The ULTIMATE Hunt: Showdown 1896 Beginner Guide (2026)
Intro
Hi guys, Rex here.
If you’re new to Hunt: Showdown — or you’ve played a few matches and feel like the game hasn’t really clicked yet — this video is for you.
Hunt can feel overwhelming in the beginning. There are a lot of systems, a lot of information you’re expected to understand, and the punishment for mistakes is brutal. But once you get the fundamentals down, Hunt becomes one of the most rewarding shooters out there.
In this guide, I’ll take you through everything you need to get started — from the moment you boot up the game, to getting ready in the menus, making decisions inside a match, surviving or dying, and what actually matters after the match ends.
This is meant as an introduction. I’ll explain the general systems thoroughly, but I won’t go crazy on specifics. Whenever a topic goes deeper than what belongs in a beginner guide, I’ll point you toward one of my other guides. All of my guides are gathered in my guides playlist and weapon mastery series so you can go straight to what you need.
By the end of this video you’ll know exactly what to bring, what to avoid, and what you should be doing in every phase of a match
So — without further ado, let’s dive into it.
1. What Is Hunt?
Hunt: Showdown is a first-person extraction shooter by Crytek. You load into a match as a bounty hunter, track down bosses and wild targets, kill and banish them, claim the bounty, and extract at one of the available extraction points.
But Hunt isn’t a typical extraction shooter. What makes it different is that it’s built around information, sound, and decision-making more than constant action.
In a lot of shooters, you see someone, you shoot, and whoever aims better wins. In Hunt, you often lose the fight before it even starts — because you gave away information, took a predictable route, made noise at the wrong time, or walked into an ambush without realizing it.
That’s also why Hunt feels brutal early on. You’ll die and feel like it came out of nowhere. And sometimes it did — that’s Hunt. But most of the time, there was a reason, and as you learn the game those deaths stop feeling random.
The game has a steep learning curve and a very high skill ceiling. Even after thousands of hours, you keep learning. In fact, after 7000 hours played and having made countless guides – I still learn new things about Hunt most days. Because Hunt: Showdown is a live service game, things also change frequently. Bigger updates and patches often shift the game in ways that change how you should think about certain mechanics or how to approach the game in general.
Whatever impression you have of Hunt: Showdown 1896, I can assure you there is a lot more to it than what meets the eye, and a lot of it will only become clear to you once you put in some hours.
So, here’s the mindset I want you to have going in: Hunt is easy to get into mechanically, but hard to master. You will probably die a lot in the beginning, and that’s normal. The goal is not to win every match — it’s to learn something every match. If you stick with it, the game gets better the more you understand it.
Alright. Now let’s get you set up.
2. Menus & Getting Ready
When you first open Hunt, the menus can feel overwhelming — but you only need to understand a couple of things early on.
Before entering a match, you’ll need to recruit a hunter, which is done from the “Hunters” tab at the top. From here, you can either click “Hire Hunters” and recruit a legendary hunter or click “recruit free hunters” for a free loadout. There are two things you need to know about these options.
Free hunters are a bit limited, as they generally come with weaker gear and just 1 basic trait. Free hunters are completely viable, especially for beginners. They let you play without pressure, learn weapons, learn maps, and learn fights without feeling like every match is expensive.
Legendary hunters are purely cosmetic, with one exception. They cost 100 Hunt dollars to recruit and do not come with any gear; however, they have 10 trait points by default, which is the main reason to pick them over free hunters.
As a beginner, either option is fine — but if you want the least pressure possible, free hunters are the safest way to learn.
For learning purposes, I will now take you through setting up a legendary hunter from scratch.
3. Loadouts & Equipment Basics
As a beginner, your goal is not to build some perfect meta setup. Your goal is to bring a loadout that’s simple, versatile, and forgiving. You want to cover close and medium range fights, you want healing, and you want a reliable way to deal with AI without wasting all your resources.
Every loadout should contain the following: A primary and secondary weapon, up to 4 tool items and up to 4 consumables.
I’ll now walk you through how to set up an excellent budget-friendly starter build that has got you covered for the early stage of learning the game, and then we’ll save that loadout so you have easy access to it for future matches.
