A few weeks back on PC Gamer, Crytek debuted Hunt: Showdown's first new map in three years, Mammon's Gulch. We all had a good time taking in the sights of Hunt's vision of Colorado, a sun-baked mountain range with oil fields and an extensive mining operation, but Crytek was holding something back: There's a new wild target on the loose in Mammon's Gulch, and it's arriving alongside a new event called Scorched Earth.
That target is the Hellborn, a towering fire demon who wanders the map hurling balls of lava at hunters who dare provoke him. Crytek describes the Hellborn as an "amalgam of fire and flesh" who "moves frantically to slag trespassing Hunters, scorching everything in its considerable reach."
At a glance, the Hellborn looks like the meaner big brother of the Immolator, a low-level monster that poses no major threat as long as you don't pierce it with anything sharp. The Hellborn is a different story—taking a ranged position against hunters and lobbing lava balls that explode on impact and leave lingering fires. As a "wild target," it's considered a miniboss worth an extra bounty mark on top of the primary bounties.
According to Crytek, the Hellborn "can be tracked audibly by listening in Dark Sight." This is a notable change from Hunt's first wild target, the killer alligator Rotjaw, whose tracks had to be discovered by looking at the ground while in Dark Sight. The Hellborn reveal trailer suggests the demon's location might also be telegraphed by the appearance of burnt trees near his lair.
The Hellborn is the centerpiece of Scorched Earth, Hunt's first seasonal event with its new 1896 tag. Crytek is doing things a little differently with challenges this time. Instead of assigning random challenges to individual players with a strict time limit, Crytek is adopting a similar model to Apex Legends or Fortnite, assigning everyone the same set of challenges every week that can be completed anytime throughout the season.
But the real meat of Hunt's seasonal events are pact traits, special perks that are activated by visiting supply points on the map.
The Wilderness Pact Traits
The Lawful Pact Traits
The Demented Pact Traits
The Scorched Earth pact traits don't have the most dramatic effects I've seen, but if history is any indicator, Crytek will be monitoring how players use these traits and might adopt them permanently in Hunt. That "conditional trait effects" thing is confusing, but it basically means joining a pact upgrades that trait if you already have it. Beastface, for instance, usually hides your hunter from monsters, but if you activate the Wilderness Pact, all animals will also ignore you and even branches won't break under your feet.
The Scorched Earth event begins, and the Hellborn comes to town, when the Hunt: Showdown 1896 update arrives on August 15. We'll have more to share about the update and the accompanying CryEngine 5.11 engine upgrade soon.
