hunt, the official objective is to extract with a Bounty Token (BT). A Bounty Hunt match can have up to 12 players total, either in Solos, Duos or Trios. You can set whether or not you want to be matched up with Trios. Bounty Hunt matches can have either one or two Bounties — which just means how many Bosses there are (more info in the Bosses section).
 
 
The overview of Bounty Hunt’s objective is:
 

• First, you’ll try to locate a Boss’ lair. Clues will help you do this. Clues are located in every compound at the start, but as you collect them, parts of your map get darkened and crossed out to convey that the Boss isn’t there, informing you of where to look next. Compounds in a darkened part of your map don’t contain collectable Clues.

• After collecting three Clues, the Boss’ Lair will be revealed by a big red crosshair on your map. Even if you haven’t reached max Clues, you can still guess where the Boss’ Lair is based on what regions are darkened on your map. You don’t have to have collected any Clues to fight the Boss, the Clues just help find them in the first place.

• Once a Boss is located, it can be killed, banished (a process that takes a certain consistent length of time), yielding two Bounty Tokens which can be collected. Once you are holding one, you’ll try to flee to one of the extraction points located around the edges of the map in order to escape with your reward. Staying within a certain distance of an extraction point for a set amount of time will allow you to extract. Enemy Hunters can interrupt the extraction process if they get close enough. Your teammate going down while your team is extracting will interrupt the process (you’ll have to revive them to be able to extract).

A successful extraction with a Bounty Token nets you a decent amount of experience points and money.
 
You can leave the match at any point through one of the extraction points, regardless of whether you have a Bounty Token. So hypothetically, you could initiate matchmaking, join a match, load in and then immediately go to an extraction point and extract all within five minutes or less.
 
 
Banishing is an automatic process, all you have to do is interact with the Boss’ corpse to start it. After that, you don’t even have to be nearby, you can do whatever you want. Most people stay in the Boss’ lair to defend. Starting the Banishing process instantly reveals that Boss’ location to everyone in the game (via a burning segment on the map and a giant vortex in DS), so you can usually expect people to turn up and contest for the Tokens. You and your teammates’ health (a*suming you’re all alive, this doesn’t apply to a Hunter if they’re downed/dead) will be immediately restored to full once you start Banishing, including greyed out bars, and negative debuffs (Poison, Burn, Char and Bleed) will be removed. At certain percentages of progress in the Banishing process, the Banishing will make particularly loud sounds (howling, thunder, sparking, that kind of thing), making it difficult to hear other sounds if you’re very close to the Boss’ corpse.
 
 
After the Banishing finishes, the Bounty Tokens (BTs) spawn on the Boss’ remains. As soon as the BTs spawn in, they have a lightning bolt over them on all Hunter’s Maps and in Darksight (DS). This flashes intermittently and allows others to track the BT’s locations individually, even when they’re being carried by someone. The Darksight (DS) lightning bolts also appear above the BTs, which is helpful for narrowing down their position. The DS lightning starts out precise when you’re further away from the BTs, and gradually spreads out to cover more area as you get closer. This means that if you’re close to a BT, you’ll only be able to gauge its general location using DS and your Map alone. So you’ll be using this knowledge combined with your sound/game knowledge in order to track the Bounty Tokens down.
 
 
When you collect Clues, the regions that get darkened on the map darken the same way as everyone else’s, including enemy Hunters. You can use this to predict where Hunters will go and react accordingly. You can treat this as places to avoid, or if you’re looking for a fight, as places to go to.
 
 
When you pick up a Bounty Token at any point, you gain five seconds of Boosted Darksight (even if you had the BT before and lost it). This works kind of like heat vision, allowing you to see Hunters anywhere within 150m of you, represented by orange blobs that get bigger the closer the Hunter is, even if they’re on the other side of an opaque surface like a wall or rock. The blobs blur as you look around, which can mess with how you perceive the blob’s distance/direction, but you’ll get used to it and eventually it won’t matter. Boosted Dark Sight replaces the same keybind as regular Darksight, so be careful not to accidentally/reflexively press the Darksight button when you don’t want to or you’ll lose precious Boosted DS time. Boosted DS seconds are capped at five seconds maximum, and it only depletes when you’re using Darksight. Tapping the DS button will immediately subtract 1 second from your Boosted DS meter, even if you did it for less than a second. Looting a dead Hunter has a chance of replenishing one second of Boosted DS. In general, you won’t always be able to loot dead Hunters, if they’ve been looted already or been burned then you can’t, so keep that in mind when using your Boosted DS. You cannot drop a Bounty Token once you’ve picked it up, so if you want to give it to someone else you’d have to go Down/Die. Boosted DS is a valuable resource that can turn the tables in a fight, allowing you to – aside from general reconnaissance – secure wallbangs, pull off sneak attacks and inform trap placement. Conserve it, but don’t be afraid to use it if you think it’ll save your life.
 
 
Holding a Bounty Token allows you to perform a Red Skull Revive (RSR). It’s named after the red skull that appears over an ally’s body when they’ve lost all their health bars to greying out. The RSR is a revive that costs 50 HP to perform and requires the reviver to be holding a Bounty Token. It can be used in combination with the Necromancy Trait. It can be performed as long as you are alive, have a Bounty and are in range to revive. Performing a RSR will not kill you if you have less than 50 HP, it will stop draining health when you are at 1 HP, prevent you from regenerating health while the action is happening, but will allow the revive to happen. The BT is not consumed and lost, it’s just a prerequisite. Upon being Red Skull Revived, the revivee will gain back one bar of health, giving them a maximum health capacity of either 25 HP or 50 HP by default. RSRs have no limitation in terms of how many times you can do it, you just need to meet the criteria.
 
 
 

Quickplay

Quickplay is more or less a Battle Royale mode, as you’re pitted against other players who are funnelled closer to you on pain of death. You start out with very little equipment and must flesh out your loadout by collecting weapons/items throughout the match.
 
 
In Quickplay, if you lose the match by either dying or not holding the Wellspring for enough time, you lose that character. A Quickplay match lasts 10 minutes, and there is a counter that tells you how much time you have left (only in seconds, unlike Bounty Hunt).
 
 
The overview of Quickplay’s objective is:
 

• You’ll locate the Wellspring by collecting Clues. Clues are located in every compound at the start, but as you collect them, parts of the map get darkened and crossed out to convey that the Wellspring isn’t there, informing you of where to look next. Compounds in a darkened part of the map don’t contain collectable Clues.

• After collecting six Clues, the Wellspring will be revealed on your map. Even if you haven’t reached max Clues, you can still guess where the Wellspring is based on what regions are darkened on your map. If the Wellspring is picked up by someone, it’ll be revealed to everyone else in the match, just like when the Boss is banished in BH.

• The Hunter holding the Wellspring will be revealed by lightning over their head in DS and on your map. They will also appear as an orange blob(like Boosted DS in BH) to anyone not holding the Wellspring. Anyone not holding the Wellspring will not appear as a blob in Darksight. Basically, everyone can much more easily see who’s holding the Wellspring, but whoever’s holding the Wellspring doesn’t get that same information on everyone else.

• If you hold the Wellspring longest, or are the last person alive, you win the match. Your Quickplay Hunter will be saved and stored in the Soul Survivors section in the Recruitment tab, along with the traits and equipment they had.

 
 
In Quickplay, you choose a random Hunter from a selection, as well as a spawn option before you queue up for a match. Your spawn options dictate what weapon you’ll start with. Your options are pistol, shotgun, melee, or one of the three chosen at random. There will be blue boxes, either large or small, scattered throughout the world that contain equipment that you can pick up and use. Large boxes will contain weapons, small boxes contain items (either Tools or Consumables). You can’t drop weapons and items once you’ve picked them up, but you can swap them out with other things.
 
This means that unlike BH, Quickplay isn’t as much of an investment. You didn’t pay any money to get your loadout, you get the opportunity to use equipment you haven’t got or don’t normally use. , Assuming you survive, you can come out of the match with equipment you haven’t unlocked yet. There’s also no rule saying that you have to go after the Wellspring, so you could easily just treat Quickplay like an online version of Training, mess around and practice with equipment. Quickplay is also great in general because it corrals players together a little more, plus because of the match’s much shorter time limit, you can jump into firefights much quicker, which is great for practice. Playing BH with the intent to practice fighting players may not be as effective for you, as it takes longer to find the Boss, hope other Hunters try to contest it, and then your 20 or 30 minute-long game comes down to the three seconds where you heard footsteps behind you, turned to blast them and then got shot in the end from thirty metres away outside the building because someone else happened to see you through the window as they approached. In Quickplay, the exact same situation could happen, but it’s likely to happen around seven or eight minutes in as opposed to 30. Overall, you’re likely to get more bang for your buck and time spent in Quickplay if firefight practice is what you’re after.
 
 
WO: I’ve barely played Quickplay, mostly because I’m not really interested in Battle Royale type games. The reason Hunt appeals to me is because BH allows me the freedom to leave whenever I want, so I feel less pressure. But Quickplay has its moments. I still remember my first Quickplay match, which was something like within the first 10 matches of Hunt I played. I picked up the Specter, rightly a*sumed it was a pump-action shotgun, but had no idea what the RPM and range was and treated it like the pump-action shotguns in other games. Needless to say, the guy i was shooting turned around after my shots gently tickled him from 20m away and killed me before i could fire off a third. Even now, I think of that every so often, laugh, and decide to queue up for Quickplay./
 
 
 

Training

Training is Hunt’s built-in tutorial. It’s somewhat limited, but it gets the general idea across of how to play Hunt, or at least the Bounty Hunt mode.
 
It grants you a one-time reward of BBs per difficulty level of training you complete, which is a nice reward for those new to the game.
 
The most dangerous thing you’ll find in this game are other players, and Training doesn’t have them. Which is nice because you have a chill, pressure-free sandbox to learn and practice, but you won’t be able to learn or practice much about fighting Hunters.
 
 
Pros:
 

• Pressure-free because you don’t lose anything if you die and there’s no contested objective. Closest thing to offline that you’ll get. Great for relaxing and messing around.

• No danger of getting killed by other people.

• Basically a firing range. Useful for training your aim as well as getting comfortable with unfamiliar equipment. Extra ammo crates and packs are spawned in, although Special Ammo crates and Toolboxes seem as rare as they are in BH.

 
Cons:
 

• Doesn’t teach you how Quickplay works.

• You’re limited by the equipment you take in, you can’t use things you don’t already have.

• No variation map or time-wise, it’s always the same southern area of Stillwater Bayou set in the afternoon.

• Same Boss too, it’s always the Butcher. Doesn’t let you practice fighting the other bosses.

• Nitpicky, but the banishment process in Training takes like 30 seconds or something instead of the full amount of time. It makes sense that they’d make it shorter, I wouldn’t want to be stuck waiting around in Training since there’s no real action, but I don’t think they actually tell you that that’s not the actual banishing time.

• Doesn’t have the option of co-op.

Trials/Explore

Trials is basically Challenge mode. It has staged levels with Stars per level that are awarded for completing objectives of various difficulties (for example, get X number of headshots within X time). There’s rewards for earning Stars, including a few exclusive weapon skins that can’t be bought. Trials do not have co-op, and they also don’t have enemy Hunters, so it’s pretty much singleplayer.
 
 
Stillwater Bayou and Lawson Delta each have their own set of Trials. There’s one per compound. Trials is decent for learning compounds (although there’s more pressure as there’s enemies and a time limit), but it’s also good for training your reactions and game knowledge. You can practice fighting special zeds, getting headshots, adjusting for muzzle velocity, etc.
 
 
WO:I’ve barely played Trials. I do like the rewards and I think about playing it but I never get around to it. I’ve got three stars on the Sniping ones, everything else has either one star or none. Mostly none.
 
 
Explore is pretty much half a game mode, it’s really simple so it’s probably not something you’ll be playing a lot. Explore allows you to explore each of Hunt’s maps with zero enemies, player or AI. You have no weapons/items, but you don’t need them.
 
 
Even though Explore doesn’t have any enemies and stuff, it’s actually pretty useful because putting aside admiring the work Crytek has put into creating this cool game, it’s also great for learning the layouts of different compounds with no pressure. Pick a compound or two, and spend maybe five or ten minutes just walking around it. Look for windows that seem dangerous to peek out of. Check for alternate entrances into the compound that you could use next time you’re there in BH or QP. Break it into pieces in your head, remember some landmarks such as a paint bucket or corpse so that you can find your way around it easier. This knowledge will make a big difference in Quickplay and in Bounty Hunt, because you’ll start to see how you’re almost never being shot at from nowhere, it’s almost always because of a mistake you made: peeking a bad window, not watching/listening for movement sounds from a certain direction, or not knowing that there was an entire room behind you that people could enter the building through (I’ve been there before).
 
 
WO:I’ve almost never played Explore, but seeing as I get blindsided by shots from doorways, windows and stuff almost daily, maybe I should try it more. /
 
 
 

The Dark Tribute

The Dark Tribute (DT) is a daily reward system. You can access the Dark Tribute Screen by clicking the icon in the top right that looks like a hand with an X marked on it.
 
 
The way the Dark Tribute works is, you earn progress on an XP meter by playing matches. When you reach milestones along the meter, you gain a random reward. There are four milestones, at four different thresholds of XP earned. The reward probabilities are unknown, but the list of rewards can be accessed by hovering your cursor over the little “i” in a circle on the left side of the Dark Tribute Screen. Every 24 hours, the Dark Tribute refreshes, resetting your progress. As of now, the Dark Tribute has a maximum of four rewards, which means that you can claim four rewards in each 24 hour period if you fill up the meter to the max each time.
 
 
Once you reach the third threshold, you have the option of paying a flat fee of 100 BBs to immediately fill the meter the rest of the way and skip to the last reward. This doesn’t change regardless of how far you are from the final milestone of 10000 XP. You could be at 9999 XP and you would still be charged 100BB if you wanted to skip to the end.
 
 
Note: the Dark Tribute has also been somewhat divisive in the Hunt community. Some believe it’s a somewhat of a disguised lootbox because of that 100BB skipping fee + random reward, and/or another in a line of changes supposedly intended to bring microtransactions into Hunt following the semi-recent confirmed nerfs to the Blood Bond earn rate. There has been little information from the developers confirming or denying their intent for the Dark Tribute and the implementation of microtransactions into Hunt overall.
 
 
WO: I think the Dark Tribute has a nice earn rate and is a nice addition to Hunt. It adds another rewarding element that I feel wasn’t even necessary, as the earn-rate in Hunt is decent to begin with, though it has been toned down from what it used to be, especially regarding BBs. However I do think the 100BB cost to skip to the last reward isn’t great. I personally think most of the DT rewards I get aren’t worth 100BBs, and it doesn’t take me long to earn the remaining XP to get to the end. I’d rather just play the game for another half an hour or so to get the reward, because it would take me longer than that to earn back that 100BBs. As for whether or not it’s a disguised lootbox or whatever, I think in this state it’s harmless. But I do hope that microtransactions don’t come to Hunt, or at least ones that shift the game into P2W territory. We’ll just have to see. /
 
 
 

Sound

Sound is a pillar of Hunt’s Gameplay. Hunt uses binaural audio, which is fancy tech speak for “sound that your brain can process realistically”. Binaural audio basically allows sounds in this digital game world to be processed in your brain in a way that makes it easier to gauge distance, direction and position more accurately compared to similar games that don’t utilise binaural audio.
 
 
WO: I don’t really know a lot about tech stuff. But I don’t need to, to be able to hear the difference between hearing sounds in Hunt compared to sounds in other games. Even if you can’t tell the difference immediately, you will eventually.
 
 
This means that sound works intuitively, just like any other game, but the binaural nature definitely ups to to the next level. You take the sound information that you hear, factor its source, direction, and your other knowledge about the match, in order to work out what’s happening and how to react. A huge chunk of Hunt’s gameplay is about hearing the sounds other things make and interpreting what they mean, as well as being conscious about the sounds you make yourself.
 
