A Somewhat Informed Guide to Hunt Showdown

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!

Intro

The description pretty much says it all. I'm still learning more and more about Hunt; I'm not the best player by any means. 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 analysis 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 assumes you already know the basics, like controls, the Bounty Hunt mode, etc, though some stuff, like health, will be covered to cater for new players. I'd recommend completing the tutorial as well as familiarising yourself with the game's menus and layout before reading this guide.

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.

There is a terminology section at the end of this guide too, containing terms used in this guide as well as terms you may hear in-game.

TLDR: This guide is for newer players, it's broad and doesn't go into deep analysis 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 assumes 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 / .

This guide is a Work in Progress. I will edit it over time as I learn more information, receive feedback, whatever.

Check back every now and then to see if there's new/updated information :)

Guide Updates

15/10/22: Busy with stuff right now, updates will be slow for a while. I'm aiming to do at least one update per week.

31/03/23: Slightly outdated as of game version 1.12, will be updating some of the older parts soon.

05/11/2023: Will be around an update per month unless attention picks up. Prioritising the empty sections for now before I update outdated ones.

13/08/2024: Howdy! With the impending release of Hunt: Showdown 1896 , I'm sure there will be an increase in the number of new players. If you are one of them reading this guide, just know that while parts of this guide are outdated, the vast majority of it is still true, so if you're not sure or you want clarification, you can comment here or research elsewhere, such as the Hunt subreddit. And please share this guide with anybody else you know, whether new or veteran to Hunt - as far as I know this is basically the only comprehensive general guide to Hunt around and it will definitely help people out in their Hunt journey. Meanwhile I'll work on updating it as much as possible after the launch; I knew this massive update was on the horizon so I held off because anything I wrote could easily change.

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: Hunt was absolutely worth full price to me, but I can understand being hesitant to pay that much. The 50% discount is as cheap as the game is going to get though, so keep that in mind.

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, 4FS Gaming, Homereel, JustBree, Delaney and Gunsmackk.

• 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 stripped back and gameplay is more understated compared to other games, even its competitor ones like The Cycle: Frontier CoD DMZ and Escape From Tarkov.
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 classes, or different armor/shield 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 generally 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 camouflage advantages as you might expect, but nothing OP and there are some earnable skins which can also grant a small camouflage advantage if you're really looking for that). For reasons explained later, you do not lose your DLC stuff, even if your Hunter dies (this is a question commonly asked by potential buyers/newer players).

Hunt has its share of issues, but overall the game is reliable. The most notable problems are pretty much either network or optimisation related. The developers overall 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.

Some server regions also have noticeably lower populations compared to others. Europe, US West and US East seem to be the most populated, and Oceania seems to be the least. Some areas just don't fall under a server region, such as Africa, so if you're playing from those regions you'll either need to just pick the server region with the lowest ping or play through a proxy somehow. Game streaming services such as Geforce Now might be able to help with this issue.

Hunt has also moved in a slightly different direction from 2022 onwards, I think due to some management changes? Either way, the devs have been slowly trying to implement a more in-depth monetisation system. It doesn't feel unfair at least to me, and I understand them wanting to make more money somehow, but these changes have been a source of debate in the community. They've also been steadily releasing new DLCs fairly often, but have also recently been somewhat slower at implementing fixes for certain issues, including particularly bad ones such as the LeMat bug. They have stated that Hunt is essentially only barely making a profit for them, and that they are looking to increase the revenue so that they can support the game for longer.

In my humble opinion, I think considering Hunt's smaller playerbase, they're probably trying to gather new players and money using the DLCs, so that once the playerbase is large enough, they can focus on an "Operation Health" type deal like R6 Siege did where they can focus on improving the game's health instead of releasing new content to try and attract/retain players. Again, that's just what I think.

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 it just clicked with me. I also played Dead By Daylight and For Honor - which I got on sale and for free respectively - for a few hundred 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 for me, it doesn't feel tedious, and the grind is actually pretty decent compared to most other games, especially when compared to DBD and FH.

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. I can absolutely understand being hesitant to pay full price though, so I'd recommend that if you are aiming to get it on sale, get it when it's 50% off, because it doesn't get any cheaper than that.

The DLCs are pretty fairly priced too in my opinion, especially when they go on sale, which they do pretty often. 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. It's also nice that they also don't grant major gameplay advantages aside from occasional situational camouflage, but again, nothing major. This was a big plus for me because I came from DBD, where a lot of perks, including most of the meta ones, are locked behind DLCs which you either need to grind for or buy with real money, and the power disparity between meta tiers meant that you were generally at a disadvantage, sometimes even a significant one, if you didn't have those meta perks.


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, or are just hesitant about getting it in general, 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-- you have the option to leave the match with the XP/loot/equipment you have at any point. 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. However, Hunt does have it's own standout mechanics, as do the other games.

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. 1896 edit: The BoA and BoM have been removed from ingame but preserved on the Hunt:Showdown wiki.

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 mandate 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.

Hunt has four maps: Stillwater Bayou, Lawson Delta, DeSalle and Mammon's Gulch. There are also Wildcards which are randomly chosen by the system to alter each map on a match by match basis. The main change Wildcards do as of now is change the weather/time of the map's setting or add extra scenery, influencing the way you play. Some Wildcards are event-specific.

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 which are called Legendaries - which consist of Hunter and Equipment skins - as well as Boosts/extra rewards when there's an Event.
BBs are also used to change Traits, Clean weapons, redistribute Hunters' health chunks and quicken Dark Tribute progression.

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 weekly challenges called Summons, which 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.

DLCs

DLCs are digital content packs you can purchase with real money.

Important: You do not permanently lose your DLC items/hunters if you die. They're just skins that you pay real money/Blood Bonds for initially, and then after that you can buy them again with Hunt Dollars for the same price as non-Legendary equipment. Legendary Hunters all cost the same amount of Hunt Dollars.

Hunt Showdown's DLCs are all skins, and they are either weapon skins, Hunter skins, or both. These skins are referred to as "Legendary", and can be browsed in the Store tab.

The Legendary skins (sometimes called Legendaries, or Legendary for singular, for short) you have unlocked can be viewed in the Store tab and also in the equipment menu.

There is a difference between "unlocked" versus "owned" in terms of how the game treats Legendaries. "Unlocked" means you have bought that skin with either real money or BBs, and are now able to purchase copies of it using Hunt Dollars. "Owned" means you have unlocked the skin and also have a copy of it in your inventory (meaning it appears in the equipment menu with a little "x1", "x2", etc to show that you already have it, ready to be equipped).

So, on the Store tab, if you want to see all of the legendary skins you have unlocked, filter by "Hide Locked"-- filtering by "Owned" will only show you the ones that you unlocked but also have a copy of.

You can also receive copies of Legendary weapons that you haven't actually unlocked. You can do this by looting them from other Hunters or through the Dark Tribute. These will appear in the equipment menu, and will also appear multiple times (two separate entries, one above the other). One of those entries is the actual copy you have in your inventory (you can see if it's a copy by looking for the little "x1", "x2", etc). The entry that isn't the actual weapon, will have a padlock and chain icon on it, and will do nothing even when double-clicked. It's just there to remind you that you don't actually have that legendary unlocked.

Legendary equipment functions exactly like normal equipment-- if it's a consumable, it's consumed upon use (and can be rebought), if its a gun, it gains mud as it is used, and is lost upon death (and can be rebought). You essentially pay the initial cost with real money or BBs (or unlock it by chance through the Dark Tribute or Prestiging), and every time you buy it after that, you use Hunt Dollars. Legendary equipment costs the same amount of Hunt Dollars as regular equipment. It is purely a cosmetic change.

Legendary content, including DLCs, do not grant hard advantages (such as "equip this legendary gun and receive +4 boost to damage" or whatever).

However, as mentioned before, some Legendary Hunter skins can grant a small camouflage advantage, to varying degrees depending from skin to skin. This is covered in more detail in the "Things to Be Aware Of" sections of this guide.

New Player Experience

Obviously this is going to be subjective, but I'm really going to try and keep this as unbiased as I can. I can't really relate to the feeling of being a new player in Hunt anymore (although that doesn't mean I don't learn anything new about the game at all), but I know people who are and the way the game can come across, and the feelings it can create.

Learning:
Hunt is a hardcore game. Like any hardcore game, this means that it's going to have a steep learning curve. You need to be prepared to put effort and time into the game to see returns. So I can't say I can recommend getting the game if you don't think you'll be able to commit to it. You don't have to sweat it out, but I'd say at least 6 to 8 hours a week (basically an hour a day) is good enough and you can count reading guides like this one or watching videos about it towards that-- just generally consuming any resource about it. The more prep you do, the better, you'll find yourself doing much better from the outset rather than going in blind.

So, if you're new to hardcore games, Hunt isn't terrible as a starting point as I've said in the previous section, Hunt's gameplay is stripped and slowed down compared to its competitors. This means that while there is technically less depth compared to most other hardcore shooters, there is still plenty for you to sink your teeth into. In some senses, it's actually more forgiving, although it's a little difficult to explain through text alone.

One key thing to know is that Hunt uses a crosshair that is lower than the center of the screen, unlike most other FPS games, which tend to use a fully centered crosshair. This doesn't make much of a difference if you don't play FPS games much, but for those who do, especially hardcore or competitively, the lowered crosshair can conflict with your muscle memory and aiming ability/sense. So keep that in mind; some find it easier to adjust to than others.
There is no in-game option to change the position of the crosshair, and the few workarounds (at least that I know of) don't really provide much benefit because they can create additional problems.
The 1896 update has added a centered crosshair option in the game settings, I believe it is active by default.

Gameplay:
If you want a game that's fast-paced and heavily loot-focused, Hunt is probably not for you, in fact I'd recommend The Cycle: Frontier, Escape From Tarkov or Call of Duty DMZ 2.0, if you want games in the same genre (extraction shooters). If you're not into extraction shooters, maybe go with battle royales such as Apex Legends or Fortnite, as these are somewhat similar while also retaining the loot focus and fast gameplay. All of these games have their places, but Hunt is somewhat of an anomaly, even though it shares some similarities.
The best way I've heard Hunt described is as a "thinking man's shooter". With everything stripped back, slowed down and each moment carrying more weight, the emphasis on your skill level and game sense is much higher, allowing you to explore and express your capabilities better.

The hard time limit for a Bounty Hunt (the main game mode) match is 45 minutes, but your average game probably lasts around 25 minutes. Quickplay (Battle Royale-style game mode) has a hard limit of 10 minutes. The nice thing about extraction shooters is that you can leave at any point, so sometimes you may feel like cutting your losses or playing it safe to save your character, and in that case you can just extract.

I also highly recommend you do some research, and the subreddit is probably your best bet for this, but look for information about server regions, performance, that kind of thing. The stuff you really need to know before buying any given game.
Hunt in particular, can be kind of finicky to run, in the sense that at least as far as I understand it, how optimally it runs is very wide-ranged and the causes of issues can be hard to pin down. Also, its server regions don't cover everywhere, and certain server regions have lower populations and this can result in noticeably longer matchmaking times.
In addition, the servers can be hit or miss, and ping drops, rubberbanding, that kind of thing are somewhat common, though again I think it's affected by the server region. I've personally had a pretty good experience with them, but it's definitely something to be aware of.

UI:
The overall UI layout can be confusing too, and feel cluttered. They have improved it over time but there's still little quirks and stuff that won't necessarily make sense. This can be frustrating in the beginning, but you'll pick it up eventually. I'll probably put more info in a dedicated section, so keep a look out for it if you're struggling.
1896 edit: The UI rework released with the 1896 is.... contentious. The game was reviewbombed by its players as a result. The key thing though is that the main sentiment is the game is good, great, amazing even -- but that the new UI just lets everything else down, being everything from unintuitive to click-heavy to buggy.
Either way, the game at its core is still good, and Crytek have since committed to refined/reworking the UI going forward. So I'd recommend either playing it for yourself or watch other people play it to see the UI. And you can always just wait until a future update.

New Player Experience - Part 2

Balance:
Whether or not the game is balanced is obviously a very broad question, and somewhat subjective. In my opinion, Hunt is definitely not evenly balanced, however this only really makes a difference at higher levels of MMR, as players in those rankings are very experienced and chances are if they're that high, they're also actively looking for every advantage they can get, so a lot of the loadouts you'll see in that MMR bracket will be similar.
Hunt at mid-MMR, which I play at, has a nice variety of loadouts. I tend to see a mix of 3-Star and 4-Star players with the occasional 2-Star, which makes matches feel nicely varied in difficulty.

Specifically about weapons etc, I'd say that overall, there is definitely a tilt towards Long Ammo, since it basically has the best stats. Taking Compact or Medium (or any other variations) can definitely compete; you are not at a significant disadvantage by using them, as long as you are making good decisions. Certain consumables and tools are favoured over others, but I'd say overall they can all compete if used correctly.

In terms of health, Time-To-Kill: There is a overall low TTK in Hunt. Excluding factors like range, players tend to die in 4 shots or less, 2 if you are hitting them in the chest, or 1 if its a headshot within your weapon's Effective Range. Plus, every time a player is revived, they have less maximum health, which after one rez, makes them OHK to the high-damage weapons, and after two, makes them OHK to pretty much the rest of the weapons. This means drawn-out fights with multiple downs and rezzes will eventually wind down, usually with the team that rezzed the most, dead.

Extended firefights turn into sieges; it's a war of attrition in order to whittle down the enemy's supplies while they try to whittle down yours. Fights don't generally tend to resolve quickly, usually at least three to five minutes in my experience. Occasionally you may even have ones that last for at least 10 or more, and these, frankly, tend to be either the most intense adrenaline-inducing experience or the most boring, depending on various factors (location, number of players, loadouts, etc).

