Hunt: Showdown 1896 will launch a new large-scale community event, "Blood Edict," on September 8th.
The event is roughly divided into three stages.
The first stage unlocks the special environment "Blood Moon." When the mutated moonlight shines upon the land, all hostile monsters will riot, their bloodlust heightened.
The second stage will unlock a special consumable trait, "Chupacabra," allowing players to restore health by devouring animals on the map.
And the third stage will bring us an unimaginable "new nightmare." As for the specific details, the development team remained mysteriously tight-lipped.
But the good news is, I got a small taste of the new version at the Level Infinite booth in Hall 6 at Gamescom, experiencing some of the new mechanics and balance changes firsthand. By the way, I also had a nice chat with the development team on-site.
Below is the interview transcript.
Q: What content in the new event can we look forward to?
A: "Blood Edict" is a major addition in the 2.9 update. It's our upcoming new event, featuring several design changes compared to our previous events. When the event launches, there will be a large-scale community-wide challenge. Of course, we won't reveal Everythinggj at once. We want the player community to overcome challenges step by step, gradually uncovering subsequent content. We've set the community challenge in multiple stages, requiring all players to collectively accumulate enough points to unlock the next stage.
The gameplay already available to experience is the "Blood Moon"—this is the reward for unlocking the first stage. We expect the entire player community to meet the first stage unlock conditions within a few days of playing.
Players earn points by performing regular in-game actions, such as killing monsters. Additionally, "Blood Fountains" will randomly spawn on the map. Interacting with a "Blood Fountain" grants a new trait—"Siphon." The clever aspect of this trait is that when you loot an enemy player's body, your "Siphon" trait randomly swaps with one of the opposing hunter's advanced traits, effectively completing a random trait exchange.
For example, if an opponent has traits like "Agile Feint" or "Ruthless," you can randomly acquire these traits using "Siphon."
If the enemy player doesn't die, for example, if they are revived by a teammate later, the "Siphon" effect remains on them, allowing that hunter to perform the trait-stealing operation.
Then, the player community advances the event progress by interacting with "Blood Fountains" and completing event tasks. We estimate that the first stage of the "Blood Edict" event could last several days, or even weeks. Rewards will be unlocked as progress is made.
The second stage of the event will unlock another reward—the new "Chupacabra" trait. This trait is directly obtainable and is not rare, but it is a consumable trait that only works once. After a player uses it, the trait disappears.
This trait allows you to interact with animals on the map, such as horses and dogs. Players can devour these animals to restore one and a half bars of health. We hope this trait provides players with an additional minor method for healing. For instance, if a player wants to carry more explosives instead of healing syringes and medkits, they can equip this trait to ensure a certain level of survivability.
As for the third stage of the event—allow me to keep you in suspense for now. We've prepared a big surprise for players, a "brand new nightmare."
Q: Specifically, which actions and activities can advance the progress of the "Blood Edict" community event?
A: Players need to earn community challenge points, primarily by completing tasks such as killing monsters. Another way is to interact with "Blood Fountains"—doing so grants a large amount of points at once. Therefore, actively searching for "Blood Fountains" in-game can significantly speed up event progression.
To be precise, interacting with "Blood Fountains" isn't difficult either. Every player can contribute their share to the community's progress.
Additionally, we are launching a new Season Pass, which will go live when the "Blood Edict" event begins. The Pass allows early access to the new "Burgess" shotgun, a folding shotgun that requires deployment each time it's drawn—I believe you've already experienced this during your trial.
Once the Season Pass and event end, we will make this weapon available to all players who haven't obtained it yet. We want to ensure a good experience for all players, ensuring that weapon acquisition doesn't become a barrier.
Q: For returning veteran players or newcomers who have just joined the game, how should they participate in this event?
A: It's very simple. Download the game, select matchmaking, start playing, and BOOM! You'll earn event points. Don't forget to search for the "Blood Fountains"; they offer very high rewards.