 
An example of the thought process (give or take) is this:
 
I’m crouchwalking towards a wooden single-door doorway so that i can sneak into a building, and hear someone pull out a gun. I use what I know to eventually come to a decision:
 

• Knowledge of sounds (that sounded like a shotgun),

• Direction (inside the building),

• Distance (really close, just a few metres away),

• Sight (I don’t see anyone, but that doorway’s door is open, so someone’s probably there)

• Game knowledge (shotguns can shoot through those wooden doors)

• Infer (someone probably heard me and is standing behind that door ready to shoot me as I pa*s through)

• React (throw a dynamite stick in there to flush the person out. Not saying this is necessarily the right choice, but it’s better than trying to get closer and hoping that i can doorbang the shotgunner with a headshot.)

 
Another way sound is a key part of Hunt’s design is Sound Traps. These will be covered later in more detail, but the idea is, in Hunt the most dangerous thing you’ll be up against is actually other players. So in order to give players clues about each other’s location, Crytek made every non-player entity in the game act as a trap that when activated by a player, makes noise. This provides information to players within range. In this way, the idea is that players are nudged together, instead of being corralled by a constricting zone on pain of death(like in Fortnite and Apex Legends). This is also supported by the objectives design. The Boss Lair and Wellspring just act as points that attract players to them. There’s no rule saying players have to seek them out or die (true in QP that you die if you don’t win, but you also don’t really lose anything by dying). Even in Bounty Hunt, where players can leave at any time, most choose to go after the Bounty or die trying. In Quickplay, even though your Hunter technically dies if you don’t win the match and everything you picked up during the match is lost, you never owned that gear in the first place and you still get XP and money if you lose. In the end, there’s no real loss and thus no pressure to go after the objective.
 
 
There are two kinds of Sound Traps: Stationary and Moving. Sound Traps have two if not three States: Idle, Alert and Activated (most people just say scared or angry instead). In each of these states, Sound Traps make different sounds. Idle is the quietest, Angry is the loudest, and Alert is somewhere in between, varying from entity to entity.
 
Stationary is simple, it’s things that stay in one place. Dying Horses and Dog Kennels can hurt/kill you, the others can’t. Even though the Crows/Ducks fly off, this only happens when they’re activated and they don’t come back, so they’re practically stationary. The list of Stationary Sound Traps are:
 

• Dying Horses

• Dog Kennels

• Chicken Coops

• Crows

• Ducks

• Junk

• Twigs

 
For more information on Stationary Sound Traps, see the Stationary Sound Trap section.
 
 
Moving Sound Traps are all the AI enemies in the game. Even though these enemies can hurt/kill you (and fast), their primary purpose is still to make noise and attract players. Them being able to hurt you is just a means to an end, it makes them a threat and it lets them disrupt you much easier. For more information, see the Zed section and the AI enemy sections.
 
 
 

Damage/Health

Health and damage and stuff in Hunt may sound kind of complicated at first, but it really is much easier than it initially seems and it’ll become second nature.
 
 
Hunters start with 150 Health Points (HP). This is divided into chunks/bars on your health bar. A small chunk is worth 25 HP, a big chunk is worth 50. If you take damage, the chunk will be cut into(from the right side), revealing a blackened portion which represents missing health. If no other damage is taken for long enough, that chunk will regenerate back to its maximum. There is a small delay before pa*sive health regeneration starts, and there will be a delay before the chunk is back at maximum as the chunk replenishes points in increments. If a chunk loses all its HP (turning the chunk entirely black), it will not regen back pa*sively by default– you’ll have to heal it back manually using an item or trait. Once you are more used to the way the health bar works, you can be more relaxed with how you play, such as purposely letting grunts hit you so that they leave themselves open to get hit– you’ll regenerate health. They won’t.
 
 
If a chunk is burnt off/greyed out (both terms mean the same thing), it will have a faint grey outline and transparent centre. It will not come back even if you do heal manually. This means you’ve lost maximum health capacity. For example, if I have 150 HP, and my rightmost chunk is a small one, and it gets burnt off, my maximum health is now 125 HP.
 
 
There are only two ways to gain back burnt bars. The first way you can only do in a BH match, which is that when you initiate the banishing process, you and your teammates’ health will instantly be restored to full, gaining back any bars that were greyed out (plus you’ll lose any debuffs). The second way, is to buy the health chunks back using Upgrade Points. This is pretty cheap, but if your Hunter doesn’t have enough and can’t retire then you’re confronted with either getting into a match and grind for Upgrade Points while hoping they live or dismiss them and miss out on getting that Retirement XP bonus.
 
 
Health chunk distribution makes a difference. Big chunks are more health, so they can take more damage and heal it all back. All it takes is 1 HP for the bar to stay active and heal over time, so a small chunk can take up to 24 damage before it’s black and a big bar can take up to 49 damage. Having bigger chunks on the right side of your health bar means you can be more confident in how much health you can regenerate back. The downside to this is, if your rightmost bar(s) get greyed, you’ve now lost 50 HP from your max health capacity instead of 25 HP if it was a small bar that was greyed.
 
 
The two ways that health chunks will be greyed out is by you going down (and getting revived) and you getting burned. Being revived after going down will grey your rightmost health chunk. Assuming you have no greyed bars already and you have teammates alive to save you, the number of times you can go down without being redskulled is dependent on the total number of health chunks you have (black bars still count, since you can heal them back manually), so the number is will be between either three times (where you have three big chunks) and six times (six small chunks).
 
Overall, AI-caused damage hurts you in smaller amounts, as they usually have to be close and 9 times out of 10 you can kill the source of the damage quickly, meaning damage you suffer is usually minor and can be healed back with regular pa*sive regen without needing to use a healing item. Hunter-caused damage overall packs more of a punch and usually will leave you badly wounded if not dead (so you won’t really be healing your health through pa*sive regen alone). The most dangerous thing in this game is other players.
 
WO: I personally try and arrange my health so that from the left it goes two big bars and then two small bars, or one big bar and four small bars. This lets me go down and get revived more times without losing bigger amounts off my max health capacity. The tradeoff is that when i take damage, i’ll have to heal manually more often because I won’t pa*sively heal back as much (this is mostly applicable to AI-caused damage, for reasons mentioned above. /
 
 
Hunters also have separate hitboxes for different parts of their body. Each hitbox will cause you take different amounts of damage. From Highest Damage Multiplier to Lowest, it goes: Head, Chest/Upper Torso (same thing), Gut/Lower Torso (same thing), Limbs (Arms/Legs). So, putting aside the Head, shooting someone in the Chest is pretty much the easiest way to damage them as you much as you can. The Head is separate because it is a One Hit Kill from any weapon/melee as long as it’s within that weapon’s Effective Range (this is explained later).
 
 
You can manually redistribute the health chunks of your Hunter by paying 25 Blood Bonds.
 
 
WO:I don’t think it’s worth it. It costs 25 BB which is an entire weekly challenge. You could die to hellhounds within the first few minutes of the match, or run into an enemy team wielding Avtomats. You (or at least my) Hunter’s survival is not guaranteed and it’s not something I’m willing to bet 25 BBs on./
 
 
Side Notes:
 
There are three damage types in terms of melee, and these are covered in the Melee Section of the guide. The reason this is relevant is that two of them, Rending and Piercing, inflict Bleed.
 
 
 

Status Effects

There are three negative status effects you can gain in Hunt in terms of damage: Bleeding, Burning, and Poisoned.
 

• Bleeding attacks your current health. It doesn’t stop on its own, you have to manually stop it by holding the Bandage button for an amount of time, which gets longer depending on the intensity(Light, Moderate, Severe). The bleeding pauses, and your movement speed is slowed, while you are holding the button to stop it. You can still interact with the environment (open/doors, pick up a bounty, etc) while you’re doing this.

• Burning attacks your maximum health capacity, eventually damaging your current health if not treated. It doesn’t stop on its own, you have to manually stop it by holding the right button for an amount of time, which gets longer depending on the intensity. You can also extinguish yourself by entering deep water or a choke cloud. The burning pauses, and your movement speed is slowed, while you are holding the button to treat the burning. You can still interact with the environment (open/doors, pick up a bounty, etc) while you’re doing this. Note: Before you become Burning, you will first be Charred. This is represented by an ashy-coloured portion of your health bar. This portion will decrease over time, eventually disappearing. Taking any tick of Burn damage will first Char you. If you receive a second tick of Burn damage while any portion of your health bar is Charred, you will start Burning. While you are burning, you can ignite nearby burnable things (zed, Hunters, barrels, oil). Some sources of Burn damage you quick enough that they essentially ignite you instantly (direct fire, such as burning oil on the ground). Note: You will not be able to pause your Burning while standing in flames that are damaging you.

• Poison stops your current health from regenerating. In addition, if you are Poisoned while in a Poison cloud, your current health will be damaged. Poison cannot be stopped manually, you have to wait for it to wear off (although if you use an Antidote Shot while Poisoned, it cures it). Poison also has various intensities– all intensities stop your current health from regenerating, but the higher the intensity, the longer you will be affected, and the more your vision/hearing will be affected. You can cure being Poisoned and prevent becoming Poisoned by using an Antidote Shot.

 
These status effects can be inflicted on you by both zed and Hunters.
 
 
Side Notes:
 
There are three damage types in terms of melee, and these are covered in the Melee Section of the guide. The reason this is relevant is that two of them, Rending and Piercing, inflict Bleed.
 
 
There are also two negative status effects that do not directly affect your health: Choking and Exhaustion.
 

• Choking is caused by coming into contact with Choke Clouds. Your Hunter will start coughing, which makes noise and also Aimpunches you with each cough, throwing off your aim. Choking wears off over time; the coughing will become less and less frequent and then will stop entirely. Choking cannot be removed early, and the only way to avoid it is to avoid contact with Choke Clouds.

• Exhaustion is caused by sprinting for too long (just imagine an invisible Sprint Stamina bar that decreases when you sprint and regenerates when you aren’t sprinting, like in Call of Duty). When you are Exhausted, your sprint speed is slowed down.

 
There are three positive status effects in Hunt: Regeneration, Stamina Boost and Antidote. They are all temporary, wearing off after a certain duration. Their durations can be stacked (e.g receiving a Stamina Boost from Magpie and then using a Stamina Shot to add the effect durations together). You can also have the three effects all active at the same time or in different combinations.
 

• Regen makes you constantly regenerate Health in small increments. It cannot heal back your greyed out bars. It is paused when you are Bleeding (but resumes when you pause the Bleeding by Bandaging). It is paused when you are Burning, but does not resume when you pause the Burning by Bandaging.

• Stamina: Cures/Prevents Exhaustion, and grants unlimited Melee Stamina for the duration of the effect.

• Antidote: Cures/Prevents getting Poisoned. You can still be damaged by Swarms, you just won’t get Poisoned by them.

Fight Theory 101

This section is to give you a sense of the damage scale in Hunt and by extension, how it affects the way you take damage, which obviously affects how fights go. This is the first step into the “feel” of Hunt.
 
 
[The following statement excludes shotguns, the Derringer, Bornheim, Nitro, and bow+crossbows for reasons explained later].
 
 
At ten metres away, the majority of ranged weapons in the game kill you with two shots to the chest or one shot to the head.
 
 
At ten metres, damage is not as much of a factor anymore. At that point, the other stats of the weapon have a much larger effect on the outcome of the firefight. In particular, fire rate, accuracy and to an extent, penetration. The participants’ skills with their weapon also has a marked increase on their effect on the outcome of the firefight. It doesn’t matter if you bought a Sparks, if you can’t use it, it’s just a 130 dollar hunk of junk. A highly-damaging 130 dollar hunk of junk, sure, but that’s a*suming you can land the shot in the first place.
 
 
An example of the result of this balancing, is as follows. You have a Caldwell Conversion. The other person has a Mosin. For illustrative purposes. you are both at full health. You both are ten metres away from each other. You both fire, and hit each other in the chest. The next chest shot either of you receive will kill you. Now, you’re in a position where your Caldwell Conversion pistol can beat this Mosin, because even though the Mosin deals more damage per bullet, the Caldwell has a higher fire rate. Assuming you have the skill to make that follow up shot, the higher fire rate should cinch the deal.
 
 
This situation is also an example of effective range, which is separate from the Effective Range stat Hunt shows you. Effective range in this case refers to the range that the weapon is most effective at. The Caldwell Conversion’s effective range is Close. This is because its muzzle velocity is low and will make longer range shots harder to hit, it suffers steeper damage falloff because it uses Compact ammo, but it has a decent ammo pool and decent fire rate to give you the potential to apply better pressure at close range compared to the Mosin, which is harder-hitting but has a lower fire rate, lower volume of fire and lower ammo pool.
 
 
Your weapon’s effective range can be further altered to more or lesser degrees through variants, special ammo, and sometimes, the rest of your loadout.
 
 
Playing in your weapon’s effective range makes a big difference in your survival rate. One step up from it, is playing around your loadout’s effective range. So if you make your loadout as versatile as you can, then theoretically you should be geared to cover as many ranges and situations as possible, that way hypothetically every range is your effective range.
 
 
WO: I think it’s important not to take playing around your weapon/loadout’s effective range to the extreme. When I say extreme, I mean things like shotgun/sniper/lair camping and RNG-reliance. As I say later on the guide, there’s a fine line between gimmick and unfun/unfair. /
 
 
The general design philosophy of Hunt is about side grades, as opposed to upgrades. Everything should have tradeoffs. This creates a more level playing field where more emphasis is placed on skill rather than your equipment (compare this to Apex, where someone just getting lucky and having a higher level addon than you do though you both have the same weapon, character, and skill level, wins the fight).
 
 
WO: I’m not diminishing Apex, I’m just using it as an example. Apex’s gameplay is its own beast, and so is Hunt’s. /
 
 
This idea of tradeoffs is coupled with the overall lower fire rate of guns in Hunt and the slowed down pace to make firefights more intense because now each shot and each moment carries more pressure. There are less chances overall to hit your opponent, and Hunters do not have huge health bars. Even if you take Dual chain pistols, yeah you have 34 shots, but you’re relegated to hipfire or tighter hipfire, limiting your practical range (more on dualies later).
 
 
You trade fire rate, base damage, and effective range for an extra shot in the cylinder when you take a Nagant over a Caldwell Conversion. You trade off volume of fire and muzzle velocity for faster empty reloads and better sights when you take a Mosin over a Lebel. The comparisons get harder and harder to make as you start factoring in variants, special ammo, situation, intent, etc.
 
 
This concept is exaggerated when it comes to shotguns. Shotguns have a fairly steep increase in compromises in order to balance out the extra shots and higher rate of fire you get. Hence, the five-shot, fast-firing Crown and King costing 600 dollars, having worse spread and less total ammo than the 38 dollar, single-shot Romero which has tighter spread and the ability to switch ammos on the fly.
 
 
WO: I’ve personally found the Romero the most consistent to get kills with, although that’s probably because I spend the most time with it compared to the other shotguns. But for every time I’ve gotten a kill because of the Romero’s strengths, I can also count a time where its single shot left me vulnerable and dead after I whiffed by sprinting instead of walking(causing the firing delay to increase), and where its tighter spread meant I missed who I was aiming at because I clicked too early after being used to the Specter’s wider spread. /
 
 
The intent of this design philosophy is that more money spent on a loadout does not automatically equal winning, and this is mostly true. On the sliding scale, with gimmicky at one end, and versatile at the other, the general aim is versatile. Creating a versatile loadout is about having weapons that work at as many ranges as you can and taking tools and consumables that work for as many situations as you can. Making a focused, niche loadout that is good for nothing except one particular situation still takes luck, skill and effort to actually get something out of, especially if that ideal situation doesn’t come up, but the line between gimmicky and cheap shot loadouts is thin.
 