Matchmaking/Difficulty:
Matchmaking can be iffy around the lower-end of MMR, which is where Hunt starts you off at. If you don't know what MMR is, the quick explanation is that it's a matchmaking system design where players are assigned a Skill Rating based on their performance, and are grouped together with other players with similar Skill Ratings. The better you do, the more your SR goes up, and you'll be matched with better players as their SRs will be similar to yours. The reverse is also true.

MMR is split into multiple brackets, each encompassing a certain range of SR. Hunt has six: 1-Diamond through to 6-Diamond. You may also hear other people refer to these as Stars instead of Diamonds-- the term's interchangeable.

In Hunt, your MMR is mostly based on your Kills, Deaths and Assists, although your Bounty Score (a value representing how many Objective Points you've accumulated) is also a factor. Since this is all broken down to numbers, it doesn't have context; this can lead to you going down in MMR because even though you may have been making the right choices that lead to your survival from fight to fight, you may somehow not have been getting enough kills and dying too much overall and so your SR may decrease.

Hunt does eventually allow you to turn MMR-based matcmaking off, so that you are matched purely randomly with other players, however, this option is only made available after the first time you reach Bloodline Level (Account Level) 99. So, for the first dozen or so hours, you'll be restricted to MMR matchmaking and will likely be in the lower-end i.e 1-Diamond or 2-Diamond.

Hunt starts you off at 2-Diamond. This isn't an inherently bad place to be, and I've certainly played enough to tell the difference between a 2-Diamond or 3-Diamond or more. 2-Diamonds are overall new to the game, which is good. The issue is that the MMR system should probably have more brackets than it does, so that there's a better resolution to the gradient, allowing the players to be more precisely matched by their Skill Rating. Because there isn't such a detailed gradient, what this means is that even at 2-Diamond, you may find the game very difficult, and may consistently lose your matches, because you're being matched with players who are better than you i.e better than 2-Diamond, but not good enough to stay in the 3-Diamond bracket, so they float around in 2-Diamond).
Unfortunately that's par for the course in most competitive games; the quality of matchmaking is largely dependent on both the measurement(s) the system uses but also the population of players. Especially in a somewhat niche title like Hunt, new players might join with little or no preparation, do badly because they don't know how to play, get frustrated, then stop playing the game. This, over time, results in a playerbase where the average player's skill is on the higher end due to the old-timers sticking around, which contributes to matches being difficult for new players because they're being matched with the skilled players, which is because there's not enough new players, and so on and so forth.

My experience:
Personally, my new player experience was pretty nice. I didn't even see any enemy Hunters in my first match. I watched maybe two or three beginner guides on YouTube and didn't really look at any other guides outside of the limited and mostly outdated ones on Steam (and even then, only the most popular ones). I didn't even start browsing the subreddit until at least a month or two after I'd started playing. I really mostly picked things up as I played, watching my teammates and enemies as much as I could to learn. How to move around the map safely, which spots to peek, how to approach situations, that kind of thing. I did die, like a LOT, but every time I died it was still a learning experience.
I remember having some matches back-to-back where in Match 1 I was attacking into a compound and got killed by a defender through a tiny panel gap they shot from in a particular building, that only looks out at a very odd angle and is otherwise useless. Then in Match 2, ended up in the same compound, same building, this time defending, and killed an attacker from that same tiny panel gap.

Game Modes

Hunt contains two multiplayer game modes (Bounty Hunt and Quickplay/Soul Survivor) and three singleplayer modes (Trials, Explore and Training). There is also the Shooting Range, which can be played alone or with other people by inviting them.

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.

Bounty Hunt: Equip a character and equipment loadout of your choice. Collect clues in order to locate a Boss monster's lair. Once you reach the Boss, you can kill it and Banish it. Banishing takes time, and once it is over, it will yield two Bounty Tokens. The goal is to then pick up these tokens and then reach an extraction point without dying in order to leave the match with your spoils. You can choose whether to go up against Trios, so by default it's a mix of Duos and Solos.

Soul Survivor:Previously called Quickplay. It's a combination of holding the Wellspring (essentially a Token) and/or being the last person alive. You spawn in as a random Hunter with a random weapon-- to get more equipment, you'll need to loot it from the game world. It's essentially a Battle Royale mode.

A key difference between BH and QP is that you can choose your loadout for BH, whereas in Soul Survivor you're given a random Hunter with a random weapon based on your spawn option, and must loot equipment from the game world. Also, it's 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 Hunt's built-in tutorial, and it teaches you just the fundamentals. Good for a start, but I'd still recommend doing more research and learning before actually jumping into a match, since it doesn't teach you most of the stuff you'll find in guides like this. Training is also based on Bounty Hunt, it doesn't really teach you anything about Soul Survivor.

Shooting Range: Previously part of the Training Mode, it has been expanded and separated into its own standalone mode, and multiplayer has been added so you can also use it as a sort of custom, private game between you and others in your party. It is very useful to new and seasoned players, because it allows you to test out loadouts and whatever without the pressure of being in a match. Every weapon and item in the game is available for you to use and try out, in addition to the items you bring in, though you cannot take anything out of it.

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 against 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. When a Boss starts being banished, the compound they are in is revealed to everyone in the match, so you won't necessarily have collected any clues before the Boss' location is revealed to you.

• 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.

As long as a Boss is alive, and you are within a certain radius of it, it's icon on the screen will flash either red or white when you use Darksight. If white, it means there are no living enemy Hunters within that same radius. If red, it means there are.

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 (assuming 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 or picking up a Clue replenishes 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.

Soul Survivor (Quickplay)

Soul Survivor (previously called 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.

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 the 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.

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 assumed 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 [Shooting Range + Tutorial]

This mode has now been separated into Shooting Range and the Tutorial.

Tutorial

Tutorial (previously Training Mode) is 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 Tutorial doesn't have them. So you won't learn much about fighting Hunters in particular.

It is a linear experience where you must fulfil certain objectives to progress. So I wouldn't call it exactly pressure-free, plus you can't take in your own equipment. Instead, the sandbox-style of the older Training Mode has been separated out into the Shooting Range.

The Tutorial also technically the closest thing the game has to a story mode! So that's cool.

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.

♥♥♥♥:

• 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.

• Same Boss too, it's always the Butcher Spider. 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.

Shooting Range

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.

• 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.

♥♥♥♥:

• No variation map or time-wise, it's always Fort Carmick set in the afternoon. So you can't explore other compounds to learn and memorise them.

• The selection of on-hand weapons is limited to Base weapons and their Scoped variants. So any variants outside of that e.g Shorty, Melee , you have to bring them in yourself in your loadout in order to use them.

• Tool Refills are still limited. So if testing out a Tool, bringing in a Toolbox Consumable with you will give you more uses.

Trials/Explore [Removed with 1896 Update]

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.

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 50 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 50BB if you wanted to skip to the end.

History: the Dark Tribute was also somewhat divisive (at time of initial implementation a few years ago) in the Hunt community. Some believed it was essentially a disguised lootbox because of that 50BB skipping fee + random reward, and/or another in a line of changes supposedly intended to bring microtransactions into Hunt following the (again, at that time) 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.

However, it's come to be an accepted part of Hunt, though there are still the usual discussions about the reward probabilities as is common with RNG mechanics.

WO: I think the Dark Tribute has a nice earn rate and is a good addition to Hunt. It adds another rewarding element that I felt 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. I also have earned plenty of useful rewards through it that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten, including skins.
However I do think the 50BB cost to skip to the last reward isn't great. I personally think most of the DT rewards I get aren't worth 50BBs, 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 50BBs. As for whether or not it's a disguised lootbox or whatever (which is what some people think), I think in this state it's harmless. But I do hope that microtransactions that shift the game into P2W territory don't come to the game. We'll just have to see. /

Note: The Dark Tribute final skip fee used to be 100 BB when it was originally implemented into the game. It's nice that it's been brought down to 50BB.

World Overview

Each match takes place in one of four maps: Stillwater Bayou, Lawson Delta, DeSalle and Mammon's Gulch.
Each map contains Compounds, which act as main areas for AI enemies, Clues, Bosses and Resources to appear in.

A mostly-random Wildcard modifier is also applied to the map for each match. The main change Wildcards do as of now is change the weather/time of the map's setting or add extra scenery, influencing the way you play. Some Wildcards are event-specific.
Regular Wildcards: Morning, Afternoon, Night, Day+Fog, Day+Rain, Night+Rain.
Event Wildcards: Serpent's Moon, Inferno, Ashbloom.

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 exposing parts of buildings to add risk and reward aggressive defending. 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 disturbing the water nearby. Grunt footsteps will crunch on broken glass. An enraged Immolator will burn Crows that it moves past. The Hellborn sets nearby enemies alight as it lumbers along. 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. /

Sound - Part 1

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 it 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 pass 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", "angry" or "aggro'd" 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 and act passively, only moving once activated.
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.

Sound - Part 2

A good rule of thumb is, if you can hear yourself make a sound, you can also hear your opponents make the same sound if you were close enough.

For example, if I reload my Lebel, my opponents can hear me do it. They could even count how many rounds I'm reloading. Skilled opponents will even recognise the reload sound of your weapon and know what you're using, potentially using that to their advantage, such as hearing that you are reloading your Lebel (which takes a fairly long time) so they push into the room you're in, knowing you won't be able to react fast.

Likewise, if you hear someone healing, you could use that to guess "Okay, well they're healing, and it takes X seconds to heal, and I have a Sparks, so if I push in now I can OHK them as long as I hit them in the chest since they're missing at least 1 HP."

You can even hear people when they use Darksight, plus Darksight and Boosted Darksight make different sounds, so you can even tell if they are holding the bounty, and if so, based on context, you can guess their next move-- "I've just walked up these stairs and made noise, and they've just scanned with boosted Darksight, and I can hear that they're on the other side of this wooden wall that I'm next to, so chances are they're going to try and wallbang me, so I should move away from the wall and reposition." or even "I've heard them use boosted darksight, and I can hear from the sound that they're on the other side of the stone wall that I'm next to, so I can't wallbang them but at least I know that they have 1 less second of scan."

As far as I'm aware, the only sounds that you can't actually hear someone else make are:
1. The heavy breathing when you are Exhausted
2. The paper rustle/burning sound when you open the map
3. The whooshing sounds when you use Necro or Serpent, but they still hear the initial Darksight whisper sound effect, so they might be able to guess that you're using them. However, Serpent makes a distinct lightning sound effect after a successful use, and a visual lightning bolt effect that indicates the direction that the object was interacted from. So, opponents can potentially hear and see you use it, and even guess your location, but only if they're close enough, and only after you've successfully used it ie picked up a BT, clue, etc.
4. Raising/lowering a weapon. Transitioning to shoulder aim/ADS makes noise, but raising/lowering your weapon (the state that makes your crosshair disappear) doesn't.
5. The rustling sounds when you move through plants, such as bushes, long grass, etc.
6. Interacting with the UI (opening the pause menu, navigating/changing settings, hovering your mouse over your teammates' equipment, etc).

Sound - Part 3

This section is about using sound to predict what's happening in a match.

It's more just general tips.

• Outdoor gunshots have a reverb effect at the end of the sound, whereas indoor ones don't.

• Lots of gunshots= probably a firefight and/or team is fighting the boss-- You could potentially find the boss location if you find the source, but could just as easily end up caught in a team firefight.

• Generally, you can hear Living Soundtraps triggered if they are in a neighbouring compound (like within roughly that distance/radius).

• Gunshot+few seconds of silence+explosion sound means barrel was exploded, probably means a firefight is happening or about to happen.

• There are only two voices in this game for Hunters, either male or female. All male hunters sound identical and the same for female hunters.This means that there's less vocalisations to learn about and what they mean.
  
• When a hunter receives damage, they will grunt or cry out. The volume of the cry is essentially proportional to the damage they received. Minor damage will make them grunt somewhat quietly, major damage will make them cry out loudly.

• Bullets whizzing past you still have directional audio, so even if you're getting shot at by a silenced weapon, you can approximate the location of the shooter by the sound of the bullet alone. Even realising "Oh, I didn't hear any firing sound, but I heard the bullet in my right ear first, and then my left ear" is useful because in this case it tells you that the shooter is to your right. With experience, you'll even be able to do this with bolts and arrows.

• Silenced guns are generally audible out to about 40m. Similar to the previous point, silenced guns are definitely stealthier compared to non-silenced, but the advantage isn't always that useful as again, your opponent can predict where you are with relative ease. Also, because silenced guns don't make a loud sound, you can hear the whizzing and ricocheting sounds of the bullet it fires easier, making them easier to track compared to if you heard a loud bang first and then the whizzing sounds.

W.O: One time I was at Reeves Quarry, and saw the clue was up on that little balcony on the east side of the building. My game sense told me that grabbing that clue is risky as I could easily get sniped up on the balcony, since there's basically no cover. I start picking it up, while facing towards the wall, crouching, and looking downward to make it harder to headshot me. Sure enough, I hear a bullet, though no gunshot sound, whizz past my ear (hearing it in one, and then the other) and then thud into the wall. I was able to gauge the rough direction it was shot from just because of the ear i heard it in first, then I was able to gauge the angle it was shot from based on where I heard it hit the wall. Now with this info I could find the sniper much easier. So I relayed this to my teammate, he flanked around while I tried to distract the sniper, and we were able to take them down. /

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.

Health Bars

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 passive 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 passively 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 if you use a regular healing item, such as a medkit, because those only restore HP. Burnt bars reduce your 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.