Oh, right! For players attracted by the story, version 2.9 has another fantastic addition—Lynch. She's the legendary hunter with silver-gold hair and a weathered face, almost demonic in presence. She has existed in the game's lore for eight years without a complete visual representation... Now, she finally appears as a legendary skin for the Sabre Hunter.
Q: During my trial, I noticed that the supply point icons have been changed again. Can you talk about this?
A: Yes, we implemented these changes based on the concept of "information hiding." Our design means that supply points are no longer directly visible on the map by default, but markers appear when you get close to a supply point. We hope this encourages players to pay more attention to their surroundings. Players can also use binoculars to search various locations.
Some supply points will spawn map items. Reading these maps will reveal all supply points—so players can still obtain all the intel, it just requires some "active exploration".
This mechanic was first tested in version 2.7 with the introduction of Scout Towers, focusing on reconnaissance gameplay. It was iterated upon during the previous military-themed event. This update represents the final version of this mechanic, offering a more enjoyable gameplay experience.
Q: What about weapon and loadout balance?
A: We did make quite a few balance adjustments in version 2.9. During your trial, you should have seen the loadout and trait systems I demonstrated, which greatly optimize the gameplay experience. In the previous version, we revamped the inventory slot system, which reshuffled the entire weapon meta. Players developed new powerful strategies, created many new combinations, and some long-neglected older weapons made a comeback.
Players have adapted to these changes for nearly three months. So, with this update, besides adding new weapons, we've also adjusted the balance of existing ones. For example, one weapon has consistently been very powerful—the Hunting Bow. Many players have complained that its kill efficiency is too high. Therefore, we slightly reduced the noise made by bows and decreased the one-shot kill range by about 5 meters. We made these adjustments hoping to make the Hunting Bow a reasonable choice, requiring more strategic trade-offs when using it.
All these changes come from player feedback after playing.
Q: Have you made any adjustments regarding anti-cheat?
A: We completely understand this. Players have reasonably raised this demand—they want fair matches and a cheat-free environment. We've been continuously optimizing this area. A feature that was offline for several years is being reworked into a better version: the MMR decay mechanism.
The effect of this mechanism is that when players return to the game, they will be matched into easier matches. The system artificially decays MMR. If you haven't played for a year or even several years, the difficulty of your first few matches upon returning will be lower, making it easier for you to get back into the game.
After all, if you've been AFK from a competitive game for too long, you need time to readjust and regain your feel for the game. This mechanism makes matches fairer. Meanwhile, if cheating occurs in a match, we will verify the situation and provide compensation to affected players.
Q: For domestic players, are there better channels available for reporting and providing feedback on cheating issues?
A: Our future maintenance system will improve this. We aim to enhance communication efficiency with players, optimize notifications, and keep everyone updated on game-related news. We've also further optimized the reporting system. I'd like to remind Chinese players, and indeed all players worldwide, to please use the in-game reporting feature.
Valid reports are crucial. Even if we can't fully trace some individual cases, reports generate records that allow us to investigate player accounts. If an account has only sporadic reports, we'll check it—it's likely fine. But if an account has hundreds of reports, we will conduct a thorough, in-depth review.
Our customer support team carefully handles these reports; every valid report is extremely valuable.
Q: Will there be more Chinese-style content in the future? Hunters, skins, weapons, that sort of thing?
A: We already have related content in preparation. We've previously released Lunar New Year-themed content, and there will be more in the future, but we can't reveal the details just yet.
Q: Finally, do you have anything you'd like to say to Chinese players?
A: I'm full of anticipation for this update, and I hope you are too. This is our first time running an event in this new format, so we're very curious about the feedback from Chinese players as they unlock each stage—what you like and what you don't.
At the same time, player voices are incredibly important to us. If you have any questions, please share your thoughts through official channels. We want everyone to know that we are always listening to our players and highly value their feedback.
Finally, we hope you enjoy the game.
Q: By the way! Will there be Chinese-style monsters in the future? Uh, something like a Panda Monster?
A: Haha, that sounds interesting. We'll consider it.