 
Thus, the meta in this game is exactly that: versatility. The more versatile a weapon/loadout is, the more powerful it is. One of the great things about Hunt is that the meta isn’t strongly defined, in the sense that taking meta stuff doesn’t really give you a huge advantage over everyone else, but one negative is that in higher MMR lobbies, you’ll mostly be encountering meta loadouts, which can make playing the game a little stale since most people you fight have the same equipment.
 
 
There are also certain combinations of equipment that are especially versatile, and at least in theory, are superior to most of the other combinations of equipment. I’ll cover these exceptions to the balancing philosophy of tradeoffs in Things to be Aware of Part 1.
 
 
 

Fight Theory 102

So, now that you know about the whole “most guns take two shots to the chest or one to the head to kill you at ten metres” thing, you can understand more of the subtleties in the power differences between guns.
 
 
This is where ammo type comes into play. There are five base ammo types: Compact, Medium, Long, Shotgun and Special. Shotguns are somewhat in their own cla*s, so I’m leaving them out of this section. Special is kind of broad, so in this case I’m referring to base Special bullets — like the Dolch, or Nitro. But even then, put those aside for a minute.
 
 
The differences between Compact, Medium and Long ammo (for the sake of this guide, I’ll refer to them as the main ammo types) are:
 

• Base/True Damage (Hunt treats this as the damage the bullet in question does from 10 metres away to the Chest)

• Damage Falloff (also called Damage Dropoff, it refers to how the bullet’s impact Damage is reduced as it travels)

• Penetration (which things the bullet can penetrate and within which distances)

• Volume of Fire (How many times it can be fired before being fully empty and needing to be reloaded)

• Rarity (How much you pick up when you loot ammo boxes/packs)

 
Compact has the lowest in all of these stats except for Capacity and Rarity. This makes Compact beneficial for prolonged fights, as you can shoot more times without running out of ammo.
 
 
Long has the highest in all of these stats except for Capacity and Rarity. This means Long ammo is effective at getting the job done, but you’ll need to be more frugal with your shooting. You can change this by going out of your way to bring another Long Ammo gun to add to your reserve, loot Ammo Crates or bring Ammo Resupplies.
 
 
Medium Ammo is not directly in the middle between Compact and Long, it’s more leaning towards Compact. It’s there as a middle ground, but the middle ground is more defined by the weapon it is used in rather than the ammo itself. However, note that its Damage Falloff, Muzzle Velocity and lower Penetration characteristics are skewed, again, towards Compact levels.
 
 
So overall, it’s a smaller jump from Compact to Medium, and a bigger jump from Medium to Long.
 
 
Ammo factors breakdown:
 
 
Damage Falloff. I don’t know the exact numbers, but Compact ammo starts dropping off around 15m, Medium ammo starts dropping off around 20m, and Long starts dropping off around 40m. This means that you can rely on these ammos to kill with two Chest shots, at minimum, up to the range at which they start suffering Damage Falloff.
 
In terms of game feel, this means that you’re going to take essentially if not full damage from Long Ammo if you’re within 40m~ of whoever’s shooting at you, still causing you to die from two Chest Shots. Damage Falloff is not as much of a factor for headshots, as it’s the gun’s Effective Range stat that determines whether the headshot kills or not (again, a*suming the target Hunter is at 150 HP). The same goes for Compact and Medium. Up until the point that they start suffering Damage Falloff, you can rely on them to kill with two Chest shots.
 
 
Muzzle Velocity is pretty much inversely proportional to Damage Falloff. The faster the bullet travels, the less steep the gradient of its Damage Falloff. Hence, why Compact ammo has a higher Damage Falloff than Medium and Long. Muzzle Velocity is how fast the bullet travels, which affects how much you’ll have to lead moving targets.
 
 
You can see penetration stats for each ammo type in-game. Hover your cursor over the ammo icon in a gun’s info panel, and it shows you its base ammo Penetration characteristics. Go to a Hunter’s Equipment menu and open the Special Ammo for a gun menu to see its special ammos. Hover your cursor over the special ammo’s icon in the special ammo info panel on the left to see its penetration characteristics.
 
 
As you play the game, you’ll build a sense of the game’s distance scale in your head, allowing you to more accurately gauge how much damage your shots will deal as well as how much damage shots will deal to you.
 
 
Capacity (also known as ammo pool) represents how much total ammo you get with that gun. The higher the gun’s ammo pool, the longer you can keep shooting without running out of reserve ammo. Guns with higher ammo pools are good for sustained firefights as a result. Likewise, guns with lower ammo pools may not be as great and you may finding yourself needing to replenish your ammo more often. You can change this by pooling reserve ammo– equipping two weapons that share the same kind of ammo. This way, you can use one weapon’s high ammo pool to account for the other weapon’s lower ammo pool e.g taking a Winfield C along with a Bornheim, because they both use compact ammo but the Bornheim has a low ammo pool. Most guns that use Compact ammo also the highest base ammo pools, followed by Medium and then Long.
 
Ammo rarity also affects ammo pools, in that it affects how effectively you can replenish them. The first aspect is the potential number of rounds that will be replenished when you loot an ammo crate or pack. Compact ammo has a higher potential number of rounds it replenishes, Medium has the middle, and Long has the lowest. This means that if you take a Long Ammo gun, it’s going to take longer to fill your reserve ammo back to maximum compared to Medium or Compact. Note that taking two weapons that share the same ammo type, will effectively double the potential rounds you replenish e.g instead of receiving +3, you get +6. The second aspect is the sources you can replenish from. There are four sources of Ammo in this game: Boxes (the large ammo box that replenishes one or multiple Main ammo types), Packs (little colour coded packs of ammo that only replenish one of the Main ammo types), Special Crates (dark purple box, only replenishes Special ammo), Ammo Resupplys (the deployable consumable) and dropped weapons (the reserve ammo of dropped weapons can be looted for ammo. More details in the Tips section). By equipping Special Ammos, you make a tradeoff of having augmented ammo, but you limit part or all of your ammo replenishing to Special crates, which are rarer than Ammo Boxes. This means that taking a weapon with an already low base ammo pool (such as a Lebel) with special ammo, means that you not just have a low ammo pool but you’ll find it harder to stay topped up as you’ll be relying on Special Ammo crates to replenish it.
 
 
 

Fight Theory 103

At ten metres away, the majority of ranged weapons in the game kill you with two shots to the chest or one shot to the head.
 
 
Remember that? Good. Keep that in mind, because that’s a key thing for when you’re picking fights.
 
 
Now though, it’s time to talk about the outlier weapons. You’ll pretty much want to bring a supplemental, allrounder weapon along with them as a backup, such as any pistol (All the Caldwell pistols, plus the Spitfire and Officer work well), or a shortened rifle-type like the Nagant/Scottfield Precision, Winnie Vandal. All ranged weapons in this game, including the ones mentioned in this section, kill with a headshot within their Effective Range (shown on their info panel).
 
 
There are two guns that don’t kill with two shots to the chest at 10m away: the Bornheim and the Quad Derringer (or just Derringer for short).
 
The Bornheim and Derringer each have 74 as their base damage value. This is because their fire rate is some of the highest in the game, so letting them deal the same damage as other guns would just make all the others severely overshadowed at the very least. Noticeable recoil, low ammo pool, meh hipfire accuracy and wasteful partial reloads nerf these two further. The main stat we’re concerned about here is the damage, because you don’t have to be a math genius to realise that 74+74 does not equal 150 (it’s 148, in case you didn’t want to work that out yourself). This means that at 10 metres away, the Bornheim and Derringer in fact take three shots to the chest to kill you. In theory, this shouldn’t be a problem because of the guns’ high fire rates, but in practice, it’s more difficult than you’d think, as aimpunch can screw you over. The Derringer isn’t just useful as a weapon, as it counts as a Tool (effectively allowing you to carry an extra gun)– you can use the Derringer when you want to shoot things while not being too loud, as the Derringer is one of only two non-silenced guns that are not audible at 1000m away (instead it’s something like 400m–worse than suppressed guns but better than non-suppressed). This makes it suitable for shooting lanterns over kennels, plus killing zed from a distance without using your main weapons.
 
 
The Hunting Bow, Hand Crossbow and Crossbow occupy their own niches within the subcategory of bowed weapons in this game. As a given, their regular arrows/bolts are great and probably are the most reliable for getting kills, their special ammos mostly serve to spice things up a little. All three are not audible past 40ish metres. Their regular projectiles plus some of the special ammos are retrievable and reusable. These weapons take a little getting used to, as they have projectile drop unlike the guns in this game, and only one shot available, not leaving too much room for mistakes (although the quietness can be a saving grace even when you miss multiple shots). The Bowed weapons also do not have a stated Effective Range stat, so you’ll learn it as you use them. You’ll also learn their OHK ability as you use them but as far as I know, Gut shots and higher up to around 20m are OHKs (a*suming the Hunting Bow is fully drawn). Their Sighted Range stat as far as I know, refers to the range after which they’ll suffer projectile drop.
 
Note that the projectiles they use that have pointed tips (e.g regular arrows/bolts, poison arrows, explosive arrows) will inflict Bleed on Hunters they directly hit, but the projectiles that have blunt tips (e.g poison bolts, choke bolts, concertina arrows) will not. Generally, the pointed projectiles are more lethal and favoured for dealing direct damage.
 

• The Hunting Bow is quieter than both the Hand Crossbow and Crossbow, can fire faster (or technically, loose arrows faster) than them, and arguably has better sights. Poison arrows can be especially effective for getting kills, and concertina arrows too with the potential for blocking off paths and entrances even as the enemy is moving through them. However, it’s not necessarily so great if you’re taken by surprise, as charging up an arrow takes more time compared to the near-instant readiness and consistent trajectory of the Hand Crossbow and Crossbow.

• The Hand Crossbow has the lowest potential damage out of the three, reloads faster than the Crossbow but slower than the Bow, and it has better options in terms of utility, as it has special ammos available that are more versatile overall compared to the Bow and Crossbow’s options. Choke Bolts are great for choking areas at a longer range if you don’t have Pitcher, and also if you feel like saving your much more limited number of Choke Bombs.

• The Crossbow is basically the Hand Crossbow’s big brother. It has a higher damage potential, flatter trajectory and more lethal special ammo options. On the downside, it takes up more space, and is louder than the hand crossbow.

 
Finally, we come to the Nitro. This monstrosity deals 364 damage per bullet (highest in game) and penetrates through the most materials out of any of the guns(including through Hunters). Obviously then, it has some nerfs to balance out that sheer power. Awkward sights make it more suited to mid-range due to the zoom, which makes sense with its steep Damage Falloff, but gauging exactly at which distance you lose your OHK ability is something that’ll come with time (I believe it’s something like OHK to the Gut and higher up until around 40 metres, with negligible damage on limb shots regardless of how close the target is). Wide Hip-fire accuracy and big zoom on the sights means it’s not that ideal at close-quarters combat (though serviceable, if you get comfortable with the hipfire accuracy and quickscoping). Two shots before needing to reload isn’t great, as you only have one backup shot and depending on how good your aim is, you’ll find it different degrees of difficult to follow up a missed shot with a hit because of the high recoil. Finally, a low ammo pool and relying on Special Ammo to replenish means you’ll need to be sparing with your shots. Even if you’re not great at aiming with it, you can still use it to shred through Bosses’ health, since they are easier to hit because of their size and predictability. Explosive Ammo is better for PvE, especially Bosses. DumDum can help you secure Hunter kills just outside your OHK, as the Bleed will finish off your target (or open them up for a follow up hit with your backup weapon) a*suming you’ve dealt enough impact damage. If you want a budget (cheaper and worse) version of this weapon, try out the Caldwell Rival with Slug ammo. This will get mentioned later.
 
 
These weapons have drawbacks to counter their power. This relegates them to somewhat gimmicky territory, depending on your skill with them. You can tweak a weapon’s effectiveness through variants, special ammos and the rest of your loadout. This way, you can highlight their strengths, account for their weaknesses, and potentially create gimmicky builds.
 
 
Hunt is pretty decently balanced, but certain combos are noticeably more effective than others. Just remember that you can absolutely beat weapons that seem overpowered or seem to be the bane of your existence, it’s just a matter of skill and a bit of luck.
 
WO:I elaborate on this statement in Things To Be Aware Of Part 1. /
 
 
 

Game Feel/Sense

Game sense is a combination of your Awareness, Knowledge of the game, Tactical Mind and Judgement Ability. In a nutshell, it’s the game equivalent of common sense you would apply in real life.
 
 
All games require some degree of game sense, and the more difficult the game, the more game sense will be needed to succeed in it.
 
 
Game sense is something you’ll develop as you gain experience in playing that game. When you first start playing a game, you won’t have as much game sense compared to a player who’s been playing that game for longer. This doesn’t automatically mean that more experienced players will beat you every time, but game sense is a factor into skill and so, it’s very likely that they will.
 
 
Hunt’s gameplay design is such that it emphasises game sense more, like other hardcore games, and it has a steeper learning curve, like other hardcore games, so it will take longer overall to develop a game sense for it, and it can be daunting and especially discouraging in the beginning.
 
 
In the end, it’s just a game, so don’t burn yourself out trying to learn and/or play it. Take your time and do things at a comfortable pace. If you get frustrated, take a break. A few hours, a few days, even a week or two.
 
 
 

Loadout Overview

Your Loadout covers everything you can equip on a Hunter:
 
 
Weapons: The two Weapon slots your Hunter has available.
 

 
Tools: Tools are tactical devices that cover a range of purposes. For example, Choke Bombs to extinguish burning teammates, Concertina Trip Mines to defend buildings and Melees to help you deal with zed.
 
 
Consumables: Are one-time use and you can only carry four total. These help you gain an edge in fights, like using firebombs to block off paths and frag bombs to flush enemies from cover.
 
 
Traits: Pa*sive changes or additional abilities granted to your Hunter.
 
 
 

Ranged Weapons

In this section, I’ll explain the different varieties of ranged weapons in the game. Some weapons are a little lacklustre compared to others, but all can be very effective in the right hands. These explanations will be broad, just give you an idea of what each type is like.
 
 
Note1:Your reserve ammo can be consolidated by using two weapons that share the same ammo. This can be done with any set of weapons that share ammo types (e.g the Nagant and Winnie C, which both use Compact), and extends to special ammo as well, although they must share the base ammo type in addition to the special ammo type (Scottfield FMJ will not stack with Vetterli Regular or Caldwell Conversion FMJ, but will stack with Vetterli FMJ, because their base ammo is Medium).
 
 
Note2: All bullets in this game, plus these shotgun ammos (regular, pennyshot, slugs), do not have projectile drop. They travel in a straight line until they hit something. Each bullet/pellet is treated as its own individual object. The only things that have projectile drop are Flares, Dragon’s Breath shot, Starshells, all bolts/arrows, and throwables.
 
 
Note3: Some ranged weapons can switch between ammo on the fly at the press of a button. They have two “stacks” of ammo available, and the ammo type in each stack can be edited. The first (the one on the left) stack will be the priority stack on these ranged weapons, taking up a larger part of the total ammo pool.
 
 
Note4: To see how much base ammo you get with a weapon, look at that weapons’s info panel. Go to a Hunter’s Equipment menu and open the Special Ammo for a gun menu to see its special ammos. The special ammo info panel on the left will show you its stats. In the info panel, hover your cursor over the ammo icon in a gun’s or special ammo’s info panel in order to see that ammo’s attributes.
 
 
Weapon Types:
 
 

• Pistols: This covers all of the Small-slot Pistols. These are generally better as backup weapons, but don’t let that stop you from using them aggressively and/or as main weapons. Certain Pistols are favoured overall compared to the rest (most commonly, you’ll see the Caldwell Uppercut, Nagant Officer and Scottfield Spitfire). Pistols can be dual-wielded (no Trait needed) for a higher fire rate/volume of fire + more reserve ammo, but takes up a Medium slot and cannot ADS. Single revolvers are affected by the Fanning trait, allowing for higher hipfire fire rate but lower hipfire accuracy. Pistols are also great for adding extra ammo to your reserve so that your main weapon has more ammo available to it, as they fit in a Small slot, allowing you to take a large weapon too by default–or when dual-wielded, grants even more reserve ammo, helping you gain a large ammo pool.