By default, 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). 1896 update: This effect is now called Restoration, and can be applied by other things though usually this is only during Events.

The second way to gain back burnt bars 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(see Glossary) 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 will be between three times (where you have three big chunks) and six times (six small chunks).
Certain Traits can also burn your health bars when they are used.

Damage Received

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 passive 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 passive 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 passively heal back as much (this is mostly applicable to AI-caused damage, for reasons mentioned above. /



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 takes a fair amount of time to earn. 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. /
[Redistributing your Hunter's health chunks now only costs Upgrade Points.]

Hitboxes

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).

Status Effects

Negative Status Effects

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

How these status effects affect zed: Bleed does not affect any zed in the game. Look at the zed-specific sections for information about vulnerabilities vs immunities. Short answer is: Poison does not stop zed healing, since zed cannot heal themselves, it instead adds bonus damage to the impact damage. Burning does affect zed, except Immolators and the Butcher, who are immune to fire.

• 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). Bleeding can only increase intensity when multiple instances are applied to you (for example, walking into Concertina Wire would apply Light Bleed. Get shot with DumDum at close range is Medium Bleed. If both happen to you, Light + Medium Bleed = Severe Bleeding).
  While you are holding the Bandage button, the bleeding pauses, and your movement speed is slowed. You can still interact with the environment (open/doors, pick up a bounty, etc) while you're doing this, as long as your Bandage Keybind isn't the same as the Interact Keybind.

• 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(Light, Moderate, Severe). Intensity also increases over time while you are affected, unlike Bleeding. You can also extinguish yourself by entering deep water or a choke cloud.
  While you are holding the Bandage button to treat the burning, the burning pauses and your movement speed is slowed. You can still interact with the environment (open/doors, pick up a bounty, etc) while you're doing this, as long as your Bandage Keybind isn't the same as the Interact Keybind.
  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. Char temporarily reduces your maximum health. Taking any tick of Burn damage will first Char you. If you receive more ticks of Burn damage while any portion of your health bar is Charred, you will start Burning. While you are burning (including while treating the 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.

• Poisoned stops your current health from regenerating. In addition, if you are Poisoned while in a Poison cloud, your current health will be damaged in ticks, each tick's damage exponentially increasing the longer you are in the cloud. Poison cannot be stopped manually, you have to wait for it to wear off (although if you gain the Antidote effect while Poisoned (e.g using an Antidote Syringe, 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 one of them, Rending, inflict Bleed.

There are also three negative status effects that do not directly affect your health: Choking, Exhaustion, Blinded.

• 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 top sprint speed is lower than when you are not Exhausted.

• Blinded: Right now, only caused by the Flash Bomb. Blinded turns your vision entirely white, preventing you from seeing, for a short temporary duration.

Positive Status Effects

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 the Magpie trait 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. These positive status effects do not have intensities; they are either active or not active.

• 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. Note: The Regeneration status effect overrides your natural, passive health regeneration. The difference is that your natural health regen is faster but it cannot heal past the border of the next black health bar, whereas the Regen status effect can.

• 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. Poison Clouds, regardless of source, will not damage you while you have the Antidote status effect. Getting shot with Poison ammo while you have the Antidote status effect will simply stop you from getting Poisoned, but not from taking damage; getting shot still hurts.

Weapon Theory 101 -- Two Chest shots to kill at 10 metres away

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 assuming 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 (which represents the distance up to which the weapon in question can OHK with a headshot-- more on that later). 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 has higher damage and better damage falloff 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, or just feel unfun/unfair to play against. I'll cover these exceptions to the balancing philosophy of tradeoffs in Things to be Aware of Part 1.

Weapon Theory 102 -- Weapon and Ammo comparisons

So, now that you know about the whole "most guns take two shots to the chest 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 main ammo types: Compact, Medium, Long, Shotgun and Special. Shotguns are somewhat in their own class, 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 base 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)

• Velocity (the speed at which the bullet travels, plus it also affects its Damage Falloff by extension)
  
• Capacity(how many you can hold total, including what's stored in the gun. This is more on a case-by-case basis, but there is a general trend of Compact having the most capacity, Medium being somewhere in the middle, and Long having the least.)

• Volume of Fire (How many times it can be fired before being fully empty and needing to be reloaded. This is also more on a case-by-case basis, but there is a general trend of Compact having the most volume of fire, Medium being somewhere in the middle, and Long having the least.)

• Rarity (How often can you loot this ammo and 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 and mostly Volume of Fire too. This makes Compact beneficial for prolonged fights, as you can shoot more times without running out of ammo, either in reserve or loaded in the gun. Note that also, the Compact Ammo weapons also have most of the higher fire rates in the game, which again makes them suited to close range fights.

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 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, assuming the target Hunter is at 150 HP, which is the maximum health). 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 (which in turn affects the opportunities you'll have for landing shots and how easy those shots will be to land).

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 click on the ammo icon next to it on the right 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 (just like how you can do the same for regular ammo). As a rule of thumb, Compact can pierce thin wood (wooden doors/fences) at close range, Medium can do the same up until medium range, and Long can do the same at long range.

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. So, Guns with higher ammo pools are good for sustained firefights. 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 is a factor as it affects how you can replenish ammo. The higher the reserve ammo of a gun is, the more rounds it replenishes when you loot ammo from boxes/packs. The general trend of the guns' pools is that Compact ammo has the highest reserve ammo/total pool, 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. And within Long ammo guns, some replenish more than others. 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.
There are four sources of Ammo in this game: Boxes/crates (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.

About Ranges:
This is somewhat subjective from player to player. Personally, I consider Close range to be up until about 15m away, Medium to be from 15 to 40ish metres away and Long to be 40m+ away. This is mostly in line with the damage falloff distances for Compact, Medium and Long ammo respectively.

Weapon Theory 103 - The Exceptions Pt 1

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 and recoil can screw you over.

Plus, the Quad 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 utility or other similar purposes; shooting lanterns over kennels, 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 impact sounds are the loudest sound they'll create too, so you won't always have an idea of where they came from, for example even if you know that someone is shooting at you with a bow, you won't necessarily know where they are). 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 (pre-1896 update) and (usually) only one shot available at a time, 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 (assuming 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 (but will still OHK with a headshot). So generally, the pointed projectiles are more lethal and favoured for dealing direct damage, whereas the blunted projectiles are usually more for utility.

• 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 through denying healing (though they don't deny bandaging), 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 the Pitcher trait, 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. Shredder ammo 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) assuming you've dealt enough impact damage. If you want a budget version of this weapon, try out the Caldwell Rival with Slug ammo. It's not as exaggerated in its abilities as the Nitro, but that's equally to its benefit as well as it's detriment.

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 if you're feeling adventurous, have fun creating 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. /

Weapon Theory 103 - The Exceptions Pt 2

Shotguns are designed around close quarters combat, giving you the ability to OHK your opponents but forcing you to get within a dangerous range (15m or less, basically). And your opponent could just as easily have a shotgun too, making this gamble even more risky.

Shotguns are in their own category because they fire multiple projectiles in a cone-shaped random spread. Each pellet deals X damage, meaning you need X amount of pellets to hit someone in order to kill them.

So, shotguns rely on RNG to function, however this doesn't necessarily mean they're unreliable. They're tools, just like anything else; used for the correct purpose and intent, they will be the best, but if they're not used for a task and situation that they're designed for, they're not going to perform as well. You can't snipe with a shotgun. But a shotgun isn't intended for that, it's for CQC, and likewise, a sniper weapon isn't intended for CQC, so it won't be as effective as the shotgun.

In terms of stats, shotguns do not have damage directly/clearly stated in the game. It's misleading, unfortunately. The damage stat displayed on shotguns' info panel is actually an indicator of it's spread. The number it displays, is the damage it is likely to deal at 10m. So the higher the number is, the tighter the spread of the pellets.

An important note for using shotguns: the crosshair for shotguns is misleading. For the majority if not all of the shotguns, their spread is actually tighter than the crosshair, though again, still decided by RNG.

Weapon Theory 104 - Accepting Your Fragility

As mentioned before, the majority of weapons in the game can kill you with two shots to the Chest from 10m away. In this section, I will expand on this and the finer points of receiving damage, mostly focusing on the conventional weapons, not the funky ones like shotguns, bow+crossbows, etc.

A hunter's health is 150 HP.

In a sustained firefight, you, your teammates, or your opponents may go down multiple times and be revived repeatedly. This means that over the course of a sustained fight, people's maximum health gets lower and lower as their bars get greyed out.

This is where weapons with higher damages become especially effective, as depending on the ammo types and weapon, they may have higher or lower abilities to one-tap you because their base damage is higher than your current health.


Here's an example, which for illustrative purposes, ignores the other factors of fights, such as wallbangs, limbshots, previous damage received, etc.

The $490 Mosin-Nagant rifle deals 136 damage. Since it uses Long ammo, this means it deals 136 damage to the Chest to Hunters within 40m. This is because 40m is the range after which Long Ammo starts suffering from damage falloff (see Fight Theory 102 of the guide). This means that if you've gone down once already, your maximum health will be either 125 or 100, which means the Mosin can guaranteed one-tap you within 40m. The $34 Springfield rifle also deals 136 damage, but it uses Medium ammo, which means that within 20m, it can also one-tap someone who has gone down once already. So essentially, damage-wise, within 20m, the Mosin and Springfield are functionally identical.

By extension, this means guns like the Martini and Sparks, which are some of the most highly-damaging conventional (Nitro excluded) guns in the game, are actually also functionally identical damage-wise to the Mosin within 40m (since they both use Long ammo), and also to the Springfield within 20m. In fact, they are actually less-suited to these closer/medium range fights, as you need to reload after every shot with them, giving them an overall lower rate of fire, unlike the Mosin and other repeating rifles. However, the advantages of the Martini and Sparks are their fairly low price, their high base damages (which allow you better attrition value), high ammo pool, solid variants and synergy with fast-firing guns such as the Nagant Officer or Dolch (which help secure quickswap kills).

And, if you're missing a big bar from your health (meaning your health is 100 instead of 150), then a number of the pistols in the game can guaranteed kill you with one shot to the chest within their effective range. Some of the other pistols will need two shots instead, but they can generally fire fast enough to negate that downside.

Firefight Theory 101 - Strategy Pt 1

Obviously, in a firefight, you're going to be trying to kill your opponents. This section will cover the tactics around this and the various methods you have at your disposal.

Topics:
Attrition: A sustained firefight is a battle of attrition, borderline guerilla warfare. You're going to be trying to force your opponent to consume healing supplies while also baiting them into using up their tools, consumables and ammo. By diminishing your opponents' resources, you a) gain information that you can use to your advantage, b) limit the number of variables involved in the situation, and c) potentially force them to become desperate, compromising their decisionmaking. If on the back foot, your opponents may become hesitant to make a move, which makes your job easier. The higher damaging guns are especially useful for health supply attrition, such as the Springfield, Lebel, Mosin, Berthier, Martini and Sparks.

Eliminating an opponent as soon as possible: This is obviously a major factor in the outcome of a fight. One downed Hunter is one less person to have to worry about. This evens the odds by reducing the number of opponents you have to deal with, and that is especially useful when you are outnumbered. And, even if the downed hunter gets revived, chances are they can be OHKd, depending on the weapons you have at your disposal. To take someone out of the equation as soon as possible, you'll usually be trying to go for a headshot and preferably from further away, although OHK-oriented weapons like the crossbow, Nitro, shotguns etc lend themselves to this tactic, even though you'll have to get closer.

Burning/wiring/poisoning/choking/trapping bodies: Burning your opponents' teammates' bodies immediately inflicts a time constraint on your opponents, as not only is their teammate downed (so they're out of the fight, even if temporarily) but their health is still being depleted, and if left unchecked will make them unable to rezzed without a Bounty Token (Red Skull Revive). Wiring (short for concertina wiring), Poisoning, and trapping bodies also inflicts pressure, though its a less immediate one because it doesn't affect the downed person until they get revived. By doing this, you essentially deny the revive until they disarm the obstructive device. If it's wire, they'll have to sacrifice an explosive to get rid of it quickly, or else try to break it by moving into or cutting it, which may be impractical and/or leave them vulnerable. If it's a poison cloud, they'll have to either wait for the cloud to disperse or sacrifice a choke bomb to disperse it sooner. An actual trap will necessitate them moving close enough to actually disarm it, which is usually very impractical and removes the option of them taking care of the problem from a distance. Revive denial ties in with Area Denial.

Wallbangs: Shooting through a wall to hit an enemy. This is a somewhat risky tactic, as you're essentially guessing where the enemy is and hoping to land a shot. With enough experience, you'll find this easier to do, as you'll be able to recognise sounds better, guess opponents' positioning more reliably and even predict where they're going to be. A Wallbang can also be safer in terms of engaging an opponent, as they may not have the ability to try and wallbang back (for example, if you are shooting through a thick wall with Long ammo while they only have Compact ammo). Plus, even if you don't actually land a hit, you'll be adding an element of suppressive fire (see below).

Suppressive fire: This refers to firing at opponents primarily to panic them, though not necessarily to land a hit. This is to potentially provoke them into a fight-flight-or-freeze response. If they rush at you, they'll be running towards you likely with no cover, so you'll probably be able to secure the down. If they run away, this gives you space to push up and give them less breathing room, or even down them as they're running to the next piece of cover. If they freeze, they become easier to locate and this can present a good opportunity to wallbang them, airburst them, flank, etc. Of course, the effect of suppressive fire is somewhat dependent on the experience of your opponent. At higher MMRs, players will generally be more experienced and will probably not be as fazed compared to a player with less experience.