For our weapon in this case, we’ll choose the Ranger 73. This is a lever action rifle with great ammo capacity and fire rate, with an excellent iron sight. We will put High Velocity ammo on the rifle by clicking the ammo symbol next to the weapon. This costs a little extra but is well worth it as it increases the bullet speed, making it easier to land shots over longer distances.
For our sidearm, we’ll pick the Conversion pistol, and for this weapon we’ll apply Full Metal Jacket ammo, also known as FMJ. This ammo type increases bullet penetration, making it more effective if the enemy is behind cover.
Next, we need a consistent tool for AI, which will also serve as a last resort if enemy hunters get too close or we run out of ammo. As a beginner, the regular knife works fine, so we’ll assign that by clicking the tool slot and finding the knife in the list of available tools.
Next, we need a first aid kit, so we’ll assign that as well. The first aid kit is your primary source of healing, and can be replenished in the game, for example by picking up toolboxes or looting dead hunters.
For our third tool, we’ll take fuses, which can be useful for a variety of things, for example killing basic AI or burning downed hunters, which I’ll cover later in this guide.
And for the final tool slot we’ll take choke bombs, which are useful for a variety of things, such as putting out fires on downed teammates, killing certain AI, and for PVP utility, as choking hunters make a lot of noise, making them easier to track.
Finally, we’ll need some consumables. This is far more flexible than the tool items, but we’ll make it very simple. Pick a small vitality shot for a quick emergency heal, a small regeneration shot for consistent healing over a short period of time, a small antidote shot in case you get poisoned or have to cross a poisoned area, and finally a small stamina shot for when you need to move efficiently without catching your breath.
This loadout gives you incredible overall versatility and firepower for a very low price. That means you can afford to keep running it consistently for countless hours while you’re learning.
Now that your loadout is ready to go, click loadouts on the bottom menu, select a loadout slot and click overwrite. This loadout can now be purchased and assigned later on with a couple of button clicks, making it much easier to get ready for the next match!
4. Traits & Health Bar Setup
Now that your loadout is ready, let’s first look at some optimal trait setups for your first 10 trait points. To assign these, click the plus icon on the trait bar to open the trait menu. Here you’ll see all your available traits. I won’t be going into much detail about this here, as it will be covered in a full trait-breakdown video soon, but I’ll give you some starter recommendations.
First off, whether you play solo or in a team, it is highly recommended to assign the Necromancer trait for 4 points. This trait will allow you to revive your teammates from a distance through the dark sight mechanic, which we’ll get into shortly, and if you are playing solo, it allows you to revive yourself once. Necromancer is a “Burn Trait”, meaning it is single use and disappears from your bar after.
If you are playing in a team you might want to pick Resilience. This trait costs 3 trait points and ensures you are revived with full health. Just to clarify, in Hunt you lose a bar every time you get downed, so this specifically ensures your remaining bars are healed up, as opposed to getting revived with very low health. Note that this trait has no effect on solo gameplay, as solo players who revive themselves get all their health and bars back.
Assuming you assigned Necromancer and Resilience, you now have 3 points remaining. This is far more flexible and preference based, so anything goes – but I would recommend taking Vigilant for 1 trait point, which allows you to see nearby traps in dark sight, as well as Vulture for 2 trait points. Vulture is a pure money-making trait but is well worth it to sustain you in the early stage, as you gain a decent chunk of Hunt dollars when you loot downed hunters.
If you are playing solo and have assigned Necromancer, that leaves 6 points. Again, I would take Vigilant and Vulture, leaving 3 points. Next, I’d recommend Bulwark for 2 points, which reduces explosive damage taken. This can be particularly useful in the early stage before you’re comfortable with explosive mechanics to prevent accidentally dying to dynamite or explosive barrels. Finally, I recommend you assign Magpie for 1 point. Magpie is particularly strong for solo gameplay because it doubles the amount of dark sight boost you gain from bounties. We’ll get into that a bit later.
As mentioned, I’ll be posting a full trait guide soon, so make sure to check that out when it’s available if you want to learn more, and if you want to learn more about solo gameplay I already have an in-depth solo guide on my channel, which I’ll link in the description.