• Single-Shot Rifles: This covers the single-shot rifles, of which there are three: The Springfield, Martini and Sparks. These rifles have very high bullet damage, but this is balanced by their overall lower fire rate, slightly funky sights, and low volume of fire. Their high reserve ammo makes them great for sustained engagements, as well as bulking out your total reserve ammo, especially in the case of the Springfield, which has a Compact variant that only takes up a Medium slot. The Springfield is also the cheapest by far, making it good to practice with without being expensive to lose.

• Bolt-Action Rifles: These rifles are a good compromise between volume of fire and damage per bullet. They have their own individual strengths and weaknesses. They’re on the expensive side, and most suffer from losing a round from partially empty reloads. The Vetterli is a good way to try out this weapon type because its much cheaper than its Long Ammo competitors and doesn’t have the risk of losing rounds from partially empty reloads (check the Tips section for a counter to this).

• Repeating Rifles/Carbines: This covers the Winfield Lever-action rifles and pistol carbines (Pistols with an added buttstock/extended barrel). These have decent to high volume of fire and are great all-rounders. They also have good ammo availability/capacity, however there are a few outliers (Dolch Precision, Bornheim Match, Officer Carbine and Scottfield Precision which are a little more niche). They also have decent to high fire rates (with one exception, the Centennial at 39rpm). The lever-action weapons in this category are affected by the Levering trait, giving them a higher potential hipfire fire rate but lower hipfire accuracy.

• Shotguns: Covers all guns that use the shotgun ammo type, including the LeMat. These guns are highly effective at close range, but you pay exorbitantly more for each extra shot and/or increased fire rate, culminating at the Crown and King. Shotguns all work off the Romero as a baseline– they all have the potential to deal 200 or more damage, but it is their spread that changes how much damage they’re likely to deal at 10m away (their info panel in-game is a little misleading). Their Effective Range stat does not refer to the range up to which they can kill something with a headshot. Instead, it’s a guideline for the range up to which the gun/ammo is likely to OHK. As long as you’re aiming at the Chest at 8m~ or less, you should be fine. Limb shots are very ineffective. The LeMat shotgun isn’t the most reliable for getting kills beyond melee range, but dual-wielding it for doubletap kill capability or using Slug ammo to help its accuracy and range can help get more consistent kills. Note: the Terminus is affected by the Levering Trait, as it is lever-action.

• Bowed Weapons: These have been covered in Fight Theory 103, but the general gist is that they each have their own niche and work very well in it. They’re stealthier than guns, have very high damage potential, decent ammo pools and nice versatility through special ammos. Some of their ammos are retrievable and reusable, you can see which ones by looking at their info panel in-game. Their drawbacks are low volume of fire, longer reloads, projectile drop, steeper damage falloff and lower velocity.

Special Ammo Overview

Special Ammos augment the properties of your projectiles. Each gun has access to various special ammos. Special Ammos can also affect the damage of each bullet and the amount of reserve ammunition that comes with that weapon, but I won’t delve into this because these factors don’t really define the Special Ammos, though they are definitely things to consider. I’ll mention them if it’s particularly relevant.
 
 
I’ll be describing Special Ammos in comparison to default ammo.
 
 
For single-projectile guns, these special ammos are available:
 
Incendiary: Pros– Can ignite explosive/fire barrels and oil trails with one shot. Ignites Hunters in two shots if they’re not Charred, or one shot if they’re Charred already. OHKs all Zed except Meatheads and Immos. Cons– Bullets leave a yellow trail in the air, allowing them to be seen, potentially revealing your position when you fire. Doesn’t pen through anything.
 
High Velocity: Pros– Increases Muzzle Velocity. Cons– increases recoil.
 
Full Metal Jacket:Pros: Better Penning capability and better Damage Falloff (overall makes your bullets practically equal if not better than Long ammo in terms of penetration and damage falloff). Cons– Decreases Muzzle Velocity.
 
Dum Dums: Pros– Applies Bleed to Hunters. Cons– No penetration.
 
Poison:Pros– Can Poison Hunters (a*suming they haven’t used an Antidote Shot). OHKs all zed except Meatheads and Hives. Cons: No penetration.
 
Explosive:Pros– Explodes once, and only when it impacts the first surface it hits. Still retains penetration characteristics of base ammo type. Cons: reduces ammo pool more noticeably.
 
Spitzer: Pros–Increases Muzzle Velocity, Improved penning. Cons– Only available on guns that already have fairly limited ammo pools.
 
 
Shotguns have their own special ammos:
 
Flechette: Pros– Tighter spread. Applies Bleed to Hunters. Cons- Lower damage potential (makes it very difficult to get OHKs).
 
Pennyshot: Pros– Higher Damage Potential (more Damage per pellet). Significantly increased damage against Zed, including Bosses. Cons– More erratic spread and less pellets overall (hitting things is less reliable), does not pen.
 
Starshell:Pros– Can ignite explosive/fire barrels and oil trails with one shot. Ignites barrels/oil, Hunters and Zed on direct impact. Lights up surroundings. Cons– Significantly reduced Damage and Ammo Count. It’s identical to a Flare but is as loud as a shotgun. You might as well just take a Flare Gun.
 
Dragon’s Breath:Pros– Big AOE (essentially hits anything in a line in front of you, up to a certain range). Ignites barrels/oil and Zed on direct impact. Can ignite Hunters. Cons– Worse spread, decreases possibility of OHK. Requires X amount of projectiles in the blast to hit a Hunter, in order to actually set them on fire.
 
Slugs: Pros– High Damage. Reliably extends the range of the shotgun. Pens as good as Medium Ammo. Cons– Reduced hipfire accuracy. Single projectile means less room for error since it doesn’t damage in a spread. Very expensive.
 
 
Arrow/Bolt weapons also have their own.
 
 
Hand Crossbow:
 
Poison:Pros–kills Sound Traps/Zed fairly quietly (even works on Kennels/Coops). Very effective at killing all Zed except Meatheads, Hives and the Spider. Cons– Fairly low impact damage. Cannot inflict Bleed.
 
Choke: Pros–More Choke is definitely better (you’re not limited to just two or three Choke Bombs. Cons– Fairly low impact damage (virtually useless for lethality). Does not inflict Bleed. The choke clouds they create aren’t as big as Choke Bomb ones and don’t last as long.
 
Chaos:Pros–Distraction. Can ignite Barrels, oil. Cons– Virtually useless in terms of lethality (still inflicts Bleed on direct hit though).
 
 
Crossbow:
 
Explosive:Pros– AOE damage, makes it easier to hit targets. Cons– Reduced Damage Potential.
 
Shotbolt: Pros– gives the Crossbow unlimited OHK range. Can be used to wallbang (uses default Shotgun ammo Penning attributes. Cons– Noticeably lower ammo pool. No Bleed (but this is somewhat irrelevant since it has a very high base damage).
 
 
Hunting Bow:
 
Poison: Pros– Can inflict Poison, in addition to Bleed. Reusable. Cons: Reduced Ammo pool.
 
Concertina: Pros– Spawns Concertina Wire on impact (great for defense as well as offense) Cons– not great for stealth (makes the big Concertina “THWIP” noise), Reduced Base Damage. Reduced Ammo Pool.
 
Frag: Pros– explodes after certain duration once loosed. Can bounce, which can open up some extra opportunities for kills. Cons– Noticeably lower Ammo Pool.
 
 
 

Special Ammo Theory

This section will explain the feel of Special Ammos.
 
 
Sound:
 

Melee Weapons

Melee weapons are any weapon with the primary purpose of melee– so, excluding weapon butts and consumable/object melees. I’ll talk about those at the end of this section.
 
 
There are various factors when considering melee weapons:
 

• Damage (Base Damage of the weapon’s attacks)

• Attack Type (What type of attack the weapon does, out of Blunt, Rend or Pierce)

• Reach (how long the weapon can reach/how far away you can hit something from)

• Stamina Efficiency (how many hits you can do with this weapon before running out of stamina)

• Slot (Whether it fits in the weapon slot or tool slot)

• Intent (this boils down to whether you want to use it for PvP or PvE)

• Speed (how quickly you can attack with that weapon, using heavy attacks as the usual benchmark)

 
Note: When I say light or heavy just after a melee weapon’s name, i mean a light or heavy attack respectively, using that weapon (e.g dusters light, heavy knife heavy, sabre heavy).
 
 
The dedicated melee weapons are: dusters, knife, heavy knife, knuckle knife, combat axe, machete, bomb lance and cavalry sabre.
 
The attached melee weapons are melees attached to guns: bayonets, strikers, riposte, claw and hatchet.
 
The world melees (the ones you can find lying around in the game world are: shovel, pitchfork, world axe, and sledgehammer.
 
 
Melees with longer reach are better for PvP, because you can hit your opponent from further away and with a more precise motion/hitbox that allows you to aim for the head/chest easier. This means that melees that stab are best for PvP. Melee light attacks have a shorter reach than their heavy counterpart.
 
 
Damage: Hitting the head with any of these weapons (except the dusters or a knuckle knife light) is a OHK. However, some weapons, like the Bomb Lance, sabre, hammer, pitchfork, shovel, and Romero hatchet, deal enough base damage where hitting the chest is a OHK too, even if your target has 150 HP.
 
 
Attack Type: Melees deal damage in one of three categories: Blunt, Rending or Piercing. It is a*sumed that attacks that fall under each of the three categories deal a base amount of Impact damage (it is the modifiers that differentiate between the three).
 
Blunt is weakened against Armour/Bulk. This means it is less effective if used against the Butcher (Bulk), Meatheads (Bulk), Armoured (Armour) or Scrapbeak (Armour). Does 0 damage to concertina wire. Point of clarification: heavy Blunt weapons such as the Sledgehammer are still effective against Bulk because even though the damage it deals to them is reduced, it still has a very high base damage value.
 
Rending is weakened against Armour(less effective against Armoureds/Scrapbeak), but inflicts Bleed. Rending will enrage Immolators if used on them. Rending can cut concertina wire, but it’s still damage dependent, so the more damage a Rend attack deals, the easier it can cut through concertina wire.
 
Piercing is not weakened against Armour or Bulk. Piercing will enrage Immolators if used on them. Like Rending, it can also inflict Bleed. Piercing cannot cut Concertina Wire.
 
 
Section on item melees/weapon buttstock melees:
 
You can perform melee attacks with any item/equipment in your hand. However, the general rule is that the bigger the item is, the more damage it deals when you hit someone with it. But, certain items will just make you attack using your bare fist, so practically, you won’t be using them to melee. Even the non-melee-attachment gun melee attacks aren’t very good for killing players, since usually you’ll have a better alternative to hand (like a melee tool–knife, heavy knife, etc).
 
 
The two exceptions to this are the Concertina Bomb and Ammo Box, which you can melee directly with. They deal a good amount of damage, but they’re not as stamina-efficient or fast as the alternatives you’ll likely have with you.
 
 
 

Tools

Tools: Things that fit in the Tools slot. Have multiple charges(if applicable), can be replenished by looting Hunters. Not lost if all charges are consumed. Cannot be replaced in a BH match.
 
 
Tools fall into various categories:
 

• Melee: self-explanatory. Covers the Dusters, Knuckle Knife, Knife and Heavy Knife.

• Pistol: is a gun. Flare Gun or Quad Derringer.

• Placeable: things that are placed. Traps.

• Throwable: things that are thrown.

 
 
Decoys: Create the sound of Hunter footsteps once it hits an object. Can be used to distract/misdirect Hunters or lure zed.
 
Blankfire Decoys: Creates a random gunfire sound once it hits an object. Can be used to distract/misdirect Hunters or lure zed.
 
Tripwire traps: A placeable trap used to discourage enemies through damage(all three types can do this) and/or physical blocking (concertina). Mostly useful for dealing with Hunters. Great for placing in doorways, under windows, around corners. Alert Trip Mines Char and then Burn. To activate a tripwire trap by shooting, aim for the larger side(the side that holds the payload). You can do this with any ranged weapon.
 
 
 

Consumables

Consumables: Things that fit in the Consumables Slots. Each Consumables is a one-time use. Maximum of 4 consumables per Hunter. Lost upon use. Consumables can be looted but not replaced– need to have at least one empty Consumable slot in order to loot a Consumable eg from a Toolbox.
 
 
 

Traits

Traits in Hunt are basically the same as perks in other games, which is why you’ll probably hear people often refer to traits as perks.
 
 
Most can be categorised as either pa*sive or active, which describes their effect.
 
Pa*sive means they make pa*sive changes (usually number changes)
 
Active means they grant or replace abilities.
 
 
Examples of Pa*sive traits: Kiteskin, Bolt Thrower, Mithridatist.
 
Examples of Active traits: Necromany, Serpent, Tomahawk.
 
 
Traits are categorised in the game as Offensive, Defensive, Movement or Supportive.
 
 
There are more than a few traits in Hunt, but not all of them will be useful to you. For example, if I’m not taking a crossbow, taking Bolt Thrower is a waste of upgrade points unless I plan on taking a crossbow later.
 
The important thing is that all of these Traits are upgrades, it’s just that they each are upgrades to varying degrees, and so some are just more useful than others. Adrenaline is considered to be one of the worst traits in the game, but it’s still technically an upgrade. The other aspect is that there are more than a few traits that are good or great, but niche. Using Bolt Thrower as an example, it only affects crossbows, but it’s a really nice upgrade because it speeds up how fast you reload with them. Levering is good but it only affects lever-action rifles, Fanning is good but it only affects revolvers, etc.
 
 
Hunters you recruit can have traits, and these are randomly decided by the game.
 
Hunters can each have up to a certain number of traits, and the number/combination is individual to each.
 
 
As a general rule, the more useful a trait is the more points it will cost.
 
 
You’ll also often end up with a small amount of points leftover after you’ve bought the traits you had in mind. This is where the filler traits come in. They’re not really specialised, and don’t make huge changes, but they’re nice to have around and can be fun.
 
 
You obviously don’t have to spend any or all of your upgrade points if you don’t want to.
 
 
WO:I personally prioritise Mithridatist and Physician on my hunters, and then spend the rest of my upgrade points on whatever i feel like. This is because I find Poison irritating but I’m not willing to bring an antidote shot, and I like being able to heal/bandage faster with Physician. Sometimes I level my Hunters up and leave their points unspent so that later on if I feel the itch to play a particular build, I don’t have to play a game or two to get the points/traits I need before I can actually start using the build. When I first started playing Hunt, I prioritised getting all the Defensive stuff first, but found that either I got bored of having the same traits all the time or that my hunters never lived long enough for me to get the “fun” traits, so I compromised with Physician and Mith. My go-to filler perks are Kiteskin (which lets me do cool Assa*sin’s Creed style plays every now and then), Tomahawk (in case I ever get the opportunity to do the Throw Hammer and Run achievement and Gator Legs. /
 
 
 

Loadout Strategy

Hunters (who you play as)

As mentioned in Gameplay Overview, each Hunter you recruit, you can play as and they’ll level up as you use them. However, if they die, you lose any gear they carried, any loot they picked up and you’ll earn half the experience points and cash for that match.
 
 
Hunt’s economy and earn-rate is pretty decently balanced, so even if you end up low on money at some point, it won’t take long to earn more and you don’t even have to be that skilled at the game to earn a good amount per match.
 
 
It’s best to think of Hunters as expendable a*sets– consumables in and of themselves.
 
 
Accept that you might lose Hunters you get attached to, it’s just part of the game’s design. It can be disappointing or frustrating if you lose Hunters or gear, but in the end, they’re just avatars to play the game through. Unless you are broke (which takes a while to achieve, and is fairly easy to recover from) you can always buy more.
 