Area Denial: Exactly how it sounds. You can deny opponents from entering a certain area with various methods. This is useful for preventing movement through certain areas, such as a choke point, or preventing certain actions, such as stopping an opponent from reviving their teammate. Area Denial methods will also only be effective for differing time periods. For example, Poison Clouds only last for a certain duration, whereas Concertina wire will stay put unless destroyed. There are various ways to area deny, as well as to counter area denial. An example of countering area denial would be, if my downed teammate has Concertina wire on top of him, I can use an explosive like Dynamite to blow up the wire so that I can revive him.

Airbursting/Cooking Explosives/bombs: Cooking is when you hold the bomb in your hand for a duration after lighting the fuse and then throwing it, instead of immediately lighting and throwing it. This is used to reduce the amount of time an opponent has to react to the incoming throwable, as you are making the throwable detonate sooner by the time it reaches them. Airbursting is when you cook a throwable enough so that it explodes mid-air. This is useful for hitting enemies behind cover, especially when indoors or in tight spaces. This can also be used with Choke Bombs to create choke clouds mid-air.

Sentries: This is when you leave zed alive on purpose. This is more useful when defending a compound/building. Some zed (see Zed section) can be crippled by damaging their legs, hindering their movement. This, in the moment, can stop a Zed from damaging you, but crucially, leaves the zed alive instead of dead. This then forces opponents to play around that zed. If they want to get rid of the sentry, they may give away their position by making noise. Otherwise, they may have to sacrifice time, tools/consumables/ammo, or be forced to approach from another angle entirely, possibly forcing them to play out of their effective range. There's generally no way that utilising Sentries doesn't give you some kind of benefit, but whether or not that benefit makes a meaningful difference is another question.

Left Peeking:This is more unique to Hunt, but the basic idea is playing around perspective, which is applicable to many FPS/TPS games. In Hunt, the way the game was coded means that you reveal less of your body when peeking around the left side (your left) of an object. This makes you a little harder to hit and can make the difference between life and death, especially at close range. [14/07/23 Edit]: This has now been fixed.

Soft Cover/Hard Cover: Anything that hides/obscures you, even partially, but can be shot through, is Soft Cover. Hard Cover is something that can take a bullet/absorb an explosion for you, but doesn't necessarily hide you. Soft Cover examples: Bushes, hanging cloth, darkness, bright light in dark spaces. Hard Cover examples: Wooden walls, Brick, crates, metal rolling doors.

Firefight Theory 101 - Strategy - Part 2

Counterkills: This is when you trade kills, essentially. For example, if you're pushing down a hallway, and you know that the opponent will try to peek out from a doorway to shoot you, you can have a teammate follow you down the same hallway or watch that doorway from a different angle, in order to kill the opponent as they try to attack you. This can be a risky strategy, as certain weapons are strong in CQC, such as shotguns or Fanning, so that will need to be factored into your decisionmaking. But the overall goal of counterkills is to take advantage of your opponent revealing themselves as they try to kill your ally. Even if they succeed, you may be able to kill them, trading kills and balancing out the situation, getting some kind of benefit, rather than your team suffering a down for no good reason.

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 and learning about 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.

When in doubt, trust your instincts. If your gut says to watch a certain window, or play it safe, or push in, follow it if you can't think of a better solution. Worst case scenario, you die and lose your stuff, which in the end is fine because you can buy back almost anything you lose (the only stuff you cant buy back is stuff that you don't actually have unlocked).

WO: I tend to ignore my instincts a fair amount, because while I have built up that innate sense of judgement compared to when I first started out, I find it hard to trust my hunches because they can seem so ridiculous or unlikely to happen. The more experience I gain in Hunt though, the more comfortable I feel trusting my gut, and I've noticed that the more I do it, matches tend to go better. Even if I die, I'll usually have made at least one choice during it that worked out well because I listened to my gut. /

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, as much time as you need. It's healthy to take a break from things every so often, especially if you find yourself in a rut.

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: Passive 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: Outdated: 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).
Weapons can share ammo types but their reserve ammos do not stack, nor is the ammo resupply amount affected.

Bullet Drop:
All bullets in this game, plus these shotgun ammos (regular, flechette, 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.

1896 update edit: Bullet drop was added to single-projectile weapons for Hunt: Showdown 1896. The short explanation is that mostly based on ammo type (though adjusted on weapon by weapon basis), there are two main stats when it comes to the ballistics of a given weapon projectile: Drop Interval (distance threshold, after which the Projectile starts dropping) and Drop Rate( the rate at which a Projectile drops).

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. Examples: Berthier, Springfield, Crossbow.

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-action revolvers, when equipped as a single weapon in one of the weapon slots, 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: These rifles have very high base 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. Examples: Mosin M1891, Lebel 1886, Berthier.

• Repeating Rifles/Carbines: Small to Large guns that aren't Bolt-Action but do have magazines allowing for multiple shots before reloading, including the 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. The lever-action weapons in this game, which mostly fall 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.

• 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 their ammo options. 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, steeper projectile drop, steeper damage falloff and lower velocity.

Special Ammo Overview Pt 1

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. In later sections I will explain them in more detail but this section will give you the most important info summed up.

Note that not every special ammo is available on every weapon, even within the same category. For example, HV ammo is not available on every gun.

Single-projectile guns:

• Incendiary: Pros-- Can ignite explosive/fire barrels and oil trails with one shot. Ignites Hunters in one shot within that gun's Damage Falloff Threshold, otherwise takes two shots to Ignite them. OHKs all Zed except Meatheads and Immos(still enrages them though). ♥♥♥♥-- Bullets leave a yellow trail in the air, allowing them to be seen, potentially revealing your position when you fire. Doesn't pen. Explodes in a small purely visual AOE, making the direction/angle they came from easier to track.

• High Velocity: Pros-- Increases Muzzle Velocity. ♥♥♥♥-- increases recoil.

• Subsonic: Pros-- reduces the volume of your gunshot and how far it can be heard (exact distance unknown). Combine with silenced gun to have quietest gunshot sound possible. ♥♥♥♥-- much slower muzzle velocity. Likely not meaningful impact on stealth unless paired with silenced gun.

• 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). ♥♥♥♥-- Decreases Muzzle Velocity. Essentially useless on Long Ammo, unless you really really want that extra pen capability for some reason.

• DumDums: Pros-- Applies Bleed to Hunters. ♥♥♥♥-- No penetration. Slightly lower Muzzle Velocity.

• Poison: Pros-- Can Poison Hunters (assuming they don't have the Antidote Status Effect). Deals high damage to all zed except Hives and Spider. Does not enrage Immolators (generally allows you to OHK them with a headshot). ♥♥♥♥: No penetration. Cannot ignite. Damage is reduced by a small amount if hitting a Hunter with Antidote status effect.

• Explosive: Pros-- Explodes once, and only when it impacts the first surface it hits. Still retains penetration characteristics of base ammo type. Reduced bullet damage. Can ignite, but does not directly inflict Char/Burn. Bonus damage against zed (especially good for killing Meatheads. Great as a breaching tool for destroying doors/windows and tripping traps. ♥♥♥♥: noticeably reduces ammo pool.

• Spitzer: Pros--Increases Muzzle Velocity, Improved penning. ♥♥♥♥-- Only available on guns that already have fairly limited ammo pools. Reduced bullet damage.

• Shredder: Unique to the Nitro. Pros: Applies Bleed, essentially increasing the OHK range of the gun as heavy initial damage+bleed can finish an opponent off. Can pen. ♥♥♥♥: Has reduced pen capability compared to Nitro default ammo(though this is not majorly noticeable). Only available on the Nitro, which is already very expensive.

Shotguns:

• Flechette: Pros-- Tighter spread which lets you land hits from further away. Applies Bleed to Hunters. ♥♥♥♥- Lower damage potential (makes it very difficult to get OHKs). Essentially, you trade off Buckshot's somewhat reliable OHK potential for a more reliable two-tap potential, plus the pressure of Bleed.

• Pennyshot: Pros-- Higher Damage Potential (more Damage per pellet). Significantly increased damage against Zed, including Bosses. Increased Ammo amount compared to other shotgun ammos. ♥♥♥♥-- More erratic spread and less pellets overall (hitting things is less reliable), does not pen, cannot ignite flammable stuff like barrels and oil.

• 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. Has somewhat of a blinding effect. ♥♥♥♥-- Significantly reduced Damage and Ammo Count. Projectile has gradual drop; it's identical to a Flare but is as loud as a shotgun. You might as well just take a Flare Gun, unless you want to free up a tool slot.

• 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. ♥♥♥♥-- 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. Has projectile drop.

• Slugs: Pros-- High Damage. Reliably extends the range of the shotgun. Pens as good as Medium Ammo. ♥♥♥♥-- Reduced hipfire accuracy. Single projectile means less room for error since it doesn't damage in a spread. Very expensive. Reduced Ammo amount. Deals significantly reduced damage to limbs.

Special Ammo Overview Pt 2

Arrow/Bolt weapons:

Hand Crossbow:

• Poison: Pros--AOE damage (creates a cloud that persists for a duration or until dispersed. Kills Sound Traps/Zed fairly quietly (even works on Kennels/Coops). Very effective at killing all Zed except Meatheads, Hives and the Spider. Great for area/revive denial. Can OHK with a headshot. ♥♥♥♥-- Fairly low impact damage. Cannot inflict Bleed. Not reusable.

• Choke: Pros--More Choke is definitely better (you won't limited to just two or three Choke Bombs). ♥♥♥♥-- 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. It's basically a utility tool rather than an offence tool, just like Choke Bombs themselves.

• Chaos: Pros--Distraction/misdirection. Can ignite barrels, oil. Very funny to use, especially if you stick someone with it. ♥♥♥♥-- Virtually useless in terms of lethality because of lower impact damage (still inflicts Bleed on direct hit though). Does not inflict Burn, even with a direct hit on a Hunter/zed.

• Incendiary: Pros-- AOE damage (essentially a Fire Bomb but smaller radius+shorter duration). Great for area denial/revive denial/burning bodies. Fire is good at killing most things. Can be used for killing Soundtraps (Crows, Kennels etc). Can OHK with a headshot. ♥♥♥♥-- Fairly low impact damage. Cannot inflict Bleed. Not reusable. As loud as a Firebomb, so is not as stealthy as Poison Bolt.

Crossbow:

• Explosive: Pros-- AOE damage, makes it easier to hit targets. Can Ignite. ♥♥♥♥-- Reduced Damage Potential. Reduced Ammo amount.

• Shotbolt: Pros-- technically gives the Crossbow unlimited OHK range. Can be used to wallbang (uses Buckshot Penning attributes. ♥♥♥♥-- Noticeably lower ammo pool. Steeper projectile drop, making it harder to hit longer-range shots. No Bleed (but this is somewhat irrelevant since it has a very high base damage). Like buckshot, deals significantly less damage to limbs.

Hunting Bow:

• Poison: Pros-- Can inflict Poison, in addition to Bleed. Reusable. ♥♥♥♥: Reduced Ammo pool.

• Concertina: Pros-- Spawns Concertina Wire on impact (great for defense as well as offense). ♥♥♥♥-- not great for stealth (makes the somewhat loud Concertina "THWIP" noise), Reduced Base Damage. Reduced Ammo Pool. Doesn't inflict Bleed on direct hit (but doesn't matter since it spawns concertina wire which will make the target bleed anyway on a direct hit. Not reusable.

• Frag: Pros-- explodes after certain duration (fuse starts after the arrow's first bounce). Can bounce, which can open up some extra opportunities for kills. ♥♥♥♥-- Noticeably lower Ammo Pool. Cannot inflict Bleed. Not reusable.

Chu Ko Nu:

• Explosive: Identical to Crossbow Explosive Bolt.

• Incendiary: Pros: Nice utility (shoot barrels, oil puddles etc). Fast Cycle time compliments Incendiary well, as Burn can be intensified quickly, chewing through opponents max health. ♥♥♥♥: Bleed is a better pressure tool than Burn, since it is more of an immediate threat. Bolts not reusable.

Special Ammo Theory (Single Bullet Weapons)

This section will explain the feel of Special Ammos.

Single-projectile guns:

• Incendiary:
  This is useful for applying pressure, forcing them to retreat and bandage. However, since burning does not attack current health initially (it attacks your maximum health capacity first), some players will ignore the burning if they are confident they can kill you before the burning kills them. This is a valid tactic that can put your fire-happy opponent on the back foot and potentially get them to panic. The bonus of being able to ignite barrels/oil instantly is nice, but it doesn't often come into play. Incendiary works better on faster-firing and/or repeating guns rather than single-shot ones, as single-shot ones don't generally allow you to land a follow-up shot after the first one. A repeating gun, especially with a high fire rate gives you a better chance of landing the second shot so that even if you don't kill them, they will still have to deal with Burning. But in the end, chances are that if you landed two shots on an opponent, then they'll be dead-- which makes two-shot burning capability somewhat redundant, although you can also look at it as if it's a backup effect in case your opponent doesn't get downed with the second shot, as the Burning pressure can enable you to secure the down.
  The other aspect is that each shot will inflict Char on Hunters, which temporarily limits their maximum health, similar to how Poison temporarily limits current health. This can be used in conjunction with higher-damaging weapons to secure downs because even if the first shot landed was an arm-shot, the added Char can mean the next chest shot you hit within a certain time window will down the enemy Hunter.

