Unfortunately after spending all this time on the game, I have to change my recommendation to a negative one.

While the gameplay loop is still great, the overall state of the game seems to be degrading in to a grind/pay F2P model. The game is slowly getting populated with multiple player retention mechanisms, which are replacing some of the previously existing player-friendly ones, and are starting to affect the gameplay loop itself. This might be not that much noticeable for a new player, but it becomes painfully visible after 30 or so hours of playtime.

My main beef the game right now are the monetization and endgame changes that Crytek introduced or announced within last two years. Those two are closely interconnected, which is the reason I will be talking about them together.
To give you some perspective, the endgame in Hunt is being reached within about 20 hours if you don't take in to account the learning curve for the new players. This means that in 20 hours you unlock most of the gameplay content (guns, tools, consumables) by reaching 100 lvl of the bloodline. And it takes another 10 or so, to unlock the rest by using specific guns and tools in the game. This means that at that point, cosmetic unlocks (equipment and character skins) become the only remaining progression in the game.
Those cosmetic unlocks can be acquired by either simply playing the game (premium currency yield based on your match performance) or resetting your progress (prestiging). The latter gives you a skin for the first 10 times you do it, and then for every 25th one until you reach 100. Within last two years Crytek was gradually replacing the first method with player retention mechanisms by implementing the following changes:
- You are getting much less premium currency post match.
- You can get a fixed amount after 5 days of consecutively winning one game per day.
- You can get a fixed amount if you complete a list of randomized specific tasks called "challenges", which may or may not be part of a gameplay loop. As an example you might need to kill specific types of AI in a specific way, which has nothing to do with the match objective, or you could be tasked to kill other players in a specific way or with a specific weapon (which does require you to have that weapon, tool or weapon variant unlocked).
- You are getting up to 4 loot boxes based on daily experience earned. Which can contain a small amount of premium currency or a skin. To give you an idea of their content, in my last 400 hundred hours or playtime I haven't got a single skin from them, and was getting about 1/6 of regular skin worth in premium currency per month.
On top of that there are almost constant time limited battle-pass events that mostly work in the same way as "challenges".

As of 2 days ago, Crytek announced that they will be removing first two things from the list above. You will no longer receive premium currency based on your match performance, and you will no longer get premium currency for winning 5 consecutive days in a row. But instead you will get more premium currency from the "challenges". As of now, "challenges" already compete with "prestiging" as the former very often requires different equipment unlocked, and the latter locks it. There are no confirmed by Crytek plans to change the "prestiging", which effectively leaves the "challenges" as the pretty much only viable way to progress the endgame.
The replacements described above are also limiting heavily the amount of premium currency that can be acquired by players by playing the game. There are multiple posts with calculations on reddit, but in general it looks like about 70% reduction if you play the game for 15 hours a week, which now forces you too do specific tasks instead of main gameplay loop. And in comparison to the state of the game 2 years ago, the yields of premium currency that were possible to get by playing the game were reduced by more than 90%.

On top of that, Crytek announced that they will be removing ingame "discounts" for the premium currency bundles, which will effectively bring the single skin prices to about 8$. While it's not a big deal by itself, combined with all that I described above, it paints quite a unfriendly picture for the user.

hunt: showdown has been a comfort game of mine for years, one that felt like it had respected me as a player which in turn earned it my loyalty when numerous other titles were far more restrictive and predatory for monetisation

today, the developers released an "economy update" video, which detailed how they are removing 75% of the premium currency earnings players get just by playing the game, and shoehorned the scraps left over into their weekly challenges system. it is not a system i regularly engaged with, as the challenges took away from what i prefer to focus on when i play. now, because of these new changes, i will earn absolutely no premium currency whatsoever just by loading into matches and enjoying my time

for a game that has new dlc packs dropping as often as it does, i really do not understand why crytek would need to make such a drastic change, and i'm not particularly a fan of having my ability to earn something nice now and then taken away from me. i can only hope they rethink this disappointing change in policy

A game with some of the most toxic players, yet some of the nicest interactions.

Being a DJ in the bayou never gets old.