 
On the flipside though, Hunters that reach Level 25 or above can be Retired for a hefty experience points (XP) bonus to your Bloodline that scales with the level of the Hunter, proposing a gamble; you can play it safe, retire a Hunter early and take longer to level up your Bloodline, or take the same Hunter into the Bayou again, hope you can survive and reap a bigger Retirement reward if you do.
 
 
Hunter levels are capped at 50, meaning that is the level to get them to if you want to Retire them for the maximum amount of Bloodline XP that you can.
 
 
 

Hunters (who you play against)

Prestige

World Overview

Each match takes place in one of three maps: Stillwater Bayou, Lawson Delta, and DeSalle.
 
Each map contains Compounds, which act as main areas for AI enemies, Clues, Bosses and Resources to appear in.
 
Compounds are named areas (viewable on the world map). They consist of one or more main buildings, which act as potential places for Bosses to spawn in, and surrounding secondary structures that follow the theme of the compound (for example, Lawson Station’s main buildings are the train house and train station, but the secondary structures include train carriages, a tower, surrounding walls and an adjacent half-constructed building.
 
Compounds are designed down to each crack in the wall and chain hanging from the ceiling to create an interesting place to fight, whether its blocking off lines of sight using wreckage, or forcing players to sacrifice security by having certain walls be partially broken, exposing that side of the building. They are designed to have alternative ways of both being defended or attacked, shaken up by the playstyles/loadouts of Hunters involved, and spawns of Resources and AI enemies, so that you can’t really approach the same compound the same way every time you’re there.
 
 
This doesn’t mean they’re all equally balanced, some certainly favour being defended over attacked and vice versa, but either way all of them present opportunities to both sides that reward creativity, planning, game sense and map knowledge.
 
 
In between compounds is open space. This is usually broken up by less dramatic but nonetheless interesting places to fight, such as corn fields, rundown shacks, and areas of swamp where cover is limited, encouraging stealthy plays and pincer tactics. These are dangerous places to get caught in, so most of the time you’ll be trying to fight inside Compounds if you can.
 
 
The world is populated with Sound Traps that spawn in more concentrated numbers inside Compounds, but they are sprinkled throughout the areas in between too. Sound Traps covers AI enemies, Living and Non-living Sound Traps. This means you’ll have to watch your step, as even if you’re in between compounds, you could startle a flock of Crows, signalling your position to other Hunters. As mentioned before, the most dangerous thing you’ll encounter in this game are other players, so you’ll generally be trying to make as little unnecessary noise as you can.
 
 
The world is also not static. Decoy Fuses can be used to light oil trails. Loud noises will attract nearby zed. Water Devils gurgle and bubble when they detect Hunters, even if they haven’t stepped in the water. Grunt footsteps will crunch on broken gla*s. An enraged Immolator will burn Crows that it moves past. The world interacts with itself more than most multiplayer games, even similar titles, where the place you fight in is more like scenery than actual environment. The more you understand and utilise your knowledge of how Hunt’s world works, the more of an edge you’ll gain.
 
 
WO: You’ll also make less dumb mistakes. I had a match yesterday where I was trying to catch up to my team, which was currently engaged in a firefight (I was lagging behind because I was looking around for ammo). As I headed towards my team, I spotted a Grunt in my path, pulled out my Dusters, charged a hit, and ran at him to punch him in the head. It was only just before I killed him that I noticed the torches in his hands, and the explosive barrel next to him. The resulting explosion downed me, forcing my teammates to continue the firefight with one less teammate. I was lucky that they were skilled enough to win the fight and could come back to rez me. /
 
 
 

Stationary Sound Traps (Living)

This section will explain more about each of the Stationary Sound traps.
 
 
These traps can be categorised further into Living and Non-living.
 
 
The quietest way to deal with any Sound Trap, living or not, is to avoid it entirely. That’s not always an option, so you’ll often find yourself deactivating them somehow and creating different levels of noise depending on which trap it is and how you’re deactivating it. The Living Soundtraps you’ll end up killing if not avoiding, which like as stated above, creates different levels of noise and types of sound depending on what Sound Trap it is and what you’re doing to it.
 
 
Each Sound Trap has one or multiple distinctive noises. As a result, as long as you’re close enough to hear it, you can recognise what Sound Traps Hunters are interacting with, even if they haven’t killed or Activated it.
 
 
All Living Soundtraps have three states: Idle, Alert and Activated. They have detection radiuses around them which represent their hearing. The distance at which they’re activated is mostly conducive to the noise you make, hence you can get closer to Dying Horses for example, without Activating them, while crouching, compared to if you sprint or jog. In the same way, you can Activate Dying Horses from further away by shooting. At a certain point though, even if you’re crouching and being your quietest, if you get close enough you’ll Alert and/or Activate the Living Soundtrap.
 
 
Remember, you’re not going to be able to kill them 100% silently. If you want to kill Living Sound Traps as quietly as you can, the universal way would be Poison Bolts/Bombs, as they deal damage in an AoE and only make a fairly quiet hissing/shattering sound. This means it can deal with single entity as well as multiple entity Sound Traps like the Crows, Dogs, and Ducks (explained later on this page ). The other quieter methods that will work for single entity Sound Traps are Throwing Axes/Knives, Silenced weapons, Regular Bolts/Arrows and unlit Lanterns (Check Tips Section for explanation).
 
 
Living:
 

• Dying Horses: These lie on the ground. They breath heavily but fairly quietly when Idle, occasionally flicking their tail/lifting their head. When Alert, they will look around much faster, and neigh loudly/more apprehensively. When Activated, they will neigh loudly and struggle to stand for a duration after you’ve left their detection range. No matter how you kill them, they make a not-quiet-but-not-loud unique death neigh. Dying Horses can hurt you by kicking you with their hind legs.

• Dog Kennels: These will be in a distinctive red-coloured cage. When Idle, they are fairly quiet, breathing heavily and lying down in their kennels. When Alert, they’ll stand on four legs and start growling. When Activated, they’ll stand up on their hind legs and bark loudly for a duration after you’ve left their detection range. Breaking the lantern above their cage in any way will rain fire on the dogs and kill them quickly (this is the quickest, usually easiest but not exactly the quietest, as the fire explosion creates a distinct “FOOMF” sound, plus it depends on how you break the lantern (anything that can deal damage can break the lantern). You can also throw a Lantern into the cage for the same effect, either to hit the cage lantern or to use the throwable Lantern as the fire source. They cannot escape their kennel, but if you’re in there with them they’ll hurt you and inflict Bleed. There will always be a little ramp in the kennel that you can climb up to escape out of it.

• Chicken Coops: These will be in a distinctive red-coloured cage. When Idle, they cluck quietly. When Alert, they’ll start cluck louder, and start moving around a little. When Activated, they will cluck loudly and move around frantically for a duration after you’ve left their detection range. Breaking the lantern above their cage in any way will rain fire on the chickens and kill them quickly (this is the quickest, usually easiest but not exactly the quietest, as the fire explosion creates a distinct “FOOMF” sound, plus it depends on how you break the lantern (anything that can deal damage can break the lantern). You can also throw a Lantern into the cage for the same effect, either to hit the cage lantern or to use the throwable Lantern as the fire source. There will always be a little ramp in the kennel that you can climb up to escape out of it.

• Crows: These gather in flocks of around 5 to 8 perched on various places. When Idle, they stay relatively still and dont caw. When Alert, they’ll caw fairly quietly, and flinch a tiny bit whenever you make a sound. When Activated, they will caw loudly and fly up into the air, eventually disappearing into the sky. The quickest way to kill these is with AoE damage (so anything like Dragon’s Breath ammo, Fire Bombs, Lanterns, explosives), however obviously you want to be as quiet as you can, in which case a Poison Bolt or Bomb would be the best choice. Regardless the method you use, you need to hit as many crows as possible at once, as if you do not hit more than half of the crows, the flock will not die and they’ll be Activated as normal. Crows cannot be killed with bullets/projectiles.

• Ducks: These gather in flocks of around 5 to 8 in water bodies like ponds. When Idle, they stay relatively still and dont quack. When Alert, they’ll quack fairly quietly, and flinch a tiny bit whenever you make a sound. When Activated, they will quack loudly and fly up into the air, eventually disappearing into the sky. The quickest way to kill these is with AoE damage (so anything like Dragon’s Breath ammo, Fire Bombs, Lanterns, explosives), however obviously you want to be as quiet as you can, in which case a Poison Bolt or Bomb would be the best choice. Regardless the method you use, you need to hit as many ducks as possible at once, as if you do not hit more than half of the crows, the flock will not die and they’ll be Activated as normal. Ducks cannot be killed with bullets/projectiles. Note that the water will snuff out most fire/explosives, so if using a fire device you’ll need to hit one of the ducks directly (excluding Liquid Fire Bombs, which can ignite in water)
   
   
   
  /list]

Stationary Sound Traps (Non-Living)

Non-living:
 
These are environmental sound traps that aren’t alive.
 

• Floor Junk:This is bottles, broken gla*s and tin cans that are scattered on patches of ground–usually by windows, holes in fences, basically places you are likely to go through. They each make distinctive audio cues and varying levels of noise when Activated. Floor Junk can’t be destroyed and it is activated when you move through it regardless of how. Crouchwalking through it is the quietest way to go through it, but be aware this will still produce a very quiet, distinct audio cue. Moving through Floor Junk without crouching will make a fairly loud sound.

• Hanging Junk: This is bottles, bells, chains, hooks etc that are hanging from the ceiling–usually in doorways, or buildings in general, basically interior places you are likely to go through. They each make distinctive audio cues and varying levels of noise when Activated. Hanging Junk can’t be destroyed and it is activated when you move through it through it without crouchwalking. Moving through Hanging Junk without crouching will make a fairly loud sound. Note that Hanging Junk has collision– it can block bullets, projectiles and throwables, making noise in the process.

• Twigs: These are large twigs/branches that are scattered around outside places, especially in wooded areas. They crack distinctly and fairly loudly if you move through it without crouching. You can crouchwalk over them without Activating them. After they’ve been broken, they can’t be Activated again.

• Water: Bodies of water on the ground, whether Deep or not, can be considered to be Sound Traps, as it makes your movement louder and more noticeable, even when crouching. Deep Water especially, as it makes your movements much louder and slows you down.

Resources

This section takes a look at the world resources you have available to help you in a match.
 
 
Note1: QP resource-wise is identical to BH with two key differences: a) you can find equipment on certain blue boxes scattered around the game world and b) overall more medkits will spawn in.
 
 
Note2: All of these resources/loot (except the world weapons) are usable only twice total and only once per person. This means that in a Trio, most people take turns looting them.
 
 
I’ll cla*sify these into Resources (used for combat) or Loot (not used for combat).
 
 
Note: Supply Points, marked by a wagon icon on your map, contain Resources. There are a limited number of Supply Points in a match. Supply Points contain guaranteed regular ammo and medkits. They have a random chance of also having Special Ammo, Toolboxes, and Lanterns.
 
 
Resources:
 
Note: all Resources make unique noises when you interact with them. You can use this information to your advantage, for example, to wait until you hear a Hunter start using a medkit so that you can jump them and surprise them while they’re missing health. All resources (except Ammo packs) also change their look depending on how many times they’ve been used. Lid closed = 0 uses, Lid half open = 1 use, Lid fully open = 2 uses. Medkit is opposite: Lid fully open = 0 uses, Lid half open = 1 use, Lid fully closed = 2 uses.
 

• Ammo Box/Crate: Large orange/brown box. Replenishes any regular ammo type (Compact, Medium, Long, Shotgun). Replenishes a random, capped amount of reserve ammo. You can receive multiple kinds of ammo per crate.

• Ammo Pack: Small, cube or rectangular pack. Replenishes one of the base ammo types. Replenishes a random, capped amount of reserve ammo. It is colour-coded so that you know what it yields (Compact = Red, Medium = Blue, Long = Yellow, Shotgun = Green).

• Special Ammo Box/Crate: Large, dark purple crate with writing on the lid. Replenishes Special Ammos. Replenishes a random, capped amount of reserve ammo.

• Toolbox: Small, bright orange box. Also referred to as a Lunchbox. Replenishes either Tool Charges or Consumables. Prioritises replenishing Tools.

• Medkit: Small, dark blue box. Replenishes health to maximum capacity (limited by greyed bars).

• Cash Registers: silver or gold-coloured mechanical cash register. Grants a moderate to large amount of Hunt Dollars. Makes a fairly loud, unique cha-ching sound when interacted with. Tray is closed = 0 uses, Tray is half open= 1 use, Tray is fully open = 2 uses.

Zed

If you’ve played horde games like Left4Dead, Vermintide, etc, this’ll be familiar. There are regular zed enemies that you’ll encounter more often, along with special enemies that each have more dramatic, unique gimmicks that help them fulfil their purpose.
 
 
As mentioned before, all the AI enemies in this game are primarily designed to a)make noise and b)disrupt players. All of them can kill you, and fast, but it’s secondary to their design intent. They force you to approach situations differently. More often than not, you won’t have an easy, direct route to where you want to go because these things will be in the way. You’ll be forced to make compromises and split-second decisions when they throw a wrench into your plan by hinting at your position, standing between you and where you want to be, or just straight up trying to kill you while you’re sandwiched between the bounty-defending team and two other attacking squads of Hunters. If you ever find yourself backed into a corner, screaming at these undead dudes to leave you alone, they’re definitely doing their job right.
 
 
Zed are found in higher numbers in Compounds, but they are sprinkled pretty much everywhere in the map. The game will respawn zed in eventually, but it’s after a very long period of time, so the majority of the time if you’re visiting a compound and you don’t see very much zed around, chances are enemy Hunters have been through it too.
 
 
The fastest way to deal with the AI enemies is to utilise their respective weaknesses, like Fire, Poison, headshots, etc. But you’ll usually be using melee to kill them or just avoiding them entirely, as you’ll be trying to keep the amount of unnecessary noise you make to a minimum. There are times when avoiding zed is the smarter option, as this is the quietest way to deal with them.
 
 
Zed interact with the world and with each other. If you make an enraged Immolator run through an oil trail, it’ll ignite it. If a Grunt swings its arm to attack and there’s another Grunt in the way, that Grunt will take damage. Zed can activate non-living sound traps. You’ll learn to be able to discern between Zed-created sounds and Hunter-created sounds as you play the game more.
 
 
Grunts, Immolators, Armoured and Hives share similar hitboxes to Hunters. More info in their Sections of this guide.
 
 
 

Grunt

Grunts are just regular zombies. They shamble around, patrol areas, or stay in one spot until they detect noise.
 
 
They don’t really have anything special about them except for spawning in more frequency compared to the funky zed, but they shouldn’t be underestimated. They have a knack for spawning in groups to overwhelm you, or bothering you when you’re trying to be stealthy, potentially revealing your location.
 
 
Characteristics:
 

• Attacks: Can be unarmed or armed with either cleavers or torches. Unarmed just deals flat damage. If hit with cleavers or torches, you will receive Bleed or Char/Burn respectively.

• When Idle, Grunts move slowly and are somewhat quiet (they breath heavily and cough). When Alert, their animations change and sounds change and become louder. When they’re Angry, they move fastest and are loudest. In a straight line, you have a higher top speed and can outrun them eventually, but they have quicker acceleration which means they can usually hit you once or twice before you move out of range (they’ll give up chasing you after a short while).

• Grunts are great for farming XP in general, especially for weapons. If there’s a weapon you want to unlock stuff for quicker, take it (or ideally its melee and/or silenced variant) into a match and just kill Grunts with it as often as you can. You can do this to kill more dangerous enemies– but Grunts are the easiest and most numerous target.

Armoured

Armoured are essentially armoured Grunts.
 
 
They are covered in thick woven fibre that absorbs impacts, making certain types of damage more effective against them than others. Their attacks deal more damage than regular grunts, although they don’t inflict extra effects.
 