• High Velocity: This is very useful for hitting shots at a distance, as you won't have to lead moving targets as much. However, while the damage dropoff is changed slightly, it doesn't make a huge difference. So as an example, if you're using Compact HV ammo, you're still going to be better off playing around Compact Ammo's effective range ie Close to Mid-Medium. There's also a bit of increased recoil, but this is only really relevant if you're using Levering or Fanning, since your hipfire accuracy is already reduced, making it harder to hit opponents, the higher recoil increase from HV ammo doesn't really help you aim.
  Basically, it serves as one of two ways (the other being FMJ) to "upgrade" your ammo to get closer to Long ammo, as HV is only available on Compact and Medium ammo guns. HV gives you equivalent muzzle velocity, but not dropoff. Increased muzzle velocity is still very nice at close-range.
  HV also modifies the recoil of certain guns, influencing the direction and degree that the crosshair is affected. Depending on the gun, this can make it noticeably easier to fire fast and retain a higher degree of accuracy.

• Subsonic:

• Full Metal Jacket: Mainly benefits Compact Ammo weapons e.g taking a Conversion with FMJ is similar to the Uppercut though with some differences-- cheaper, lower muzzle velocity, faster reload, higher ammo pool. Still decent on Medium Ammo guns because they will retain a higher muzzle velocity compared to Compact ammo. Not very good for Long Ammo guns, because although your muzzle velocity after reduction will be higher compared to Compact or Medium, Long ammo already has good enough penning ability, FMJ does increase it but not by a meaningful amount. Plus a big advantage of Long ammo is its muzzle velocity, so FMJ somewhat defeats the purpose.
  Basically, it serves as one of two ways (the other being HV) to "upgrade" your Compact or Medium ammo to get closer to Long ammo. You sacrifice muzzle velocity but gain Long ammo damage dropoff, which is very nice for making cheap sniper rifle combos.

• DumDums: Bleed is a great pressure tool, since it damages current health, so it's more of a direct threat unlike Burn. Plus, you only need to land one shot to inflict Bleed, and successive shots will increase the Bleeding intensity unless your opponent has the Bloodless trait. You lose all penetration ability with DumDums (though your shots still count as Piercing, so you can still enrage Immos with them), so if you take DumDums, a good idea is to take another weapon that allows you to pen, such as a Long Ammo rifle, Winnie C or Scottfield, so that you still have the capability. With DumDums, landing two shots on someone in quick succession pretty much secures the kill, even if they were limb shots. You can't pen with DumDums though, so it's best to pair your DumDum gun with a gun that can pen, or use a gun that can carry one stack of DumDums and one stack of an ammo that can pen.

• Poison: Poison is useful as a pressure and disruption tool at its heart, but the reality is that most (at least, more experienced) Hunters use Mithridatist in addition to Antidote Shots, making them Poisoned for a much shorter duration (Mith), or immune to Poison and your Poison ammo deal less damage to them (Antidote). So, against unprepared Hunters Poison can be very effective, but against more prepared Hunters, you'll have to play much smarter to get the same return. You also can't pen or ignite with Poison ammo, so it's good to pair your Poison ammo gun with a gun that can at minimum, pen. Poison ammo works well on high-damage guns, such as the Sparks, which negates some of the downsides -- if they dont have Antidote, your opponent is left very low on health and unable to heal, and if they do, they are still left with a lot of missing health.

• Explosive: Explosive is not that great overall. The explosions are fairly small (though the size changes with the size of the base ammo), so the splash damage is hard to get value from. If you can see someone directly, to splash damage them you'd have to shoot their feet, which is counter-productive, at that point you want to shoot them directly to deal as much damage as you can. Explosive is really more of a PvE ammo, especially useful for dealing with Meatheads, but at that point you might as well just use a Dynamite instead of consuming your very limited explosive ammo pool. Explosive ammo is definitely very fun to use, it feels good even if it isn't that great for PvP. Even though it can ignite, just like Incendiary, those opportunities don't come up very often.
  One interesting use for it though is breaching, as the explosive force can fling doors and windows open or break them down faster.

• Spitzer: Spitzer is one of the better Special Ammos, it's arguably even the best. It's essentially a direct upgrade from Long Ammo, further enhancing the characteristics that make Long Ammo good ie Muzzle Velocity and Penning. The damage reduction is more than a fair tradeoff, as it still enables you to down the opponent with two shots to the chest, the only difference is now you can more reliably do this from further away. The only real downside to it is the same as all Special Ammos, that it's harder to replenish because it comes from more limited sources. The other aspect to it is that unless you're actually trying to snipe targets from 80m+ away, the MV increase doesn't make a huge difference. It still feels nice, but you're not getting as much value out of it.

• Shredder: It's basically DumDum for the Nitro, the main difference being that compared to regular DumDum, Shredder can actually pen. It just can't pen as good as regular Nitro ammo. The Bleed it inflicts essentially increases the OHK range of the Nitro, as the bleed can finish off Hunters that were hit just outside the limit of the impact damage OHK range. So, if you shoot someone X metres away and the impact damage leaves them at 149 health, the bleed will finish them off.

Special Ammo Theory (Shotguns)

Shotguns ammos:

• Flechette: Bleed is a great pressure tool, since it damages current health, so it's more of a direct threat unlike Burn. Plus, you only need to land one flechette (so one dart out of the whole spread of multiple darts) to inflict Bleed, and successive hits with other Bleed-inflicters will increase the Bleeding intensity unless your opponent has the Bloodless trait. You lose all penetration ability with Flechettes (though your shots can still enrage Immos if you hit them), so if you take Flechettes, a good idea is to take another weapon that allows you to pen, such as a Long Ammo rifle, Winnie C + FMJ or Scottfield, so that you still have the capability. With Flechettes, landing two shots on someone in quick succession pretty much secures the kill, even if they were limb shots. Since you can't pen, it's best to pair your fletchette gun with a gun that can pen. Plus, Flechette gives the shotgun a tighter spread, making it better at ranged engagements (out to about 20-25m imo)-- It's still more of a close range tool, it's just able to do better compared to most of the other shotgun ammos at further ranges. However, lower damage per flechette means that OHKs are very unlikely by default unless you get a headshot, but the bleed and tighter spread means that inflicting damage and getting value out of it is more likely-- so essentially you sacrifice semi-reliable one-tap ability (eg buckshot) for reliable two-tap ability with flechettes. This can be risky in close quarters, as if your opponent is using Buckshot you're more or less at a disadvantage in terms of OHKs. But that's excluding the nuances of the situation, obviously.

• Pennyshot: This is the closest alternative to Buckshot, the default shotgun ammo. Pennyshot embodies risk/reward, as the erratic spread combined with less numerous but higher-damaging pellets means that though hitting the target is less reliable, you can be assured that they'll be hurting hard even if only half your spread lands. It really can be a gamble, especially since it can end up shortening or lengthening the range of your shotgun on a shot by shot basis. A pennyshot shot from a Romero, which has the tightest spread of all the shotguns, can go 20m and still OHK just as easily as it can blow wide at 5m without landing a single pellet. Pennyshot also gives you more ammo overall compared to buckshot, so in a sustained fight this could help, but again you'd still be limited in terms of resupplying-- sometimes this is a problem, sometimes it isn't. Increased zed damage feels nice, especially against bosses, but buckshot does pretty well anyway and it's usually a better idea to save your ammo for firefights. The downsides are that it cannot pen, which does make a difference, especially in enclosed, primarily wooden spaces like barns and shacks, so taking a weapon that can pen in addition to your pennyshot gun is a good idea. It also can't ignite barrels/oil, which doesn't make a huge difference but as I said, best to take a weapon that is able to do that, just in case it comes in handy.

• Starshell: Unfortunately one of the few options that straight up suck. It has better alternatives no matter what you're looking for. If you want to Burn opponents, Dragonbreath deals more Burn and is actually lethal, unlike Starshell. If you want utility, a Flare Gun will do exactly the same thing but quieter, which is much more helpful since it can support stealth. There's really not much else to say. Starshell just isn't good.

• Dragon's Breath: DB is a somewhat decent alternative to Buckshot but the crucial thing it lacks is penning, which continues to keep it functionally inferior to Buckshot. And that aside, Burn generally isn't as good as Bleed in terms of pressuring an opponent. You'd be better off with Flechette if you want pressure. However, played smart (almost Hit and Run style), DB can be great for forcing an opponent into a rough spot by burning their health bars and especially at close range this will make them very cautious, or even panic. On the other hand, realistically, poking an opponent out using Incendiary ammo would be the ideal approach to the same result as it puts you in less danger since you don't have to get as close. But if you want to keep your penning on your main weapon then DB as a backup isn't a bad idea, just be prepared to miss opportunities because of not being able to pen.

• Slugs: Slugs tradeoff the cone spread for one single projectile that can OHK in its Effective Range stat, to the Chest. This can be a help for hitting longer range or more precise shots, but can also hinder you as it means there's less leniency in how you aim. Hipfire accuracy is also noticeably worse compared to the cone-spread ammos-- depending on the situation, this can screw you over. Slugs also deal significantly reduced damage with limbshots, which isn't different compared to buckshot.The OHK range is determined by the length of the shotgun barrel; longer barrels mean a longer OHK range. They can still OHK with a headshot, though the range they can do this is significantly shorter even compared to the Nagant 1895 (a baseline single-projectile weapon)-- so using Slugs to snipe isn't really a good idea. Slugs Penning ability is equal to Medium ammo within 20m~ .

Special Ammo Theory (Projectile Weapons)

Hand Crossbow:

• Choke:

• Chaos:

• Poison:

Crossbow:

• Explosive:

• Shotbolt:

Hunting Bow:

• Poison:

• Concertina:

• Frag:

Bomb Lance:

• Default (Bomb):

• Steel Ball:

• Dragon's Breath:

• Waxed Frag:

• Harpoon:

Chu Ko Nu:

• Incendiary:

• Explosive:

Weapon Theory 105A - Weapon Use

"So, how am I actually going to be using these weapons?"
"How do other people usually use these weapons?"
"What are the ways these weapons can be utilised, even if they aren't popular?"
"What tactics do these weapons support?"

This section of the guide will address these questions in a fairly broad way, mostly looking at the overall categories of the weapons in the game and their uses instead of each weapon itself, in order to give an rough idea of how these weapons are practically used in the average match.

While previously I listed the weapons in this game by their actual, mechanical, differences such as this:
Single-Action Revolvers
Double-Action Revolvers
Semi-Auto Pistols
Pistol Carbines
Single-shot Rifles
Repeating Rifles
Bolt-action Rifles
Silenced guns
Shotguns

Instead, let's group these at a glance by their general function within the game. In a later section, I will categorise each weapon and variant into these respective categories (and some will fall under multiple categories), and explain case by case, but for now, let's stick to the overview, so that you can understand the various roles weapons can play in a loadout, and by extension, a playstyle.

Think of each weapon, in fact, any equipment in the game, as a tool. Some tools are better for certain things than others, but in the end they all have strengths and weaknesses. The bottom line is: using a tool for a purpose that it is not suited for, is obviously generally a bad idea. Sometimes it's all you can do, in which case, you try and make the best of a bad situation.

Anyway, the categories:

Slow pistols: Any pistol that has 1.4 seconds Cycle Time or more (based on the Pax, the fastest-firing Slow Pistol) and takes up a single Small slot. They are used either as a dedicated close-range weapon (especially with Fanning or Dual Wielding), ammo pool booster (sharing ammo with your main weapon), and to an extent, secure quickswap kills. They are versatile and are all pretty reliable, especially for competing against slower-firing weapons at close range.
Fast pistols: Any pistol that has less than 1.4 seconds Cycle Time (using the Caldwell Pax as the threshold since it's the fastest-firing non-semiautomatic pistol) and takes up a single Small slot. They are used either as a dedicated close-range weapon or as a tool to secure quickswap kills. They suffer from lower base damage and smaller ammo pools, but their high fire rate is great in a pinch and can net kills that you otherwise couldn't have made with slower-firing weapons. They complement high-damage weapons as their higher fire rate can make securing quickswap kills easier compared to Slow Pistols.

In-betweeners: Guns that fall somewhere in middle ground between a rifle and pistol. They may share characteristics with other categories, but they are still a mixture that goes on a case by case basis. They're great for filling in when you want a particular gun but can't equip the full-size version of it. They can stand alone though, for the most part. They're like sidekicks; they may not be the best at what they do, but they can hold their own and work especially well when paired with something complimentary so each accounts for the other's weaknesses. For example, pairing a Springfield Compact with a Caldwell Rival Shorty. This gives you one strong tool for dealing with far-side-of-close to far-side-of medium range, and another strong tool for dealing with close-range, even CQC.

All-rounders: Guns that are versatile, complementing various playstyles with relative ease. As a tradeoff, they are not necessarily the most effective tool to use for any given situation-- they're generalists, not specialists.

Single-Shots: These guns hit hard, emphasising bang for buck, attrition value and taking up the niche of heavy-hitting but suffering at close range because of their low fire rate/volume of fire--landing a follow-up shot with them is unlikely. However, their decent to tight hipfire accuracy makes them a viable option for gambling close-range OHKs when against Hunters that have already gone down at least once. Plus, they complement sidearms very well, as sidearms that allow followup shots can give you the edge in securing that down.

Long Guns: Guns that are essentially in second place for highest damage, but they make up for it by allowing follow-up shots because of their magazines. Their Medium/Long Ammo and high muzzle velocity also makes them suited to medium to long-range engagements, while only not-terrible hipfire accuracy and low fire rate makes them less-suited to close range. All of them fire slower than even the slowest Slow Pistol (Caldwell Uppercut), to give you an idea of the scale. But, they become stronger in sustained firefights, as their damage makes them a viable option for landing OHKs when against Hunters that have already gone down at least once. Their limited ammo pool does necessitate being more frugal with shots, and good trigger discipline and confidence complements them well.