Finally, we’ll take a look at health bars. Your hunter has a total of 150 health, divided into small and large chunks. The small chunks are 25 health each, while the large chunks are 50 health. The first health bar is always a large chunk, and cannot be changed, but you have the option to assign the remaining 100 health however you want.
I personally run 3 big chunks for solo, as this limits the chance of losing one to fire damage and gives you more time to stop burning. As I mentioned earlier, solos gain all their health back if they self-revive, which is why this setup is optimal. You won’t get punished by losing a big chunk if you revive.
For teams, I use 4 small chunks. This limits how much health you’re missing following a revive, which is crucial to how easily you get one-shot by other players. Missing a big health chunk of 50 health following a revive ensures a lot of the weapons in the game can 1-shot you to the torso, since most weapons deal more than 100 damage.
The main thing to take away is this: if you die, you lose a chunk, and if you take enough fire damage to burn away a chunk, it doesn’t recover naturally. This isn’t something you need to fully understand in the early stage – but by assigning big chunks for solo or small chunks for team you are giving yourself the best odds.
5. Game Modes & Team Sizes
Now that your hunter is ready, let’s look at the various game modes.
Hunt currently has 3 different modes, which all play very differently but have one thing in common: each mode can have up to 12 players per match.
Bounty Hunt is the main mode and what the game is built around. I recommend you focus on this mode in the beginning. In this mode, you track down clues, fight teams, kill and banish bosses or wild targets, claim bounties and extract.
Bounty Clash is a more intense PVP version of Bounty Hunt. Instead of 16 compounds on a large map, the area is confined to just 1 compound, and the boss is already dead on the floor when the match starts, ready to be banished by the first player who interacts with it. This mode basically plays like the most intense fights you’ll ever have in regular Bounty Hunt and is great for practicing PVP without learning the full match flow. As a beginner, you probably want to go with free loadouts for this mode to prevent going bankrupt immediately.
Soul Survivor is solo-only, and you start with nothing. You scavenge weapons and fight other solos until one person remains, like most battle-royale type games. It’s great practice because you risk nothing, and you get exposure to many weapons, tools and consumables quickly. If you win, you keep the hunter and any gear you acquired in the match, which can be incredibly useful if you’re running low. I recently made a video explaining this game mode in depth, so I’ll leave a link to that in the description if you want a more thorough explanation.
On a side note, in the mode selection you’ll also find the Shooting Range. If you’re new, use it. Test weapons, test bullet drop, test sensitivity and settings, practice swapping tools and consumables. This is the easiest way to get comfortable with everything that the game has to offer in a controlled low-pressure environment. Even after 7000 hours I consistently use the shooting range for testing various weapons and mechanics as the game develops.
Finally, team sizes: you can queue solo, duo, or trio. You can also choose whether the match allows a maximum team size of two or three. That affects how many teams are on the map and how chaotic the match feels. In general, duo fights are more manageable, but the chance of getting third-partied is higher due to more teams on the map. Trio matches feel more predictable, and it’s easier to read the map and what’s going on as the game progresses, but the fights are more intense – especially if you choose to go solo vs trios. I also covered this in my solo guide which I mentioned earlier.
6. The Gameplay Loop
For this video, we’ll focus on Bounty Hunt, since it’s the primary game mode and what you’ll likely be playing the most.
Every match starts the same way: you spawn in, you check the map, and you start making decisions.
At the top left, you’ll see the boss icons for the match. Sometimes there’s one boss, sometimes two, and sometimes you’ll have a boss plus a wild target depending on the map and match type. The wild targets will not be visible from the start of the match and tracking them works differently. Check out my Rotjaw & Hellborn guides later if you want to learn how to find & kill them effectively!
The map is split into 16 compounds, and the objective is to locate boss lairs by finding clues. You use Dark Sight to locate them. Dark sight is a special ability activated by pressing E by default, and you can use it as much as you want.
In Dark Sight, clues glow as a blue shimmer. When you take a clue, it greys out portions of the map and narrows down where the boss can be. The clue itself also changes visually, showing other hunters that it’s been interacted with, which helps you read what’s going on as you traverse the map. As you move between compounds, you’re dealing with AI, sound traps, and the biggest threat of all: other players.