They also have a variant that is covered in Concertina wire, giving them a little extra HP and causing Bleed damage if you touch them (info later in this page, marked with “C“.
 

 
Characteristics:
 
Attacks: Deals flat damage.
 
When Idle, Armoured move slowly and are somewhat quiet (they growl, and make a low, wheezing/howling noise that sounds a lot like wind blowing). When Alert, their animations change and sounds change and become louder, plus their growls become deeper. When they’re Angry, they move fastest and are loudest. In a straight line, you have a higher top speed and can outrun them eventually, but they have quicker acceleration which means they can usually hit you once or twice before you move out of range (they’ll give up chasing you after a short while).
 
Health: They have a decent amount of health. They take multiple shots with regular bullets/shot to kill. They have identical hitboxes to Hunters. Damaging their leg(s) will reduce their movement speed.
 
Weaknesses: Fire (instant kill, but they scream fairly loudly), Explosives, Poison (Poison Bolts/Arrows are great for this), Piercing damage (Bayonets, Knife’s Heavy attack, Martini Riposte Heavy attack, etc.)
 
Melee Killing:Number of Melee hits to the chest to kill. Dusters (Five Heavies), Knife (Three Heavies), Heavy Knife (Three Heavies), Knuckle Knife (Four Heavies).
 
 
C attacks = deals damage + inflicts Bleed.
 
Takes one extra Melee hit to kill.
 
Hitting them with melee causes you to take damage and Bleed.
 
Tips:
 
Fire is quick to kill both Armoured variants, so taking a tool like a Flare Gun/Fusees is helpful for dealing with them + other zed.
 
 
 

Hive

Hives are zombies with hives sticking out of their chests. When they detect you, they’ll move to within attack range if they need to and send a Swarm after you.
 
 
Swarms are loud, deal a lot of damage if left unchecked and Poison you, stopping you from any kind of healing and disrupting your vision and hearing. They consist of a swarm of green insects that buzz as they fly, stinging any Hunter they come into contact with.
 
 
Characteristics:
 

• Attacks: Releases a Swarm that seeks out the person the Hive detected, lasting for a duration before dispersing or until killed. Hives can only have one Swarm active at a time. A Swarm will disperse if the Hive that spawned it dies. A Swarm will only attack Hunters, and when it is initially spawned by a Hive, it will seek out the Hive’s target. If it loses line of sight of its target, it will hover in place until it detects another target or disperses by any means. A Swarm can be dispersed by hitting it with three Rending melee attacks. The quickest way is by light-attacking with the Dusters/Knuckle Knife (doesn’t Rend, but still works on them) or Knife.

• When Idle, Hives move slowly and are fairly loud (you can hear their screaming and wheezing). When Alert, their animations change and sounds change and become louder. When they’re Angry, they move fastest and are loudest. They will turn to constantly face their target, as they spawn Swarms periodically to attack them. You can run faster than the Hive itself, which has a slow top speed. But the Swarm is a little different. In a straight line, you have a higher top speed and can outrun a Swarm eventually, but it has quicker acceleration which means it can usually hit you and deal 25+ damage before you move out of range. Swarms also have a large turning circle, so you can use your advantage of being able to turn faster in order to avoid contact with a Swarm for longer.

• Generally, the most practical way to deal with a Swarm is to melee it. If you try to outrun it, it takes longer because you’re relying on the Swarm to disperse by itself, plus you can’t stop moving, so you probably won’t have any cover, making you easier to shoot at.

Immolator

Immolators are the flaming skeleton looking things. They shamble around, patrol areas, or stay in one spot until they detect noise.
 
 
They’re sometimes called “Immos” for short.
 
 
If their skin is pierced in any way, they will become Enraged. What Enrages them: physical contact with all bullets/shot (except Poison rounds), Concertina Wire, Rending damage, Piercing Damage.
 
 
When they become Enraged, they’ll stop in place and explode once. After this, they move/attack faster, inflict Burn with their attacks, patrol more erratically, and can detect you from further away. They do not stop being Enraged until they die. Once Enraged, an Immolator will burn itself out and die eventually, even if it doesn’t take any other damage.
 
 
They are dangerous for various reasons:
 
1. They have the largest detection radius out of all of the zed.
 
2. Enraging them while you’re close by is a very bad idea, as the Burning combined with the their attacks will fatally wound you if not outright kill you. Even if you survive, you’ll have a large amount of Char and maybe even greyed out health chunks.
 
3. Blunt is the only consistently practical way to deal with them, which leaves you with fairly limited options of taking them down.
 
 
Characteristics:
 
Attacks:When not Enraged, they deal flat damage with multiple, quick attacks dealing smallish damage with each swing. When Enraged, the attack pattern is the same but they inflict Char/Burn. When Immos’ Enraged mode is activated, they will stop where they are and explode, emitting a small wave of fire that will ignite any flammable things it touches. After this explosion, they will resume attacking their target if they can.
 
 
When Idle, Immos move slowly and are somewhat quiet (they growl and emit crackling sounds). When Alert, their animations change and sounds change and become louder. When they’re Angry, they move fastest and are loudest. In a straight line, you have a lower top speed and will not be able to outrun them (they won’t give up chasing you unless they either die or choose a different target).
 
Health: They have decent health and are able to take a fair amount of damage. They have identical hitboxes to Hunters. Headshots do deal extra damage, but will only be a OHK with Poison ammo within the weapon’s Effective Range.
 
Weaknesses: Explosives (instant kill, but explosives are very loud so not great for stealth), Poison (Taking 1 to 3 shots to go down, depending on the base damage and hitbox hit), Choke (Choke clouds from any Choke source will kill them instantly upon contact, even if they’re just running through it).
 
Melee Killing: Number of Melee hits to kill (excluding dedicated melee weapons/weapons with melee attachments). Large Slot (4 Heavies to the Head).
 
 
Tips:
 

• Immolators are very annoying to get caught by, especially when you’re trying to be stealthy. Consider taking Poison/Bolts/Bombs or Choke bolts/Bombs if you want to make dealing with them easier. You have a very limited amount of Choke Bombs though so you’ll only want to use them on Immos if you absolutely have to.

• If you see an enemy Hunter getting attacked by an Immolator, a good strategy is to Enrage it on purpose, guaranteeing a large amount of damage to be dealt to them.

• Immos tend to spawn on their own or paired with a Hive.

Hellhound

Hellhounds are the zombified-looking dogs. They have exposed skulls and bones, glowing eyes, and tend to spawn in packs.
 
 
Hellhounds sometimes have metal helmets, which protect them from headshots.
 
 
Their attacks inflict Bleed, and because of their speed, can surround you and take you down very quickly.
 
 
Stamina management is very important against them (a*suming you haven’t got a Stamina Shot) because you usually have to kill multiple of them and even more stamina-efficient melees like the Dusters, Knuckle Knife and Knife can still leave you vulnerable if you miss your attacks and waste stamina.
 
 
They are dangerous for various reasons:
 
1. They tend to spawn in packs, so most of the time when you see one hound, there are others nearby.
 
2. They move fast, attack fast, and jump back after each attack, making counter-attacks difficult to land if you’re not focused.
 
3. Hounds with helmets can usually get much closer to you because their helmet blocks headshots, and as they run towards you, their head is usually the only part of them that you can aim at.
 
4. The Bleed they deal stacks, so getting hit multiple times will leave you especially vulnerable once you start trying to heal/bandage, as you’ll take longer (thus being slowed down for longer).
 
5. They have a large detection radius and are loud, so they can very easily compromise your position and reveal you to other Hunters.
 
 
Characteristics:
 
Attacks: Hellhounds try to pounce on you and then dodge backwards right afterwards to avoid a retaliatory hit (regardless of whether they managed to land their attack on you)
 
 
When Idle, Hellhounds move slowly and are somewhat quiet (they growl). When Alert, they start scampering around and periodically stopping in place to howl (leaving them easy to headshot), and with this method, they will slowly move closer and closer to their target. When they’re Angry, they move fastest and are loudest. In a straight line, you have a lower top speed and will not be able to outrun them (they won’t give up chasing you unless they either die or choose a different target).
 
Health: They have fairly low health. Headshots are a OHK within the weapon’s Effective Range, but hounds with helmets cannot be headshot.
 
 
Weaknesses: Explosives (instant kill, but explosives are very loud so not great for stealth), Poison (Taking 1 to 3 shots to go down, depending on the base damage and hitbox hit).
 
Melee Killing: Number of Melee hits to kill (excluding dedicated melee weapons/weapons with melee attachments). Dusters = Two Heavy hits. Knife = One Heavy hit.
 
 
Tips:
 

• If you’re meleeing them, be aggressive. Run towards one after it tries to bite you, that way you can still land a hit even though they try to dodge backwards. Their timing is very predictable, eventually you won’t have a problem hitting them.

• Heavy hits to their body with the Knife OHK.

• If too many are coming at you (since Hounds tend to spawn in packs), you can kill them easily by creating fire between you and them (either throwing a Lantern, Fire Bomb, igniting oil, etc). Hounds are not smart enough to go around the fire, so they’ll continue running at you through the flames and 9/10 will all die without even landing a hit.

• If fences have holes in the bottom that let you crouchwalk through, Hounds are able to get through there as well. So be careful if you decide to avoid them by hopping over the other side of a fence, because the hounds might just find the nearest hole and crawl through towards you. The flipside of this is that only one hound can move through that fence hole at a time, so you can use it like a chokepoint to funnel them through and hit them one by one as they come through, minimising the danger.

Meathead/Leeches

Meatheads are the tall, lumbering monsters surrounded by leeches that they spawn from their body, in a symbiotic relationship.
 
 
Meatheads have specific spawn spots, but whether they actually spawn is random chance.
 
 
Meatheads are sensitive to Poison, and can detect Poisoned Hunters from further away. So, getting too close to the Leeches is a bad idea because they’ll Poison you, which turns you into the Meathead’s target if you aren’t already. Moving too close to the Meathead itself will still cause them to detect you.
 
 
Meatheads are headless, blind, and shamble around in a little area of territory, that they will only leave if provoked, and even after provoked, if they don’t detect a target or moved too far from their patrol zone, they will give up chasing and go back to their zone and continue patrolling.
 
 
The Meatheads’ own detection radius is very small, but the leeches that follow it around effectively extend it, as Leeches treat their Meathead as their own territory and with similar behaviour — they will chase you up to a certain distance if they detect you, and if they don’t detect a target for long enough or have strayed too far from their Meathead, they will move back and stay near their Meathead.
 
 
The number of leeches a Meathead has spawned at any point is limited. You can kill Leeches, but eventually the Meathead will spawn more to replace the ones that have been killed. If you kill a Meathead, all the leeches it spawned will die simultaneously.
 
 
Meathead Characteristics:
 
Attacks: MHs– either armed with a large knife (inflicts Bleed) or hook (flat damage).
 
When Idle, Meatheads move slowly and are fairly loud (they make rumbling noises and their footsteps thump on the ground). When Alert, their animations change and sounds change and become louder. When they’re Angry, they move fastest and are loudest (they roar and their footsteps thump louder as they move). In a straight line, you have a higher top speed and can outrun them eventually, but they have quicker initial acceleration which means that if you start running away too late then you might end up taking a hit or two.
 
Health: They are tanky. They also don’t have a head, so they cannot be headshot. They also have Bulk, like the Butcher, so they take less damage from Blunt melee attacks.
 
Weaknesses: There is no quiet way to kill a Meathead. Fire (loud and takes a while to kill them– multiple applications may be needed), Explosives (instant kill, basically the easiest way), Poison (effective, but won’t OHK them).
 
 
Leech Characteristics:
 
Attacks: Bite you (inflicts Poison).
 
Idle: Either “Stands up” on its back half, mouth in the air, or lays still on the ground, making squeaking noises. Will inch along the ground in order to keep a mostly consistent distance from the Meathead. Angry: Moves fastest and is loudest. They are slower than you, and have much lower acceleration too. They are overall pretty quiet but can still be heard if you’re within a few metres of them.
 
Weaknesses: Everything. Leeches have 1 HP so they can be killed with anything.
 
 
Tips:
 

• Meatheads are worth a big amount of XP. Consider trying to kill them with equipment that you are trying to level up and unlock variants for, in order to gain a bunch of XP for it.

• One stick of dynamite (and thus one of any other explosive) is enough to kill them, just make sure it explodes before they get a chance to move too far away from it. Even just a metre or two and they’ll be too far to die from the explosion.

• You can sprint past Leeches, even move right over them, and you’ll be too fast for them to hit. The Meathead has an equal or lower top speed to you and won’t be able to catch you if you are sprinting. The Meathead will still probably detect you and chase you, but the point is if you need to get past a Meathead, you can.

• Meatheads will perform a set attack pattern if they are damaged but cannot detect a target: 1. Runs a set distance in direction of target, swinging weapon while moving. 2. Turns 180 degrees, then swings its weapon once diagonally, hunching down for a second. After this, they will return to idle behaviour. You can use this to lure them out of the way temporarily if you want to get past them, or to lure them next to a barrel so that you can blow them up.

• Killing Leeches will also cause a Meathead to become aggressive, and it might make the Meathead perform its unknown target attack pattern (listed above).

• It is technically possible to kill a Meathead with melee, but it takes a while because of their health, and even longer if you aren’t using a heavy weapon. It’s also very dangerous, as a Meathead can deal around 50 damage with each hit. So I wouldn’t recommend it.

• Leeches emit small Poison clouds when they try to bite you, which the Meathead can detect. So even if a Leech tries to bite you and fails, the Meathead will still sense the Poison and will investigate.

Water Devils

Water Devils are packs of carnivorous aquatic creatures.
 
They are limited to water, and make it very dangerous to cross near them. They are also one of the noisiest enemies.
 
 
They cannot hurt you if you are on dry land. They can still potentially hurt you if you are in shallow water.
 
 
There is no quiet way to kill Water Devils because they become Angry as soon as they detect something within their detection radius in the water, and the only way to OHK them is with explosives or a close-range buck/penny/slug shot blast.
 
 
Characteristics:
 
Attacks: After a delay, starts moving towards you. Deals continuous damage and Bleed as long as you are in physical contact with them.
 
When Idle, they are stationary and are somewhat quiet (they create audible ripples and bubbles on the surface of the water). When Alert, their animations change and sounds change and become louder. When they’re Angry, they move fastest and are loudest (they screech), and they reveal themselves. In a straight line, you have a much slower top speed and cannot outrun them.
 
Health: They are on the tankier side; Compact ammo weapons take around 5 shots to kill them. Medium = 3ish. Long = two. They cannot be headshot.
 
Weaknesses: Explosives (OHK), Poison (effective, but AoE effects like from Poison Bolts/Bombs are harder to kill them with because the Water Devils won’t necessarily stay within the effect radius), Fire (also effective, like Poison, they won’t necessarily stay within the fire’s AoE).
 
 
Tips:
 

• Don’t try to melee them. They’ll deal much more damage to you than you can to them unless you have a reaching weapon like a bayonet or pitchfork– but it’s not going to be quiet, they’ll still screech.

• Their detection radius still works like most other Zeds– if you crouchwalk through the water, you won’t aggro them from as far away as you would if you sprint through the water.

• If you have to get through the water and quick, consider throwing something into the water (such as a Lantern, Decoy or Fusee) to lure them further away, as they’ll be drawn to the splash, thinking it’s prey– after they move away you can try and cross. This technique won’t guarantee that you won’t take damage (they might still detect you and then go after you, but will take longer to get to you because they’re further away), and might require you to sacrifice a consumable or tool charge, but it definitely buys you time if you do it right.

Bosses

As of writing this guide, Hunt has four Bosses: The Butcher, The Spider, The Assa*sin and Scrapbeak.
 
 
Each of these bosses has a kind of gimmick to make them a little more unique. They can all be dangerous, but they’re ultimately predictable, so as you get more experienced at the game you won’t think twice about having to kill one, even if you’re playing solo.
 