Snipers: Specifically guns that do not have basic iron sights and do not use base compact ammo (nuances explained later). This includes the Aperture and Deadeye sights. Their zoom capability makes them suited to the far side of medium-range, in addition to long range. However, lower hipfire accuracy and mostly forced zoom, in addition to overall low fire rates mean these guns generally can't compete very well at close range. Quickscoping is certainly possible.

Shotguns: Essentially the dominators of CQC (close-quarters combat). They can all guaranteed kill a Hunter with one blast to the Chest at 5m. Anything past that, is on a shotgun-by-shotgun basis. Their special ammos can particularly augment their playstyle and effectiveness. Depending on how they're played, they can turn a siege into either a 30-minute long stalemate standoff or a quick snowballing resolution within seconds. They're risky and force both the user and the opponent to play differently compared to the vast majority of conventional, single-projectile guns.

Stealth weapons: This category is for the silenced guns, in addition to the bowed weapons. Generally, these are used in a stealthy playstyle that aims to take Hunters out of the equation as quickly as possible before the actual firefight erupts, or if the fight has already started, to support hit-and-run tactics to confuse your opponent. They can also serve well as utility tools to disable sound traps easier and quieter, usually making cross-map mobility quicker and easier. Some of them can also inflict area denial and CC with poison clouds or frags to inflict bleed, or even land unique kill opportunities, such as sending explosive bolts into occupied sniper towers.

Gimmick: The funky weapons that really dont fit in, even as an Inbetweener. These weapons dramatically change your playstyle, and demand a higher skill threshold in order to use them effectively. A lot of the stealth weapons fall under this category in general, plus some combinations of other weapons+special ammos can fall into this category as well.

Melee: Dedicated melee weapons that can be used lethally against Hunters, with varying effectiveness. Melee is a risky strategy, but can absolutely pay off and can be well worth sacrificing a firearm. However, depending on the weapon, they are mostly designed with PvP intent. Reach is the most desired stat overall, effective at PvP and PvE alike as they can enable you to outreach your opponent melee-range-wise (Piercing weapons such as Bayonets are best at this) whereas Rending weapons (such as Talons) have sweeping attacks that make it easier to land hits, but suffer from slower attacks and lower stamina efficiency.

Weapon Theory 105B - Weapon Use Cont.

In this section, I will group every weapon and their variants into the categories mentioned in the previous section. Variants, if they fall into the same category as their base weapon, will be in brackets next to their base weapon (meaning they're included along with them), whereas some variants will be in a separate category to their base weapon.

These category groupings are somewhat informed by special ammo options as well, but again, nuances later.

Within the Shotgun category, the shotguns will be grouped by purpose.

The Derringers are technically counted as a Tool in the game, but it's still a gun so I'm including it.

Slow pistols: Nagant 1895, Conversion(+ Chain Pistol), LeMat, Scottfield (+ Swift, Brawler), Pax (+ Claw, Trueshot), Uppercut.

Fast pistols: Quad Derringer, Officer(+Brawler), New Army (+ Swift), Scottfield Spitfire, Bornheim (+Extended), Dolch(+Claw, Deadeye).

In-betweeners: Nagant Precision(+ Deadeye), Winnie Vandal 73C (+Bullseye, Striker) Bornheim Match, Scottfield Precision, Centennial Shorty (+Pointman), Uppercut Precision (+Deadeye), Dolch Precision, Sparks Pistol, LeMat Haymaker, Drilling Shorty(+ Hatchet).

All-rounders: Winnie Frontier 73C (+Marksman, Vandal, Vandal Deadeye), Winnie Ranger M1873 (+Talon, Aperture, Swift), Winnie Infantry 73L (+Bayonet, Sniper), Caldwell Marathon(+Swift), Vetterli (+ Bayonet, Deadeye), LeMat Carbine(+Marksman), Drilling, 1865 Carbine(+Aperture) .

Single-Shots: Springfield (+ Shorty, Bullseye, Compact Striker), Martini (+Riposte), Sparks(+ Pistol).

Long Guns: Centennial(+Trauma), Martini-Henry Ironside, Springfield Krag (+ Bayonet), Berthier (+Riposte), Lebel(+Talon), Mosin (+ Obrez, Obrez Mace, Obrez Extended), Obrez Match), Mako (+Talon).

Snipers: Springfield Marksman, Maynard Sniper, Vetterli Marksman, Centennial Sniper, Martini Deadeye(+Marksman), Sparks Sniper, Berthier Deadeye(+Marksman), Lebel Marksman/Aperture, Mosin Sniper, Mosin Obrez Sharpeye, Krag Sniper, Mako (+Aperture, Claw).

Shotguns: Longer range hits (up to 10m)-- Romero (+Alamo), Rival(+Trauma), Specter(+Bayonet), Terminus.
Fast fire rate: Slate (+ Riposte), C&K Auto 5 (+Shorty).
Close range hits (<8m): LeMat/UpperMat Shotgun, Pennyshot Derringer, Romero Shorty/Hatchet, Rival Shorty(+Mace), Specter Shorty, Terminus Shorty.

Stealth weapons: Bornheim Silencer, Nagant Silencer, Winnie Frontier C Silencer, Vetterli Silencer, Sparks Pistol Silencer, Sparks Silencer, Centennial Shorty Silencer, Krag Silencer, Maynard Sniper Silencer, 1865 Carbine Silencer, Hand Crossbow, Hunting Bow, Crossbow(+Deadeye), Chu Ko Nu.

Gimmick: Nitro, Avtomat, Vetterli Cyclone, Bomblance, Bomb Launcher .

Melee: Combat Axe, Machete, Cavalry Sabre, Katana.

Weapon Theory 105C - How a Gun's role changes

Now that you know the base categories of each gun in Hunt, you can start thinking about how their roles can change and flex, depending on various factors.

The short answer is, there are a lot of factors that influence a guns role, not just its stats. This isn't necessarily an exhaustive list, it just kinda boils down to these:

• Base Stats

• Variant/Special Ammo

• The rest of your loadout

• Your opponent's gun (and by extension, the rest of their loadout)

• Situation: Location, surroundings, resources, number of opponents, what they're doing, etc etc.

The previous section categorised weapons using their base stats and playstyles, now let's include variants/special ammos into the mix. For example, a Winnie Marksman is an allrounder by default. This is because:

• Large ammo pool makes it suited to lengthy engagements

• Decent fire-rate means it can fire faster than all Slow Pistols, ignoring all fire-rate traits. With Levering, it then becomes a stronger close-range tool, and can even compete at CQC.

• Zoom on the scope helps for recon, as well as sometimes making it easier to headshot, since the zoom makes the head take up more space on the screen.

• Compact Ammo +decent damage+good fire rate+nice muzzle velocity = good close to medium range tool. The scope adds a little utility and emphasises its mid-range shot capability.

Now, what if you put FMJ on it? Well, you've got all those factors mentioned before, but now it's got FMJ damage falloff and penning. This means that now, except for muzzle velocity, your Winnie Marksman is almost identical if not better than, say, a Mosin-Nagant. After all, it fires faster, has more ammo in mag and reserve and restocks more ammo when you replenish, all of which are shortcomings of Long Guns in general. So, if you can adjust to the muzzle velocity, theoretically you've now got a better Long Gun, and for a cheaper price. So your Winnie Marksman, previously an All-rounder, is now a Long Gun, even a Sniper.

Same applies to a Winnie Vandal, which is an In-betweener by itself, but with FMJ, becomes a Long Gun, and if it's a Vandal Deadeye, also a Sniper.

Weapon Sights/Accuracy

Single Projectile Guns (rifles, pistols etc)

When you ADS, your shot goes exactly where you are aiming (the top of the centre chunk/blade of your sights, specifically). There is no RNG for where your shot will go when ADS. Only hipfiring has that RNG.
The point at which your gun's sights/scope center line up when you ADS, is actually lower than the exact centre of your crosshair. This means that when trying to ADS/scope in to land a shot, you might need to adjust by aiming the center of your crosshair to be slightly above your target.

Shotguns

This section excludes shotguns, since you generally don't need to ADS with shotguns. Hipfiring is sufficient. The only reason you'd ADS with a shotgun is if you're using Slugs/Starshell and you want more precise aim. Slugs work like bullets-- no projectile drop, no RNG when ADS. Starshell work like projectiles (e.g crossbow)-- projectile drop, no RNG when ADS.

Bowed Weapons

For Crossbow and Hand Crossbow, use the average center point between the three blades in the sight. For the Hunting Bow, use the tip of the post. That center point/post tip is where your shot will hit, as long as the projectile hasn't started dropping yet. The distance after which the projectile will start dropping depends on both the weapon and the projectile. For example, for the bow, Concertina arrows have a different trajectory compared to regular arrows, even when the bowstring is drawn back to the same extent.

Sight Types

There are different advantages and disadvantages with the different types of sights. The higher the zoom on weapon sights, the worse the hipfire accuracy will be.

Iron Sights: Iron. Lowest zoom, but highest FOV when ADS. Suited for close-range. Long-range shots are possible, but difficult and very dependent on your screen resolution.

Aperture: Iron. Allows regular Iron Sights, plus you can toggle having zoom equal to Deadeye. However, the view of your target is much smaller compared to a scope. Points for versatility though, it's a decent compromise between being able to zoom in for longer range shots, but also retaining good hipfire accuracy and Ironsights FOV for close range. Definitely not new-player friendly.

Deadeye: Scope. Mid-level zoom scope. Good compromise for wanting to hit mid to longer range shots without sacrificing FOV and too much hipfire accuracy.

Sharpeye:

Bullseye:

Pointman: Scope. Identical to Marksman but only present on stock-less weapons e,g Centennial Pointman . Has more sway than Marksman as a result.

Marksman: Scope. Far-Mid to Long-range zoom scope. Suited for long range, though quickscoping is possible.

Sniper: Scope. Highest zoom, lowest FOV. Far-Mid to Long-range zoom. Suited for long range. Quickscoping is possible but still not the best for dealing with close-range engagements.


Worst in category --- Best in category. Everything else falls somewhere in between.

Hipfire Accuracy scale:
Nitro/Avtomat --- Winfield C (now Frontier 73)/Caldwell Marathon

DW Accuracy scale:
Caldwell 92/Officer --- Scottfield/Caldwell Conversion

Fanning Accuracy scale:

Nagant ---- Scottfield/Caldwell Conversion

Levering Accuracy scale:

Mako 1895 --- Winfield C (Frontier 73)

(Shotguns) Spread scale:
LeMat Shotgun -- Terminus Handcannon -- Specter-- Romero

Shotguns

Hipfire is fine unless you are using Slugs or Starshell and you need precise aim.

Crosshair is misleading, the spread is actually less than the crosshair depicts, probably by about 10% to 20% depending on the shotgun.

Crouching does not increase accuracy/decrease spread.

The longer the shotgun's barrel, the tighter its spread. In Hunt, shotgun barrels are categorised into Long, Medium and Short.

Long: Romero(+Alamo), Slate, C&K, Specter.
Medium: Rival, LeMat Carbine and all Shorty (previously called Handcannons/Compact) variants.
Short: LeMat Shotgun.

Shotgun barrel length also affects the performance of special ammo. So far, Slugs and Flechettes are the only ammo affected by this. See the Slugs entry in the Special Ammo sections for more info.

Dual-Wielding/Fanning/Levering

This section is for explaining their advantages, disadvantages and usage.

Dual-Wielding:
Allows you to bring double sidearms that take up a Medium Weapon slot, no perk needed. This is a solid close to medium range tool, depending on the sidearms used. As a general rule, the faster-firing sidearms have a tradeoff of having the lowest hipfire accuracy, but this can also be a benefit as this allows some more leniency when aiming.
Ambidextrous Trait isn't really necessary, but some guns already have lengthy reload times, and since Dual-Wielding essentially doubles reload time, Ambidextrous can feel needed (e.g Dual Caldwell Chain Pistols). Sidearms that lose rounds when reloaded while partially full still lose rounds without Bulletgrubber, even when Dual-Wielded. Certain guns have unique reloads when Dual-Wielded and reloaded from fully empty (Dolch, Bornheim, Caldwell New Army).

Fanning:
Trait. Grants any single-action revolver in a Small Weapon Slot an increased potential fire-rate with the tradeoff of lower hipfire accuracy. Very similar to DW in the trend of effects across weapons: solid close to close-medium range tool, depending on the sidearms used. As a general rule, the faster-firing sidearms have a tradeoff of having the lowest hipfire accuracy, but this can also be a benefit as this allows some more leniency when aiming. Fanning does grant a higher potential fire-rate compared to DW, but unlike DW it only affects certain sidearms. Depending on how you use Fanning, it can be strong, it's just fairly easy to fall into the trap of using it as a crutch and spamming all your shots when you see someone up close (eg the Chain pistol + Fanning stereotype). At higher MMRs, Fanning is also treated slightly differently, where the first shot(or however many shots it takes to land a hit) is hipfired and then the follow-up shot (which is now readied faster, because of Fanning) is done in ADS in order to remove RNG and increase the chances of securing the down.

Levering:
Trait. Grants any lever-action rifle an increased potential fire-rate with the tradeoff of lower hipfire accuracy. Lever-action shotguns are given a higher potential fire-rate, but no accuracy reduction, hipfire or otherwise.

Penetration/Penning - Theory

This refers to how various projectiles in the game can penetrate through objects. "Penning" or "Pen", for short, is useful to know because it dictates what you can use as cover and conversely, what cover others can use against you.