Hunt fights are often decided by positioning before anyone fires a shot. If you run in a straight line on open ground, you’re easy to kill. If you move cover to cover, use terrain, and keep your ears open, you’ll survive longer even with mediocre aim.
After taking 3 clues you’ll reveal the exact boss location.
There are currently four main bosses in the game: The Butcher, Scrapbeak, The Assassin and the Spider. You’ll know you’re near the boss lair when the boss icon reacts in Dark Sight — it will glow white if no enemy hunters are nearby, or red if enemy hunters are close. That’s a huge beginner tool. It tells you whether you can safely start the boss or whether you’re likely to get pushed. Typically, you’ll also be able to hear the boss as you’re getting closer to the compound, especially if other players are already fighting it.
Once you kill the boss, you banish it. Banishment takes time, and it announces the location to the entire map. That’s why banishing is risky — but it’s also why it often creates the best fights in the game.
During banish, you can set up defenses, reload, look for ammo, and prepare. Traps can be useful, but don’t over-rely on them. The best defense is still good positioning and awareness.
When the banishment is done, you pick up bounty tokens. And once you have a bounty, everyone in the match can track you. They’ll see lightning bolts on the map and visual lightning strikes in dark sight if they’re looking in your direction.
But you gain something too: dark sight boost. You get a limited number of seconds where you can scan and see nearby hunters as an orange glow, and if hunters are within 75 meters of you, the outlines of your screen glow orange, even if you don’t activate your dark sight boost. By default, you get 5 seconds of dark sight boost, but if you play solo and use the Magpie trait like I mentioned earlier, you get twice the amount. Since solos can only pick up 1 bounty token per boss, those 10 seconds match the 10 seconds a team gets from grabbing both tokens.
Use your dark sight boost sparingly to gain information about nearby player locations and decide whether you want to fight or move toward an extraction point.
Extraction is the final decision point. Sometimes leaving immediately is the right call, and other times you might want to double down and go for the second bounty. Hunt is not about “always full sending.” It’s about making the best decision with the information you have available.
Now, let’s talk about revives. In teams, you can revive teammates if you can reach their body. As mentioned earlier, the Necromancer trait opens the ability to revive a teammate through dark sight, which can be a complete game changer in a lot of situations – which is why I recommend you bring this trait. Fire damage plays a big role in how revives and PVP plays out. Once you’re downed, other players can ignite your body, for example using the fuses we assigned to our starter loadout earlier. Your body will gradually burn out, permanently losing health bars along the way. Once a hunter is fully burnt out, they can no longer be revived normally, and solo players will not be able to revive at all. For teams, if your teammate is fully burnt out, you can still revive them if you are carrying a bounty token, at the expense of permanently losing some of your own health. I say permanently, but there are various mechanics in the game to recover these lost bars, such as banishing a boss, using recovery shots, a full restoration kit for pledge marks or certain burn traits – but we won’t go into too much detail about that in this guide.
Choke bombs are the primary tool for stopping burns, which is why they’re so valuable for teamplay and why I recommended bringing them in your starter loadout earlier in this guide. Once a player goes down, the fight dynamic shifts. For the killing team, it becomes a matter of applying burn to the downed hunter and punishing mistakes from the other team. For the team that lost a player, it becomes a matter of limiting the damage to their teammate by choking the burn and trying to secure a revive if possible – or killing the enemy team before reviving. If you leave a teammate to burn out, you’ll often struggle to get them back quickly, unless you’re already carrying a bounty token.
7. After the Match: What Happens Now
After the match ends, the game basically asks one question: did your hunter survive?
If you extracted alive, you keep the hunter and all the gear they brought out. You gain Hunt Dollars and experience, and your hunter levels up, earning trait points that can be assigned the same way we covered earlier.
If you’re ready, now is a great time to upgrade your hunter. Because you’ll typically get a lot more points from extracting a bounty than you started with, this is the best time to assign more expensive and powerful traits. Beyond what I covered earlier, traits are generally preference and playstyle based, but I’ll cover all of that in my upcoming trait guide. Some excellent options for beginners are Doctor to double the first aid kit healing, Surefoot to allow sprinting while you use consumables such as the first aid kit or even explosives, and Physician to increase the healing speed with the med kit.