 
Bosses will spawn in a main building (called a Lair if it’s got a Boss in it) in a Compound, and they cannot leave it. The Lair’s appearance will be changed depending on the Boss that resides in it.
 
All bosses have a Frenzy mode, which is activated when they take a certain amount of damage and lasts for a set duration. In Frenzy Mode, they move and attack faster, cannot be stunned, and take reduced damage from all sources. They’ll also have a Frenzy move or two that’s unique to each of them. There’s no way to end Frenzy mode early, so you’ll just have to wait it out if you don’t want to deal with it.
 
 
Butcher and Scrapbeak can both be stunned periodically with a melee attack when they are not in Frenzy mode. This can be used to buy time, whether for landing more damage or for escaping.
 
 
All bosses will do specific movements and make specific sounds when using their attacks and transitioning between Normal and Frenzy mode, giving you cues and time to react.
 
All bosses are immune to Bleed, just like Zed. They can still take impact damage from sources that can inflict Bleed (bladed melees, DumDum bullets, Concertina Wire, etc.).
 

• Butcher: Gimmick is Fire. Is Immune to Fire damage (doesn’t take damage from Fire and cannot be set on fire). Has Bulk (takes reduced damage from Blunt melee attacks). Melee–swings the hook in its hand. Ranged: Throws a fireball that explodes on impact and leaves behind flames that last for a duration. Frenzy Move: Sets its hook on fire, so that its melees can Burn you and ignite surroundings. Throws fireballs more often.

• Spider: Gimmick is Poison. Is Immune to Poison Damage. Melee: 1. Bites. 2. Usually from up on a ceiling or wall, pounces down onto you, dealing damage and stunning you temporarily. Ranged: Spits a poison blob that deals damage/Poison on impact and leaves behind a Poison cloud that lasts for a duration. Frenzy: Becomes more aggressive and attacks more often.

• Assa*sin: Gimmick is Bleed. Melee: Rushes at you to try and stab you, inflicting damage and Bleed. Ranged: Throws a dagger that deals damage and Bleed. Frenzy: Stays in place for a duration while splitting itself into illusions – during this phase it takes less damage from non-Piercing Heavy melee (melee weapons cla*sed as Heavy) damage – after which the illusionary Assa*sins will rush at you and explode into nothing when damaged or upon contact with you (this deals a smallish amount of damage). If an illusion is killed while close to you, it will hinder your vision with bugs and aimpunch you periodically.

• Scrapbeak: Gimmick is Concertina Wire and Hoarding. Hoarding: No Items spawn in the Compound. Instead, as Scrapbeak’s health decreases, he will periodically drop Resources(Ammo, Medkits, Toolboxes, Traits, World Weapons and Bear Traps) onto the ground. These items are unique because they can be destroyed by fire and explosives, even if you hit Scrapbeak with fire/explosives just before he drops them. Scrapbeak takes less damage from all sources that hit him in the back, except Piercing, which ignores the reduction. He does not take damage from Concertina Wire, but still breaks it when he touches it. Melee: Swings the weapon in his hand (which will be a random world melee weapon). Ranged: Throws a Concertina Bomb. Frenzy: Whenever he takes damage, up to a capped rate, he will drop or throw a Concertina bomb.

Tips

Some of these tips are mentioned in other sections of the guide, I included them here just so they’re easier to access.
 

• Hunt is very tactical, similar to R6 Siege. But run ‘n’ gun can work just as well sometimes. Same with melee rushes. As you play, you’ll develop an idea of when to do what. The biggest tip by far is, don’t panic! It’s just a game, if you’ve already unlocked whatever you lost, you can buy it back. Don’t sweat it.

• If you’re running low on cash, use the free hunters and outfit them with the bare minimum. Whatever weapons they’re carrying is usually fine, plus a medkit and dusters. Take two weak vitality shots and a firebomb as well if you want to be a little more prepared. If you’ve got the money, you can take choke bombs too. All of these together make a pretty cheap, decent, loadout.

• Don’t peek the same angle multiple times in a row. Peek, Fire, Reposition, repeat. You can generally get away with repeeking at low/middle MMR like where I am, but if you want to get better at Hunt, this is key. When you repeek an angle, you become predictable, and make yourself an easier and easier target the more you do it.

• Try not to shoot or startle crows and ducks, especially in the beginning of the match, and a*sume your teammates want to be stealthy unless they state otherwise. By all means go loud, if you feel you have the skill or intent to back it up– but check with your teammates first(ideally in the lobby), or play solo.

• The spawns are on the main roads (the bigger ones) that lead to the compounds around the edge of the map. Check where you are on the map when you spawn in, note the nearest main roads, and listen out/watch for sound and movement coming from their direction. Just a*sume you’ve spawned near people regardless, and you’ll find you’ll almost never be shot from a direction you didn’t expect in the beginning of the match.

• If you see zed spawn in as you get closer (commonly called “popping in”), it means that you are the first person/team to be in this area. This is because for optimisation, the game doesn’t spawn them in unless players are within a certain range/can see them. Likewise, utilise what visual zooming you have (scopes or the Spygla*s are best for this), even if you only have iron sights– if you see zed spawn in, and you aren’t close by (meaning not within 20m or so) chances are there’s at least one enemy Hunter near where you’re looking. Although (this only happens if you’re far away from where you’re looking), if the zed you’re looking at spawns in when you zoom in and disappears when you zoom out, don’t take that as confirmation, because that could be your render distance limiting what you see from far away.

• Don’t underestimate tripwire or bear traps. Watch the ground, call them out to your teammates, whether they’re yours or an enemy Hunter’s. Disarm them only if you know you’re safe and if you won’t need them later. As a step up from that, try and consider (a*suming it’s an enemy trap) if activating it on purpose would be a good idea (for example, if it’s a poison trap and you’ve got/used an Antidote shot. The poison cloud from the trap would discourage anyone who doesn’t have an antidote from going through it, and you could go through it without getting damaged/poisoned, making it a potential escape route if it’s in a doorway).

• You can use medkits and shots on teammates by moving close enough that you’re touching them and then pressing your use item button while the medkit/syringe is in your hand. You’ll know you’re within range when your hands move out to reach towards them.

• You can pick up ammo from weapons directly, not just ammo crates. Pick up the weapon you want to get ammo from to automatically take from its reserve ammo. This only works if you are holding a weapon that shares that ammo type (including special ammo type). E.g I’m low on shotgun ammo for my Romero, and i find a dead Hunter with a Caldwell Rival. I swap my Romero for his Caldwell, then swap them again, receiving my romero and replenished shotgun ammo. You are still limited by your reserve ammo capacity limit.

• You can melee unlocked hinged doors/windows and gates to open them. Explosives(including explosive ammo) also fling them open, if they don’t destroy them. This is the fastest and loudest way to open them. This can come handy for for breaching, getting into a building quickly etc.

• Most zed can detect you from much further away and move slowly closer until you actually aggro them, which is when they’ll actually attack. You’ll know if they’re aggro’d because they’ll make their distinctive aggro sound.

• For melee, choose based on your intent. Weapons with reach(sabre, bayonet, pitchfork, knife) are the best for PvP whereas sweeping/stamina-efficient weapons are more suited for PvE (dusters, heavy knife, machete). The axe and bomb lance deal very high damage but have less reach compared to a sabre. Also consider damage types/attack types. More info in the Melee Section of the guide.

• Concertina wire can be destroyed by explosives(the quickest way to deal with it), FMJ bullets, Rending attacks or by moving through it. Attacks from heavier Rending weapons(combat/world axe, riposte, heavy knife) destroy it faster compared to lighter weapons that can Rend. Concertina cannot be destroyed by Blunt or Piercing damage.

• Choke bombs extinguish fire and dispel poison gas. Plus, you can use them to discourage people from going through certain areas. The choke bomb’s initial explosion deals minor damage if you are close enough, but also the gas has an increased area of effect at this time, after which it transforms into a slightly smaller persisting choke cloud. You can use the initial bigger explosion of choke to extinguish downed burning allies without leaving them entirely in the choke cloud (which would cause you to cough if you get caught in it.) This way you can revive them without coughing and giving away your position.

• Unlit Lanterns can be thrown at a Dying Horse’s head to OHK it fairly quietly. Lit Lanterns can do the same (as this technique is using the physical impact damage of the Lantern) but the fire they create will make a loud noise, somewhat defeating the purpose.

Tips For Learning

• Check out people who create Hunt content. There’s plenty of streamers and YouTubers that have varying styles of content and the way they approach Hunt. Psychoghost, RachtaZ, 4FS Gaming. Geef and Kerrty are probably the most well-known.

• Whenever you get a chance, look at what your teammates are doing. If you’re dead, spectate them. This is a great way to learn behaviours that benefit your performance. Analyse what angles they peek, which consumables they use and when, how much to lead targets, that kind of thing. This method is also great for learning what not to do, because 9/10 times you can spot the mistakes they make, and if you’re spectating, you don’t have to worry about staying alive, which makes concentrating on breaking down what they’re doing easier. Lastly, this method is great for reinforcing what you already know and recognising how much you’ve learnt. Since you’ll be matched with a mix of people (as MMR doesn’t directly correlate with skill), you’ll get the chance to see various playstyles and skill levels. Consider spectating an enemy Hunter once you’ve died too.

• Always check the Kill View to see where you got killed from. This, like the above tip, will show you angles to use, alternate entrances to a compound, risky windows etc. Also, consider spectating the rest of the people in the match after you’ve died. You’ll get to see how other players deal with situations and you can use this knowledge to help you in the future.

• If you go to the Arsenal/Store, you can look at weapons in 3D view. Scroll with your mouse wheel, and you can listen to how it sounds when it fires from anywhere up to 1000m. This includes the Flare Gun, Quad Derringer, Crossbow, Hand Crossbow, Bow and Bomb Lance. Try and remember the weapon sounds, as they give you a heads-up about how to deal with certain situations and what Hunters are carrying in their loadouts (and hence how to deal with them).

• This has already been mentioned before, but use Training as a firing range to test as much stuff as you want. As long as you can equip something, you can test it in Training. Quickplay is also good for jumping into action faster and practising fighting Hunters.

• Based on your learning style, you’ll probably either need variety to stay interested in learning, in which case fill your loadouts with whatever you want to learn, or if you prefer to focus on one thing at a time, do that instead. There’s no rule saying how to learn, do what works for you.

• There’s also no rule that says you have to bring a “meta” loadout either. Experiment, have fun. That’s one of the cool things about this game, everything is viable, it’s just a matter of practice and purpose. The meta isn’t strongly defined, so you won’t be at a huge disadvantage if you don’t bring stuff that’s considered “meta”.

• There’s an official Hunt Discord and subreddit, these are great for asking questions and finding people to play with.

Stationary Sound Traps

Things to be aware of – Part 1

These are things that are good to be aware of when you play Hunt. Some of it is emergent behaviour (like instaburning). I’ve also included bugs, which I don’t know the exact causes of, but I’ve encountered them or seen other people encounter them. I’m sure there are others I haven’t mentioned.
 

• Left peeking: I don’t know exactly how this issue was caused, but as far as I know, it’s because of the position of the first-person camera (your pov) in relation to how your body is rendered in third-person (how other people see you). It means that when you peek from the left side of an object (your left, not the enemy’s), more of your body is hidden behind your cover compared to if you peek from the right. This makes you harder to hit and makes a difference in fights. By extension, this means that a lot of players will favour peeking from the left instead of right, so you can use this to predict where they might peek from, not just which side of an object but which object they’ll use and which direction they might approach from.

• Getting taller when ADSing with certain weapons: Again, don’t exactly know how this was caused, but certain weapons cause your Hunter to be slightly taller when ADS compared to other weapons. This can cause your head to be exposed over certain cover. I know the Berthier is definitely affected by this, I don’t know what the other affected weapons are.

• Instaburning: This is when someone sets your body on fire immediately or almost immediately after you’re downed. As covered before, burning damages your maximum health capacity, and will cut into your actual HP, even when you’re downed. This means burning applies immediate pressure on the rest of that team, and instaburning makes that pressure even more immediate.
   
   
   
  WO:I don’t like when people instaburn or burn bodies in general. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an effective tactic as it places a giant death-timer on whoever’s downed and burning, forcing your opponent to act quick. I just personally don’t find it fun to go against. I try to use alternatives, such as choke bombs, poison bombs or concertina wire, as those achieve a similar pressure and/or revive denial without damaging the person who’s downed. I also try not to spam even if I’m fighting someone who is. /

• Extreme Camping/Extreme Sniping: Some players take playing around their effective range to the extreme. For example, camping inside a building with a shotgun and refusing to leave. This can lead to stalemates, drawn-out/unenjoyable sieges and wasted time. It can go on for a long time, even until the match timer ends, killing all Hunters involved.
   
   
   
  WO:Similar to the above, I think effective doesn’t necessarily mean fun. Camping 300m~ away and sniping may sometimes net kills and work well, but I don’t find it enjoyable when a teammate or an enemy does it. Same with holing up with your shotgun in a building, spamming concertina wire/poison traps. I’ve never tried either of these strategies, but I have gone up against them enough to realise I don’t find it fun to play against. If I feel me and my team are up for it, I might try to take the defending team down, but most of the time I feel the risk of losing my Hunter /committing so much time to an unfun situation just isn’t outweighed by the reward. /

• Certain Combos: Example– Levering, Fanning and Dual-Wielding augment hipfire. Using hipfire in this game is fine and can be better at times than ADS and depending on the gun, L, F or DW makes it more or less effective in certain ways. These effects are highlighted on certain combos of weapons and ammo. For example dual-wielding chain pistols with FMJ/DumDums, or Winfield Levering and FMJ/HV. The first example gives you 34, rapid-fire shots that a)with FMJ make your bullets practically identical to Long Ammo or b) with DumDums make kills easier to secure and pressure easier to apply because of the bleed. The Winfield example gives you either 16 or 18 rapid fire shots that a) with FMJ see above, but now you can be more effective at long ranges because you can ADS or b) use HV which increases your muzzle velocity, which at close range essentially turns the weapon into a hitscan machinegun at close range.
   
   
   
  WO: I personally am not a fan of these combos, and some others that don’t involve Levering/Fanning too. I don’t mind that these options are part of the game, I just think they’re a little too powerful. Like I said, I think there’s a fine line between gimmick and cheap shot. /

• Camo advantage with certain skins: Some skins blend in better than others. This is the known intent with the Tiered Hunters on the recruitment page; The higher the tier, the more experienced that Hunter is (lore-wise) and so they’ll have darker clothing, more expensive equipment, more traits and will cost more to recruit. White Shirt Hunters are widely agreed on to be noticeably easier to spot.
   
   
   
  This camouflage is seen more obviously on some Legendary skins, which are a source of debate within the community. These skins are: Cain, Reptilian and Headsman. To a lesser extent, Bone Doctor, Weird Sister, Black Coat and Prodigal Daughter. The reason for this debate is that some feel that these skins, especially since most are bought with real money, are Pay-To-Win(P2W) or leaning towards it. The opposing line of thought is that this is fine, whether they think a) the skins don’t provide a huge advantage or b) since they paid for the game and its DLCs, they’re entitled to play it however they want.
   
   
   
  The factors in this camouflage effect are not just the darkness of the tones, but also the model’s silhouette and colour palette. Some of these skins are better than others, most have some kind of tradeoff. The Headsman can blend into darkness easier, so night maps are great for him, and his shrouded silhouette compliments this. But his dark clothing makes him much easier to see in brighter settings and against brighter backgrounds. The Bone Doctor and Weird Sister have dark clothing too, but are easier to spot and more recognisable because of their brighter, distinctive skull mask/facepaint, and their silhouettes are more obvious.
   