While the vast majority of the time you'll be talking about bullets regarding penning, such as in reference to wallbangs, it's important to note that other things in the game can technically pen too, and some things even if it's not necessarily "penning" in the technical sense. So basically, some things in the game can affect you through objects, even though they are not actually piercing through in the same way bullets are calculated.
For example, Dynamite deals damage in an AoE, but the AoE is still confined by the material it hits, so, obviously assuming you are in the blast radius, but you are on the other side of a thin wood wall, you will get hurt by the explosion. Whereas, if you are on the other side of a stone wall, you will not get hurt by the explosion. So in this case, the Dynamite isn't technically piercing through the wood wall, but it's functionally essentially the same and therefore relevant.

Penning also reduces the damage a projectile will deal once it contacts an entity such as a Hunter or Zed. The damage is affecting by a variety of factors, mainly: Base Ammo Type, Special Ammo Type (if applicable), Material Being Penned.


The short answer for how Penning works in Hunt is:
The more powerful and/or heavier the bullet is, the better it can penetrate through objects. This affects not only how many objects it can pen through, but also what kinds of objects, at which distances, and how much damage it loses after each time it pens. It's mostly realistic, but there are some parts that aren't true to real life and that's for gameplay purposes, such as making it fairer to play against, reduce complexity of code, etc.

The long answer for how Penning works in Hunt is (and this may not be 100% accurate but either way it gets the point across, the values are more illustrative than factual):

Penning is calculated in a similar way to Health and Damage. The idea is, every object in the game is made up of X material(s), such as thin wood, thick wood, metal, husk, etc. Everything, even down to scenery props/decorations like pots, clamps, tables, dolls, whatever. Some objects may even be made up of multiple materials e.g lamps have glass and metal, train cars are metal and wood, blah blah.

Now, the specific ways in which Penning is calculated may appear to work slightly backwards, but it's really not that complicated.

Each material has its own Penning Damage (♥♥) value, represented as a number. Everything that acts as the initiator in these Penning calculations - basically the projectile involved - has its own Penning Health (PH) value, also represented as a number. Let's call these initiators "Penning Objects" for simplicity.

So when Bullet A tries to pen through Object B, there is a calculation: Take Object B's Penning Damage, whatever number it is, and subtract it from Bullet A's Penning Health.

Bullet A Penning Health - Object B Penning Damage = new Bullet A Penning Health value.

This means Bullet A (and any other bullet) will lose Penning Health as it travels through objects. Eventually, there will be a point where its Penning Health will be decreased to 0. It might technically go even lower, but that doesn't really matter because when the Penning Health is 0, the bullet stops travelling; whatever object is reducing it to 0, that's the object that blocks it.

So in an example, let's say Bullet A is Compact Ammo. Compact Ammo has a Penning Health value of 2, and Thin Wood has a Penning Damage value of 1. When Bullet A hits the thin wood, it will do that calculation mentioned above. 2 - 1 = 1, so the bullet continues travelling. Once it impacts another Thin Wood, it will do the calculation again. Since its PH is now 1, 1 - 1 = 0. The calculation results in a 0, so Bullet A will be blocked by the object.

Now, Bullet B is Long ammo, which has a PH of 5. When it hits thin wood, which as mentioned has a ♥♥ of 1, 5 - 1 = 4, so Bullet B will continue travelling. But since it still has a PH of 4 after this, it could actually go through 3 more Thin Wood objects and still come out the other side. Or alternatively, it could go through a Thin Metal and a Thin Wood and still come out the other side.

It's just a numbers game, basically.

Another key thing to remember is that any Penning Objects' PH value is reduced as it travels. For example, Long Ammo can pierce Thin Metal at close range, but it can't do this at medium range because its PH value drops too low, so it is blocked by the Thin Metal instead.


Here are the stats, but remember, this is all approximate, it's just to give you an idea and explain how this works to inform your choices in-game. :


Penning Objects (Penning Health):

Some of these would not be considered "Penning Objects" by my own definition, but I wanted to include them for clarity. Some also do not affect Penning Capabilities, and so use the Base Ammo type's PH.

Base Ammo:
Compact: 2
Medium: 3
Long: 5
Buckshot (default shotgun ammo): 3

Special Ammos:

Bolts/Arrows: 0
Steel Ball: 0
Waxed Frag: Projectile itself = 0, Explosion = 2.

Bullets:
FMJ: 6
Incendiary: 0
Poison: 0
HV: Base Ammo
DumDum: 0
Spitzer: 7
Explosive: Approx 1 or 2 less than Base Ammo's Penning Health.

Nitro: 10
Nitro Shredder: 8
Nitro Explosive:

Shotguns:
Pennyshot: 0
Slug: 3
Flechette: 0
Starshell: 0
Dragon's Breath: 0




Materials (Penning Damage):

Props/surfaces:
Vaultable Window Glass: 0
Un-vaultable Window Glass (such as the translucent panes in Healing Waters Church): 3
Lamp Glass (Wall Lamps, Oil Lamps, etc): 10
Thin Wood: 1
Husk: 1
Thick Wood: 2
Thin Metal: 3
Thick Metal: 6
Thin Trees: 3
Thick Trees/Stump: 6

Entities:
Hunters: 7
Grunts: 7
Hives: 7
Hellhounds: 7
Immolators: 7

------------------
Armoured: 7
Concertina Armoured: 7

Long story short is they are made of different materials. Flesh = 7, but the Armoured Husk on them is 7, unlike the regular environment Husk material. Armoured Husk is still part of them and if hit, causes the Armoured to take damage but reduced by a percentage. Concertina Armoured has Thin Metal, which is 3 but is still part of them so functions like Armoured Husk in damage application.

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 (in order of size): Dusters, Knife, Knuckle Knife, Heavy Knife, Machete, Cavalry Sabre, Combat Axe, Railroad Hammer, Katana, Bomb Lance.
The Attached Melees are melee weapons 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 assumed 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 on Hunters. 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. Piercing does not 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. 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 Deployable Ammo Box/Toolbox, which you can melee directly with. They deal a good amount of damage and can OHK to the Head, 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.

• Usable: Medkit.

• Pistol: is a gun. Flare Gun, Derringers (Quad, Pennyshot).

• 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 101 - Pt 1

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.

Hunters you recruit can have traits, and these are randomly decided by the game. Traits on a Hunter can be refunded for slightly less than the initial price in Upgrade Points.
Hunters in your roster can each have up to a certain number of traits, and the number/combination is individual to each.

They can be categorised as either passive or active, which describes their effect. Some Traits have both Active and Passive effects.
Passive means they make passive changes (usually number changes)
Active means they grant or replace abilities.

Examples of Passive traits: Kiteskin, Bolt Thrower, Mithridatist.
Examples of Active traits: Necromancy, Serpent, Poltergeist.

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 generally considered to be one of the worst traits in the game, but it's still technically an upgrade, and can certainly come in handy.

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.



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.
Filler Traits are traits that provide nice effects but aren't key to your build. Examples include Kiteskin, Magpie, or Conduit.

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 Assassin's Creed style plays every now and then), Tomahawk Assailant (in case I ever get the opportunity to do the Throw Hammer and Run achievement) and Gator Legs. /

Traits 101 - Pt 2

Traits can also have extra modifiers.

Modifiers list:

• Burn

• Scarce

• Event

• Solo

Burn
This means that it has one or more uses (often called charges or stacks), each use being consumed as the Trait is activated. Once fully depleted, the Trait is lost entirely and removed from the Hunter.
Rampage is an example of this, as it can stack up to 3 uses, and when its condition is met (you getting a kill while missing health) Rampage will then activate, healing you and "burning" a charge.

Some Burn traits can be purchased in the Hunter Traits menu. For example, Necromancy.

However, a Burn trait doesn't necessarily apply Burn to the player. Yes, this is needlessly confusing.

Case in point: The trait Necromancy is a Burn trait, meaning it is consumed upon use as mentioned previously. However, Necromancy also applies Burn to the player when used (burning away part of your health).
But Rampage and Relentless are also Burn traits, but do not apply Burn to the player (respectively, they restore a health chunk or prevent a health chunk from being lost). They have charges that can be stacked and consumed, which is what makes them Burn traits.

Scarce
This means that it cannot be purchased in the Trait menu, unlike most Traits in the game. Instead, it can only be found in the game world during a match. For example, at a Supply Point, or after killing a Meathead. And if removed from a Hunter's loadout, it will not grant any Upgrade Points.

Event
Means the Trait is only available during Events. It may be more generic, such as Signee (boosts Event BattlePass Points gain) or tied to a prerequisite, such as Pacts. For example, Rampage (trigger Restoration upon kill) used to be an Infernal Pact perk during the Devil's Moon Trilogy.

Solo
This means the perk effects change if you are playing Solo. Usually the changes are additional, not replacements. For example, Magpie grants a Solo player additional Boosted Dark Sightseconds when they pick up a Bounty Token, on top of the regular amount; this change is an additional one. Whereas Necromancy's effect changes: when playing in a Duo or Trio, it lets you revive a teammate from a Distance. But if you are playing Solo, it lets you revive yourself and triggers a Restoration.

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 -- in fact it's somewhat inflated -- 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. You'll eventually reach a point where you'll have so many Hunt Dollars that you won't really worry about dying and losing equipment.

It's best to think of Hunters as expendable assets-- 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.

Hunters that reach Level 25 or above can be Retired for an experience points (XP) bonus to your Bloodline that scales with the level of the Hunter, so 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, risk losing them but increase their level and XP payoff if you survive.
Hunters that reach Level 50 can be retired for an Experience Points bonus to your bloodline. So it's overall more efficient for XP-gaining to use the same Hunter continuously until they either die or reach Level 50 so they can be retired.

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.

The Recruitment tab allows you to recruit new Hunters for your roster. You can choose either from Tiered Hunters, Legendary Hunters, or Quickplay Hunters (these are Hunters that you have survived a Quickplay match with).
The Recruitment tab allows you to recruit new Hunters for your roster. You can choose either Free Hunters (a rotation changed after every match) or Legendary Hunters (a selection of Hunters of varying rarities that you own, usually through either BBs or DLC purchases).

Tiered Hunters come with their own, randomised loadout. Ranging from Free Tier to Tier 3, the higher tier, the more expensive the loadout they will have in general, and they will cost more Hunt Dollars to recruit. In addition, the higher the Tier of the Hunter, the darker their clothing will be, helping them camouflage better. Most Tier 1s have bright clothing, hence the nickname "Whiteshirts). Free Tier Hunters will never come with Traits.

Because the loadout Tiered Free Hunters come with is random, it's not necessarily a good idea to queue up for a match with a Tiered Free Hunter's loadout that you haven't edited. Although it can be pretty fun, as they can pose interesting challenges and get you to explore alternative weapons and playstyles.

Legendary Hunters cost a flat amount of Hunt Dollars to recruit, regardless of which character it is. They come with three random Traits, but they do not come with any equipment.

Prestige

Prestiging in Hunt works similar to other games.

Once you reach Bloodline Level 100, you unlock the option to prestige. You can Prestige anytime, so you can stay at Bloodline Level 100 for as long as you want before prestiging.

You could also choose not to prestige at all, it's not forced. When you are at Bloodline 100, your Bloodline XP no longer levels you up when it is completed, instead, it gives you a 200 Hunt Dollar reward and resets itself back to 0, so it's a repeatable, earnable reward.

Prestige Levels cap at 100, so the highest level you can be in this game is Prestige 100 Bloodline 100.

Each time you prestige, multiple things are reset:

1. Your Bloodline is reset back to Bloodline Level 1. This in turn resets all your Unlocks progress, meaning all equipment will be locked until you fulfill their unlock criteria again. For example, you unlock the Springfield at Level 1, so if I prestiged, I would have the Springfield immediately available to me, but it's variants and special ammos would be locked. So I would still need to earn XP with it in order to unlock its variants and special ammos again. 1896 update: All base weapons and their special ammos, are unlocked by default at Bloodline Level 1. But their variants must be earned via using the weapon to earn XP.

2. Your Hunt Dollars are also reset to 2000.

3. Your roster is fully emptied, so you will not have any hunters.

4. The Recruitment tab will be able to be refreshed multiple times in a row for free, allowing you to fill out your roster quickly and cheaply. This only lasts for a few refreshes, after which it reverts to the default (free refresh granted after each match).

Prestiging will reward you with one of either two or three options, depending on the Prestige level you will be reaching. At any Prestige rank, you can choose to either start with an extra 4000 Hunt Dollars, or gain a 10% XP bonus. At some prestige ranks, you will be given the option of receiving a random cosmetic unlock. This means your choices at those specific ranks will either be the extra 4000 dollars, the 10% XP bonus, or the random cosmetic unlock.

The random cosmetic unlock will unlock a random non-DLC cosmetic for you (cosmetic means the Legendary skins/weapons under the Store tab). There are no rarity ranks that determine the probability of receiving cosmetics. However, as there are more legendary weapon skins than hunter skins, you are more likely to receive a weapon skin (by default).

The 10% XP bonus gives you a 10% bonus on match XP, but only for the Prestige rank you are moving onto, and does not stack beyond that. So for example, if I prestige one time and pick the XP bonus, and then the next time I prestige I pick the 4000 Hunt Dollars option, I will not have the XP bonus anymore. The XP bonus reward is essentially only for your current prestige. The XP bonus means you'll gain Hunter and Bloodline XP faster; it does not affect the XP you earn for equipment progression. This also means that when you do reach Bloodline 100, your Bloodline XP bar will fill up faster and you''ll receive the 200 Hunt Dollar completion bonus more often.