If you went with the loadout I recommended at the start, now is also the perfect time to apply the “levering” trait for 7 points, which drastically increases the power of your rifle by allowing very quick hip fire. With this change, you might also want to change your ammo type on the Ranger to FMJ, matching the pistol. Since both of your weapons now share the exact ammo type: compact ammo FMJ, they also share the same ammo pool, allowing you to use all of the bullets with either weapon. This is incredibly useful with the Ranger since you’ll fire more quickly and spend ammo faster. After the match, you also want to make sure you replenish your consumables, and you’ll need to re-purchase Necromancer if you spent it in the match.
If the hunter died, they’re permanently lost along with their gear. But you still gain some account progression and rewards based on what you accomplished, for example taking clues, banishing and killing bosses or killing players. Weapons also gain progression for new variant unlocks based on the number of players and various AI you killed using that specific weapon.
The important beginner takeaway is this: don’t treat death like failure. Treat it like the cost of learning. Experience is worth more than any win in the long run, and if you’re willing to look for it you’ll find valuable lessons in every match, whether it was a win or a loss.
8. Bloodline & Prestige
There are two big progression systems in Hunt: Showdown: Bloodline and Prestige.
Bloodline is your account level. As you level your Bloodline, you unlock tools, consumables and traits, and you also gain Hunt Dollars at certain levels.
Once you reach Bloodline rank 100, you can choose to Prestige. Prestiging resets most of your progression — your hunters, your money, your stockpile — and you start over at Bloodline 1 in exchange for rewards like cosmetics, a badge level, or sometimes options like extra Hunt Dollars, a random legendary skin or a temporary exp boost.
For beginners, my advice is simple: don’t prestige early – in fact you don’t have to prestige at all if you don’t want to. Learn the game first. Get used to your loadouts, your traits, and the maps. Prestiging adds complexity that doesn’t benefit you when you’re learning.
If you want the full breakdown of how it works and whether it’s worth it, I’ve got a full Prestige guide where I go way deeper on this, which I’ll link in the description of this video.
9. Unlocks, Blueprints & Weapon Progression
Weapon progression in Hunt is partly based on usage and partly based on what you find in matches.
When you use a weapon, you build progression for its weapon family, which unlocks new variants. This happens automatically over time as you play various weapons, but you can focus on it specifically if you want to unlock weapon variants faster.
There are also workbenches around the map, usually found in compounds. Workbenches can often spawn either a blueprint or gun oil.
Blueprints unlock a random weapon variant or item you haven’t unlocked yet.
Gun oil unlocks the next weapon variant in the progression line of whatever weapon you’re currently holding. That means if you want to level up a specific weapon family, you can do that intentionally by holding a weapon from that family when you interact with a gun oil.
Every unlock gives you a free copy of whatever you unlocked. You can use the item to save money on your loadouts or sell expensive unlocks for a decent amount of Hunt Dollars. Unlocks, blueprints and weapon progression are also covered in detail in my Prestige guide if you want to learn more.
10. Economy & Gear Fear
The hunt economy can feel punishing until you understand the core mechanics and how to sustain your balance with minimal effort.
You earn Hunt Dollars from objectives like clues, boss kills, banishes, extracting bounties, looting hunters under certain conditions, taking cash registers, and various match bonuses such as playing solo vs teams. Some of these rewards are only secured if you extract alive, while others, like bonuses gained by taking clues, still pay out even if you die.
Free hunters are a built-in safety net should you be running low. Budget loadouts are effective, and the game gives you multiple ways to rebuild if you go broke. I’ve covered these methods in depth in my Money Guide, so if you want to get rid of your money troubles permanently, check that one out later. I’ll leave a link in the description.
The biggest beginner mistake when it comes to the economy is gear fear — hoarding and refusing to use your good gear because you’re afraid to lose it. That permanent loss is one of the biggest reasons Hunt feels stressful — but it’s also what makes it exciting. And the important thing to understand is that the economy is designed around this. You are expected to lose hunters. You’re not failing if you die. It’s all part of the experience!