   
   
  The Reptilian has a somewhat distinctive silhouette, and blends in well in greener environments like wooded areas or areas with lots of reeds, bushes and shrubs. The dark green colour can help at night, but like the Headsman makes him easier to spot in bright settings. Cain is the most divisive, as his model seems have more advantage than tradeoff. His colour palette is somewhat dark, but the tones used match most of the game’s environment, causing him to blend in against more backgrounds, even in bright surroundings, especially if he’s in soft cover. His silhouette is also broken up by his backpack, causing him to be harder to recognise, even if he’s moving in cover. He appears to be the most effective in terms of camouflage, and most of the debate is centered around him.
   
   
   
  WO:I don’t really know which side I’m on, I think both make good points. And from firsthand experience, I’ve definitely found it hard to spot all of the skins mentioned, Cain being the most difficult. Crytek also redid Cain to make him a little easier to spot by making his skin a little brighter./

Things To Be Aware of – Part 2

• Toxicity: WO: I’ve found Hunt to have a pretty good community overall, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve encountered toxic players. The Hunt Reddit seemed have more toxic comments and whatever, but that’s probably just because I’m encountering more people who are actually talking. The large majority of my random trio games are either nobody says anything or we only communicate about objectives/kill tracking.

Hunt Etiquette/Behaviour

Basically Do’s and Don’ts, in terms of playing with others in Hunt. Some of these are strategy tips, but they’ll be relevant to specifically when you play with teammates.
 
 

• Do: Say “C” or “Clear” in the text/voice chat after scanning with DS and not seeing any enemy Hunters, to let your teammates know. And obviously, tell them if you do see enemy Hunters.

• Do:Be consistent and polite in how you ping. Use the white ping for non-urgent things like loot, ammo, health or where to go. Use the red ping for urgent things like enemies. Don’t spam it;ever heard of the boy who cried wolf?

• Don’t:Sprint near crouched teammates. Assume they’re trying to be stealthy and don’t sprint near them unless you absolutely have to. In general, just don’t make unnecessary noise near them. If you want to be loud, fine, I guess, but don’t endanger them if they haven’t agreed to it.

• Do:Communicate with your teammates. You don’t have to use text/voice chat if you don’t want to, but ping enemies, loot, ammo, health, etc. Also, try to make sure the team comes to some kind of agreement as to where to go next (even if you don’t, chances are one of you will end up as the unspoken leader that the others follow).

• Don’t: Run off, far away from your teammates. All you’re doing is making your team one person smaller. If you want to play lone-wolf style, don’t get into duos or trios. That said, running far from your team can be a strategy, such as being stealthy to hide from enemy Hunters so you can go for a revive once they’re gone and grabbing clues from other compounds to find the boss quicker. Either way, if you intend to run off, communicate it to your teammates if you can and make sure they’re happy with it (or settle for them begrudgingly agreeing).

• Do: Keep track of your teammates and what they’re doing. You don’t have to ping every ammo crate you find, you can just ping resources when you know that someone on your team has fired shots, used consumables, etc. Basically, ping resources if someone needs them, or if you think you’ll need them soon (such as when you’re holed up in the boss building waiting to finish banishing). Knowing what they’re doing is also important for differentiating teammate sounds from enemy sounds.

• Do: Make sure teammates aren’t within the effect radius when you use dangerous consumables/weapons. This includes but isn’t limited to fire, poison, and the Flash Bomb. If you want to communicate that you’re going to throw something, bring out whatever you’re throwing, ping what you’re going to throw at and make sure they can see it, if they’re not occupied with something else. A good teammate will pay attention to what you’re holding and will stay clear without you needing to ping, unless they think the situation calls for a different strategy.

• Don’t:Hurt your teammates, like, in general. Just don’t. Unless they’ve given you their consent (such as wanting you to damage them so they can use a Vitality shot), just don’t. If you have a disagreement, settle it in a civil way.

• Do:Call out your traps when you place them. Say that you’re placing one and what type it is in the text/voice chat and ping its location, even when you place multiple. Your teammates can hear you placing traps if you’re nearby (a*suming you don’t have Poacher) but they won’t necessarily know what traps sound like or where it exactly is. So err on the side of caution and let them know anyway. If you don’t want to use text/voice chat, just place the trap and ping it either White or Red–most teammates will a*sume it’s a trap or come over to check. Likewise, pay attention to what your teammates are doing. Sometimes you’ll get teammates that place traps and don’t call them out/ping them, so paying attention can save you unnecessary death/injury. And this goes without saying, but let your teammates know if you see an enemy trap, at minimum by pinging with the urgent Red ping.

• Don’t:Be pa*sive. Take charge of whether you’re being a leader or a follower. It’s fine to let other people lead the team, hide from enemies if you need to, or generally not saying anything in text/chat but keep the team’s wellbeing in mind. If you say nothing and let (you and) your team walk into an ambush and get wiped because someone less experienced was leading, part of the blame is on you. If you stay hidden the whole game and don’t help your teammates and they die, that’s also on you.

• Do: Look at your teammates’ loadouts. This helps you to strategise in advance. Looking at what equipment they have, especially their weapons, can help you make decisions later when you hear sounds that aren’t yours.

• Don’t: Hog resources and loot to yourself. You can only loot any object/resource twice. Make sure everyone gets some.

• WO:Don’t: BM (Bad Manners). BM covers stuff like teabagging, teamkilling, trash talk, calling people slurs, endorsing racism, s*xism, etc. If you encounter people that do this, there is a reporting system in-game that you can use to report them. Try to record the incident if you can so that you have evidence.

Terminology/Glossary Part 1

Title says it all. More information about some of these is in the relevant sections of the guide. This glossary doesn’t just have terminology used in this guide, it also contains terminology you’ll see used by players.
 
 
ADS: Aim Down Sights. Used regardless of whether the ranged weapon in question has iron sights or a scope (in Hunt, weapons will have one or the other.)
 
 
Aggro: Essentially, attention. To draw someone or something’s aggro is to get them to focus on you. Useful for strategy (“I’ll aggro this Immolator so you can set up traps in peace). Aggro doesn’t necessarily mean to kill your aggro target, it just means you’re getting whatever it is to focus on you. Aggro is also commonly used interchangeably with Angry/Activated/Screaming/Scared — for example, “There’s a Hive over there that’s aggro’d, so there’s Hunters near her.” or “Whoops, i aggro’d the dog kennel. Sorry guys.”
 
 
Airburst: To cook an explosive for long enough that when you throw it, it will explode in mid-air and hurt the enemy. Usually used to attack enemies behind cover.
 
 
Area Denial: To deny or discourage things moving through a particular area. e.g throwing a fire bomb into a hallway chokepoint.
 
 
BB: Blood Bonds. Premium Currency. Can be purchased with real money through microtransactions, or earned through Dark Tribute, completing Daily/Weekly Challenges, the Training game mode, the BoM/BoA, and fulfilling certain criteria in matches.
 
 
BH: Bounty Hunt.
 
 
Boosted Dark Sight: Or Boosted DS. When your DS is boosted because you’re holding a Bounty Token, allowing you to see enemy Hunters through walls within a certain range, represented by orange blobs.
 
 
BT: Bounty Token.
 
 
Bush Wookie: Somewhat disparaging term for someone who hides in a bush, regardless of their motive.
 
 
Camping: Staying in one place for a long time. Opinions on the length of time criteria and about camping in general vary from person to person.
 
 
Chokepoint: A point that is narrow and allows little room for movement, evasive or otherwise. Useful for trapping enemies.
 
 
Chokes: Short for Chokebombs/chokebolts. Can be used as a noun: “Found a toolbox, replenish your chokes here” or as a verb, meaning: “Can you choke this doorway please?”
 
 
Compact: Originates from the Springfield Compact. Commonly used to refer to any shortend/downsized variant of a gun, regardless of the official name. e.g Winnie Compact (Winfield Vandal), Romero Compact (Romero Handcannon).
 
 
Cook: Refers to explosives. The act of initiating the fuse on an explosive, but not throwing it immediately, giving the enemy less time to react before it explodes. E.g “I’m cooking this frag grenade, get out of the way”. Ties in with “Airburst”.
 
 
Died/Death: When your health is fully depleted and you’re on the Death-Screen but you cannot be revived. Sometimes used interchangeably with Downed in reference to “Killed”. Try to treat a Down as not a Death unless you’re 100% sure that that Hunter is not able to be revived. This can be because they’ve disconnected, their teammates are all dead, or their teammates are unable to perform a Red Skull Revive to revive their downed teammate.
 
 
Dogs: Can mean either Hellhounds or a Dog Kennel. If you’re not sure, listen to the sounds they make. Hellhounds make a distinctive howl, don’t bark, and when you aggro them, they’ll try and kill you. Dog Kennels can kill you but only if you’re in there with them.
 
 
Doorbang: Shooting someone through a door. Not necessarily a Killshot.
 
 
Downed: When a Hunter’s health is fully depleted. Whoever it is will see the Death-Screen BUT they can still be revived. e.g if it’s happening to you: “I got downed by someone outside, they had a Springfield”. If it’s happening to someone else: “I downed someone inside the building with my Springfield”. Sometimes used interchangeably with Died in reference to “Killed”, e.g people saying they killed someone when they mean Downed.
 
 
DS: Darksight.
 
 
DT: Dark Tribute.
 
 
Dualies: Short for dual wielding.
 
 
Equipment: Blanket term for everything a Hunter can be equipped with, excluding Traits. Meaning: Weapons, Tools and Consumables.
 
 
Flush: As in, “to flush someone out”. To pressure someone to leave where they are and make them move somewhere else, preferably out from behind cover and/or into the open where they can be killed more easily.
 
 
Headshot: A hit to the head. Usually refers to guns, but also sometimes used referring to bows/crossbow/hand crossbow and even melee/throwables. Note that a headshot does not necessarily mean a kill in this game. If you can’t see the body, listen for a deathscream and the headshot splat sound effect to confirm a kill. Headshots beyond a gun’s Effective Range make a duller splat sound effect and will not kill if the Target has full health.
 
 
Hunter: Refers to either other players or the avatars/characters you play as. E.g “There’s an enemy Hunter over there” vs “I retired my level 25 Hunter).
 
 
Immo: Short for Immolator.
 
 
Instaburn: To set a Hunter’s body on fire (almost) immediately after they’re Downed.
 
Items: Blanket term for Tools and Consumables.
 
 
Killed: When a Hunter’s health is fully depleted and they cannot be revived by any means. This can be because they’ve disconnected, their teammates are all dead, or their teammates are unable to perform a Red Skull Revive to revive their downed teammate.
 
 
Killshot: A hit that killed. Obviously most of the time killshots will be on their target or whoever is being aimed at, but not always. Usually refers to guns, but also sometimes used referring to bows/crossbow/hand crossbow and even melee/throwables.
 
 
Lantern: Referring to the lanterns that create fire when destroyed. This can be either the red throwable lanterns or the fixed-position lanterns on walls, floors and poles.
 
 
Legendary Hunter: Also referred to as “Legendary Skin”. Can be acquired through Blood Bonds, real money or as a reward. Functionally the same as it’s regular counterpart– same stats, although is usually cheaper than Hunters that are Tier 2 and above. Only difference is its appearance and the initial BB/real money cost. Note that there are free Legendary Hunters available, even if it was limited time, like for an event.
 
 
Legendary Weapon: Also referred to as “Legendary Weapon Skin”. Can be acquired through Blood Bonds, real money or as a reward. Functionally the same as it’s regular counterpart– same stats, same Hunt Dollars cost. Only difference is its appearance and the initial BB/real money cost. Note that there are free Legendary Weapons available, even if it was limited-time, like for an event.
 
 
Lunchbox: Official name is Toolbox. It’s a bright orange, metal box that is smaller than an Ammo Crate. Replenishes Tools and Consumables.
 
 
Matches: Synonymous with “game”, “round”. In Hunt’s case, specifically means playing either BH or QP, the online modes of the game.
 
 
 

Terminology/Glossary Part 2

Necro: Short for Necromancy. Refers to the Necromancy Trait.
 
 
OHK: One Hit Kill. Refers to whatever can kill you in one hit, whether its a gun, melee, tool or consumable: “Headshots are OHKs within a certain range”, “The Nitro OHKs to the Chest at close range”. Also used to describe events: “I got a OHK on the guy in the window, let’s push in.”
 
 
Pen: “Penning”, “Pens”. Short for Penetration.
 
 
Ping: A temporary white or red triangular marker you and your teammates can use to mark things. White means non-urgent (“let’s go this way”, ammo here, etc), red means urgent (enemy here, there’s a trap here, watch here, etc). Only your teammates can see your pings.
 
 
QP: Quickplay.
 
 
Quickswap: To switch to a weapon/item quickly by using its designated button (somewhere on the number row by default on PC). This is faster and more precise than using the weapon wheel or scrolling to get to the equipment you want. Usually used as a technique for follow-up hits, such as tagging someone with a Sparks and quickswapping to your revolver to try and get a follow-up hit to secure a down.
 
 
Red Skull Revive: A Red Skull Revive (RSR) is a revive that costs 50 health to perform and requires the reviver to be holding a Bounty Token. It can be used in combination with the Necromancy Trait. It can be performed as long as you are alive, have a Bounty and are in range to revive. Performing a RSR will not kill you, it will stop draining health when you are at 1 HP, prevent you from regenerating health while the action is happening, but will allow the revive to happen. The BT is not consumed and lost, it’s just a prerequisite.
 
 
Redskulled: See above. Refers to someone.
 
 
Scan: To use Boosted Darksight. Usually synonymous with spinning 360 degrees while in Boosted DS to check all around you for Hunters.
 
 
Scotty: Scottfield.
 
 
Shotty: Shotgun.
 
 
SFX: Sound Effect(s).
 
 
Sound Trap: An entity that makes noise when activated. Doesn’t mean Hunters, but can be used in reference to them (“That Kennel is angry, it must’ve been startled by a Hunter”). Can be either Stationary or Moving. More info in the Sound Trap section of the guide.
 
 
Tag: A non-killshot. A hit that landed but did not kill. Can be confusing as sometimes “Ping” is used interchangeably with “Tag”. “I tagged a guy in the window with my Mosin, he’s low on health) vs “Hey if you find any health, can you tag it?”.
 
 
Team: Refers to either enemy or yours. Interchangeable with (in the context of Hunters): squad, group, gang, etc.
 
 
Teamkill: To kill a teammate. E.g “I got teamkilled twice today”, “I accidentally teamkilled when I threw that dynamite”.
 
 
Tier: Refers to the Tiers of Hunters available on the Recruitment page. There are differences between Tiers of Hunters, main difference is their recruitment cost and equipment. “I just bought a Tier 2 Hunter for 135 Hunt Dollars”, “I just spotted a Tier 3 in that building, be careful”. Not used in reference to Legendary Hunters because those are in their own cla*s.
 
 
Trait: Basically the same as perks seen in games like Call of Duty or Dead By Daylight. Either Active or Pa*sive. Active ones add extra, manually controlled abilities (e.g Serpent, which allows you to interact with objectives from a distance). Pa*sive ones don’t require input to take effect (they are number changes (e.g Kiteskin, which reduces fall damage you take by 50%).
 
 
Wallbang: Not necessarily a killshot. To shoot someone through a wall.
 
 
Weapons: Things that specifically fit in the two Weapon Slots each Hunter has available.
 
 
White Shirt: Referring to Hunters wearing white shirts. Sometimes used to refer to newer players, as they tend to use White Shirt Hunters because they don’t have enough money/aren’t high level enough to buy the more expensive Hunters.
 
 
Winnie: Short for Winfield. Refers to the Winfield M1873. Variations: Winnie C (Winfield M1873C), Winnie Cen (Winfield Centennial), Winnie Term (Winfield Terminus).
 
 
Wipe: To kill a whole team–either Duos or Trios, in Hunt’s case.
 
 

 
 
I hope you enjoy the A Somewhat Informed Guide – Hunt: Showdown guide. This is all for now! If you have something to add to this guide or forget to add some information, please let us know via comment! We check each comment manually!