Hoarding your gear instead of using it holds you back. You improve by using your loadouts, learning their strengths, and getting comfortable taking fights, and once you get into the game, you’ll realize that money comes easy. Hunt dollars left unspent will not make any difference, and as long as you can afford to keep playing the loadouts you enjoy – there is no reason to panic.
Again, I cannot emphasize enough how highly I recommend you check out my money guide if you’re struggling.
On a side note, you’ll sometimes find blood bonds in the game in the form of small bags similar to the hunt dollar pouches, or in golden cash registers. This currency is used for purchasing cosmetics and battle passes – and is lost if you die in the match. On the bright side, the amount you get is painfully low, so you’re better off mowing the neighbor’s lawn and purchasing some when you need them instead.
11. Combat Basics, ammo types & ballistics
Combat in Hunt can be brutal, and it feels different from most shooters.
Most weapons don’t have access to full-auto fire, reloads are slower and bullet velocity matters. There is also bullet drop in the game to complicate things further.
Here’s the main thing to take away from this guide:
This game rewards accuracy over volume of fire. In Hunt, headshots always kill, meaning even the weakest and cheapest budget weapon stands a real chance in the right hands.
Before we talk about ammo types, we need to briefly get into bullet drop and bullet speed – also called velocity. In Hunt, every weapon has a drop range where projectiles start gravitating downward. This means, in example if you are aiming at a target 100 meters away, with a weapon that has 100 meters drop range – you’ll hit exactly where you aim, but beyond that range your projectile will hit gradually lower. This information is visible on the weapon statistics, but also visible on the bottom right when you aim down sights. Finally, you should know that the drop range changes based on ammo types in certain cases.
Next, let’s talk about velocity – or bullet speed. Like drop range, each weapon has a base velocity at which bullets travel. For some weapons, this velocity can be very low, which makes it hard to land shots at a distance, while others have incredibly high velocity and are basically hit scan. The key takeaway is that higher velocity makes leading your shots easier since your bullets travel faster.
There are three main ammo types. Compact ammo is the weakest ammo type. Then you have medium ammo and long ammo, both of which are higher caliber than compact.
Simplified, compact ammo weapons typically have higher ammo capacity and higher drop range, but lower bullet speed and penetration power. Medium ammo is an in-between, and long ammo has high damage, bullet speed and penetration power but lower ammo capacity and drop range.
Then there are special ammo types for each of the 3 calibers. The available ammo types differ for the various weapons, and they all have unique effects that change how the weapon plays.
We covered it briefly earlier in this guide when we set up our loadout with compact ammo HV and FMJ – High velocity to make it easier to land shots, and FMJ for wall penetration in close range when the target is behind cover.
Certain ammo types apply a unique effect, for example dumdum ammo for bleeding, poison to prevent healing and impairing hearing and vision, or fire to ignite the target under certain conditions.
Special weapons also have their own ammo type, for example arrows for the bow, or bolts for crossbows.
On a final note, regular ammo types are refilled from regular ammo boxes, while special ammo and ammo for special weapons is refilled from special ammo boxes. If you’re running special ammo types only it can often be a good idea to bring an ammo box in your loadout.
If you want to learn more about ammo types and ballistics, I cover all the relevant information for each weapon family in my Mastery series – which is an extensive and up-to-date playlist of weapon guides found on my channel.
12. AI & Environmental Threats
AI in Hunt isn’t just background noise. It’s part of the PvP ecosystem.
Most AI exists to drain your resources, slow you down, or give away your position to other players. Grunts, hives, hellhounds, armoreds, immolators, meatheads, water devils all have different behavior and different ways to handle them safely. For example, immolators will burst into fire if you pierce their skin but can be safely killed with a blunt weapon such as the stock of your Ranger 73, or by using a choke bomb. Meatheads are incredibly tanky, but are no match for a single dynamite stick, and hellhounds can be dealt with effectively using your knife.
As a beginner, don’t get stuck in the trap of fighting everything. It’s an easy way to make more noise than you should, lower your guard and waste all your ammo. The safest play is often to avoid AI or kill it quietly when you can.
Sound traps are the big one: birds, horses, dog pens, chicken coops, branches on the ground – you name it. Triggering sound traps lets nearby enemy teams know where you are, and most of them can be heard or seen across the entire map. Sometimes you can’t avoid them, but if you can – you should.
Environmental hazards like fire and poison matter too. Fire burns health chunks over time, like I covered earlier. Poison prevents healing and messes with your senses. Be cautious of how you move and which routes you take to increase your chance of survival.
13. Movement & positioning
A key beginner concept is that fights are usually won by whoever gets the first clean advantage — the first hit, the first down or the first angle that forces the other team to react instead of taking the initiative.
Early on, you’re not looking for “fair fights.” You’re looking for an opportunity to shift the odds in your favor.
Use cover. Don’t run in straight lines. Don’t stand still in windows. Don’t peek the same angle five times. When you take a shot, relocate. Hunt punishes predictable behavior, so try to be unpredictable when you can.
And again, you need to be aware of the noise you make. Every action gives away information. Footsteps, sprinting, vaulting, climbing ladders, breaking glass — it all tells other teams where you are and what you’re doing. The more skilled the opponent, the more they’ll get out of the slightest piece of information you hand them.
If you want to improve quickly, movement and positioning are the first thing you should focus on. I’ve got dedicated guides on typical beginner mistakes as well as movement & positioning that go much deeper with visual examples, and they’ll save you a lot of pain, so check those videos out later when you’re ready to dive deeper!
14. Practice, Settings & Improvement
If you want to improve faster than the average player, you need a simple plan.
First: use the shooting range for all its worth. Learn your weapon’s feel, drop range, reload rhythm, and how fast you can swap tools and consumables. Finding out how your loadout works when you’re in the middle of a fight is a bad idea, so you might as well go in prepared!
Second: get your settings in a good place. At minimum, separate jump and vault, set up sensible keybinds for your tools and consumables, and make sure your sensitivity feels consistent. I have a full settings guide where I go through this properly and explain why it is important, including crosshair settings, audio, and quality-of-life options. I’ll leave a link to that video in the description.
Third: accept the learning curve. The fastest way to improve is to stop treating deaths like punishment and start treating them like feedback. Ask yourself: how much noise did I make? What angle did I give them? Did I overpeek? Did I rotate too late? Did I tunnel vision?
Hunt gets better the more you learn. If you stick with it, you’ll reach a point where the chaos starts to make sense — and that’s where the game becomes addicting in the best way.
On a final note, I’ll briefly touch on the matchmaking system, also known as MMR, since I know this is something a lot of players care about.
In Hunt, this is divided into a star system ranging from 1 at the lowest, to 6 at the highest. It’s volatile and can change quickly based on who you kill and who kills you. Killing higher MMR players gives more, while dying to lower MMR players is more punishing. On a bad streak, it’s normal to drop a star or two in a single day. On a good streak, you’ll regain it. Don’t obsess over it early and instead focus on learning the game. It is possible to hide your MMR from the settings if you find it distracting and would like to focus on the gameplay without getting constant feedback that doesn’t mean all that much. In the same way, I recommend you don’t focus to much on KDA – or your kills vs deaths and assists ratio. This number, while it can imply a certain skill level, does not provide an accurate image of a player’s skill level in Hunt: Showdown. It does not factor in play style, team size, loadout choices or even your gameplay focus, and it does not factor in time.
Enjoy the game when you’re new. Focus on learning and improving, gaining knowledge and having a good time, even if it comes at the cost of dying a few more times. Don’t let artificial numbers dictate how you feel about your own journey. MMR and KDA will likely improve with time – but you’re not speeding up the process by focusing on them.
Outro
And that’s it for this beginner guide.
If you want to improve further, check out my guide playlist! As mentioned throughout this video, I’ve got dedicated guides on solo play, moneymaking, prestige & unlocks, settings, wild targets like Rotjaw and Hellborn. Additionally, my full weapon mastery series breaks down every weapon family in detail, including ammo types, reloading mechanics and a lot more. I’m continuously working on providing more updated guides for beginners, so stay tuned!
If you learned something useful, make sure to like and subscribe — these guides take a ton of time to make, and subscribing lets me know that it was helpful.
And finally, if you want to purchase Hunt: Showdown or any DLC’s and support the channel, I have a referral link in the description.
Thanks for watching — and until next time, I’ll see you in the bayou.