Prestiging does not reset your Achievements (since those will be tied to your account on the platform you play Hunt on, eg Steam, Xbox, etc). It also does not reset your progress on the Book of Arms and Book of Monsters, but with some small quirks.

For the Book of Arms, you can will need to manually click on each page in order to "unlock" it, if you want to reveal its information, but you'll only have to do this once each prestige, and that's only if you want to see its information.

For the Book of Monsters, each entry will be locked until you kill the monster for that entry. So for example, even if I had the Grunt entries fully unlocked before I prestiged, after I prestige, the Grunt entries will be locked until I kill a Grunt.

You will not receive any of the BB rewards for "unlocking" entries you have already unlocked in this way. You only receive those BB rewards as a one time thing, for the first ever time you unlocked that entry. It's essentially more like you are clicking on the entries to re-reveal them, rather than actually losing their progress and needing to fulfil their criteria again.

People choose to prestige for various reasons:
1. The prestige rewards.
2. Since your unlocks are reset, you may be forced to shake up your playstyle and use equipment you don't usually use, which helps spice things up.
3. Bragging rights -- the higher the prestige you are, the more time and dedication you have committed to the game (of course, their total playing time is just as if not more indicative of this).

Alternatively, some people choose not to Prestige, for various reasons:
1. Might not want to go through the trouble of unlocking everything they like to use again.
2. Might not care about Prestige ranks.
3. Might not care about the rewards.

Bottom line is, it's just down to the individual.

WO: I personally don't find the grind to unlock equipment that bad, for me it's more that certain things I would like to get are harder/take longer to unlock than others, such as the Uppercut, Avtomat, and Martini Explosive Ammo. Each time I prestige, I also prioritise unlocking medium-slot rifles/carbines first because they are frequently part of my builds. /

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).

Zed are unable to trigger Living Soundtraps, but can still technically somewhat interact with them. For example, an Enraged Immolator will burn a flock of crows if it runs through them, killing them.

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.
  
  • Dying Cows: Unique to the Mammon's Gulch Map. Behaviour identical to Horses, but with some minor differences: their Activated sound is louder, and they cannot hurt you.
  • 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. The dogs 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 coop. 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 coop 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 (AWAY from the direction of the sound source that startled them, this is useful for tracking people), 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: Behaviour almost identical to Crows. 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, swerving before heading in the opposite direction from what startled them, and 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]
    
  • Bats: Unique to the Mammon's Gulch map. Bats gather in groups at the entrances to caves. When Idle, they stay relatively still and don't make sounds. When Alert, they'll chirp fairly quietly, and flinch whenever you make a sound. When Activated, they will screech loudly and fly out of the cave 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 bats as possible at once, as if you do not hit more than half of them, the flock will not die and they'll be Activated as normal. Bats cannot be killed with bullets/projectiles.
  
  

Stationary Sound Traps (Non-Living)

Zeds are able to trigger Non-Living Soundtraps. They will create the same noises as Hunters when activating them (rattling chains, crunching class etc).

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

• Floor Junk:This is bottles, broken glass 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 but still distinct audio cue. Moving through Floor Junk without crouching will make a fairly loud sound. They are also of different noise levels; walking through broken glass is fairly loud, but is still quieter than walking through tin cans.

• 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. Moving through Hanging Junk without crouching will make a fairly loud sound. Crouchwalking through it is the quietest way to go through it, but be aware this will still produce a very quiet but still distinct audio cue. They are also of different noise levels; walking through hanging hooks is fairly loud but still quieter than walking through hanging pots. Note that Hanging Junk has collision-- it can block bullets, projectiles and throwables, making noise in the process. <---(This collision interaction was removed in Garden of the Witch update).

• 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 or jump over them without Activating them. After they've been broken, they can't be Activated again. They can be activated from a distance via a projectile hitting them, such as a bullet or throwable.

• 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.

In addition, though not strictly a Sound trap per se, but worth mentioning, is that different materials make different and distinct noises when you move on them. Walking on metal such as roofs or gantries makes a louder sound compared to walking on grass. The loudness scale goes along the lines of (from quietest to loudest): Sand, Wood, Grass/Dirt, Mud, Stone, Gravel, Metal. Pay attention to what you're moving on, even sheets of metal embedded into the mud are still actual objects, not just visual textures, so stepping on them is going to make the noise of metal being stepped on. Like I said, the sound design in this game is intuitive.

World Supplies

This section takes a look at the world supplies you have available to help you in a match.

I'll classify these into Resources (used for combat) or Loot (not used for combat), with their own sections.


Note1: QP/Soul Survivor 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. As of 1896 update, most Resources are now instead simply only usable once per person, and physically show an indicator of whether they have been used or not. They cannot be depleted entirely, which was previously the case.

Note3: During Events, Supply Points can contain special versions of Resources, recognisable by distinct feathers and chains wrapped around them. These versions cost Pledge Marks (Event-exclusive semi-currency) to use and will have an empowered effect. For example, the Event Medkit will trigger Restoration, healing back your burnt health chunks, whereas a Regular Medkit will only heal 100 HP and is limited by your burnt bars.

Note4: Supply Points, marked by a wagon icon on your map, contain guaranteed Resources. There are a limited number of Supply Points in a match and they spawn in random locations from a list of possibilities. Supply Points contain guaranteed regular ammo and medkits. They have a random chance of also having Special Ammo, Toolboxes, Lanterns and World weapons. They will either be a single standing wagon, a group of capsized wagons, a distinctly red-coloured train carriage, or a small boat in a water body.

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. 1896 update: Lid closed = 0 uses, Lid open = at least 1 previous use. Medkit still works the opposite way, Lid open = 0 uses, Lid half-closed = at least 1 previous use.

• 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: 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 100 HP (limited by greyed bars).

• Beetle Cocoon: Smallish, green fibrous mass attached to an object, such as a tree or wall. Guaranteed spawn locations in each map. Two uses total. There are two types of Cocoons: One type only gives Choke Beetle, other type gives random other variant of the Beetle Consumable (Stalker, Fire).

• Saddle/Saddle Bag: Saddle with gun holster and bag/pouch attached, found on hitching posts and Dying Horses. Saddles are part of the environment and spawn empty by default. They can have either a gun in the holster, a saddle bag, or both. Guns in saddles are loadout weapons, and always Large Slot sized. Saddle bags have two uses. They loot-wise give the same as a Hunter Corpse, so in order of priority, they: Replenish Tools, yield one consumable (by default), or give a moderate amount of Hunt Dollars if your inventory is full.

• World weapons: You can find melee weapons in the world. If you have the option enabled, these will be outlined in the same white colour as lanterns, doors and windows. They are also recognisable because they have distinctive red colouring somewhere on them and can spawn as part of other objects (World Axe embedded in tree stump, Pitchfork sticking out from hay, etc). These world weapons are unique because they are not equippable in a loadout (differentiating them from loadout melee weapons like the Cavalry Sabre, Combat Axe, etc). Thus, you can pick these weapons up and drop them without having to swap out your weapons. You cannot take them out of the match. These world weapons are: the shovel, pitchfork, world axe(called that to differentiate it from the Combat Axe) and sledgehammer.
  
  • You can also find loadout weapons in the world, either guns or melee weapons, that can be swapped out with your loadout weapons (such as taking a Winnie C with you, spawning in, finding a Mosin, and swapping your Winnie for the Mosin). These loadout weapons are functionally identical to any other loadout weapon. They're literally just regular guns/melees. I'm just including them because they spawn in randomly in the world, unlike the weapons that Hunters drop when they're downed/dead.
  • Traits: Smallish charm carved from bone, with small mystical sparks radiating from it. Grants a random trait. Once used twice, it disappears. It does not obviously indicate whether it has been used already like Medkits or Ammo boxes (but you can infer that it has been used already if you interact with it and it disappears afterwards). The colour of the bone charm indicates if it is a regular (white), Scarce (blue) or Burn(red) trait.
  • Event Posters: These are event-exclusive poster variants, they are guaranteed to spawn at Supply Points during Events but can spawn in the usual possible poster locations. They cost Pledge Marks to use. Multiple types, recognisable by their pale paper and feather decoration): Dark Sight Boost (picture of eye), Four Shot Boon (picture of syringe), XP Boon .
  
  

Loot

Loot:

Note1: interacting with Loot does not make sound that others can hear (only the person interacting with it can hear it), except for Cash Registers, which are audible to anyone in range.
Note2: All of these except Cash Registers are highlighted with a white outline if you have that option enabled.
Note3: All of these except Cash Registers do not change their appearance based on their usage (but disappear once they've been used twice).

• Pouches: Small brown pouch. Two variants with minor visual differences. Type 1: Gives a small amount of Hunt Dollars, Type 2 gives you a (very) small amount of BBs.

• Blueprints: Small, light blue paper with writing on it. Immediately unlocks the next progression unlock for whatever item you're holding, if applicable. Will not let you pick it up if the item you're holding does not have a progression unlock available. 1896 update: Immediately unlocks a random Locked equipment. Unlike Gun Oil Can, it is not affected by what you are currently holding.

• Posters: Small poster hanging on a wall. Has a unique appearance correlating to what it grants. Grants either Hunter XP, Bloodline XP or Upgrade Points.

• Cash Registers: silver or gold-coloured mechanical cash register. Grants a moderate to large amount of Hunt Dollars. If it's gold-coloured, which is rarer, it will grant Blood Bonds instead. Cash registers makes a fairly loud, unique cha-ching sound when interacted with. Tray is closed = 0 uses, Tray is half open= 1 or more uses, Tray is fully open = 2 uses. Cash registers do not disappear regardless of usage, unlike other Loot.

• Gun Oil Can:Small metal can with etchings and paint, with small nozzle on top. Resets a weapon down to 0 mud level (essentially just cleans it). 1896 update: Immediately Unlocks the next progression unlock for whatever equipment you are currently holding in your hand.

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, torches, a lit/unlit lantern or a pistol. Unarmed and Pistol just deals flat damage. If hit with cleavers or torches, you will receive Bleed or Char/Burn respectively. The lantern will break if they hit something with it, but the lantern they have is not always lit. Pistol grunts cannot shoot at you; instead, they melee with the pistol, and if they hit something with it, the pistol goes off and a random pistol gunshot sound is played, giving them the potential to reveal your presence within a much bigger radius compared to other zed.

• 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).

• Health: They are pretty fragile; shots to the chest with the vast majority of weapons before damage dropoff takes effect can OHK them. Headshots are OHKs within weapons' Effective Ranges. They have identical hitboxes to Hunters. Plus, damaging their leg(s) will reduce their movement speed permanently, damaging their arm will cause them to drop whatever they're holding.
  
  • Weaknesses: Fire (instant kill, but they scream loudly), Explosives (instant kill, but explosives are very loud so not great for stealth), Headshot (headshot with any ranged weapons' Effective Range including the Derringer kills them), Poison (OHK on limb shot, range depending on base Impact Damage).
  • Melee Killing: Number of Melee hits to kill (excluding dedicated melee weapons/weapons with melee attachments). Rule of Thumb: Large Slot (One Heavy + One Light to the head), Medium Slot ( One Heavy + Two Lights to the head), Small Slot (Two Heavies + One Light to the head).
  
  There are some special variants of grunts:
  1. Doctor grunt, who is always dressed in doctor's scrubs and is always equipped with a bonesaw which is his unique weapon, no other grunt can have it. The Doctor grunt inflicts poison with his attacks. He also drops a medkit when killed. This medkit can be destroyed with fire/explosives, just like the items that Scrapbeak drops.
  2. Miner grunt, always dressed in miner's workclothes. They can have any regular grunt weapon. Their unique gimmick is that they have a headlamp which may or may not be lit. The headlamp functions as a dynamic lightsource, and is treated as such in terms of rendering distance etc. This headlamp is broken when you kill the miner grunt with a hit/shot to the head. If the lamp is unlit, it will simply drop a pool of oil (which can be ignited). If the lamp is lit, it will drop a pool of flaming oil.
  
  Tips:
  
  • 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.
  • When you kill a grunt that was holding torches, the torches can still ignite oil and barrels if they fall on them! I learned that the hard way. However, after they hit the ground, they can't ignite you or anything else. Whether they ignite something is based on if they fall directly on it.

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).

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).

Concertina Armoured attacks = deals damage + inflicts Bleed.
Takes one extra Melee hit to kill.
Hitting them with a non-reaching melee causes you to take damage and Bleed. Reaching melees are melee weapons that have longer-reaching Piercing (stabbing) attacks, such as Bayonets, Ripostes and Pitchforks. Note that you still need to make a conscious effort to hit the Concertina Armoured with the very tip of the stab, just barely within reach, or else you'll still end up taking 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 quickly and relatively quietly.

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.

• Health: Hives have decent health. Headshots are OHKs within weapons' Effective Ranges (Bodyshots can be OHKs depending on the weapon--bows, throwing axes, etc). Plus, damaging their leg(s) will reduce their movement speed.
  • Weaknesses: Fire (instant kill, but they scream loudly), Explosives, Headshot (headshot with any ranged weapons including the derringer kills them).
  • Melee Killing: One heavy to the head with any melee weapon/attachment will kill a Hive. 1 to 3 hits depending on the melee attack you use are needed to disperse a Swarm.
  
  Immune to: Poison.
  
  Tips:
  
  • In compounds, Hives tend to spawn on higher up places like balconies, tops of train carriages, etc. In open areas, Hives tend to spawn paired with another Hive or an Immolator. Try not to get close to them at all if you're trying to be stealthy, as even if you are below or above them, they can detect you.
  • Swarms can be blocked by solid walls, doors and unbroken/shuttered windows. Cages don't block them.
  • Hives' heads hang off the back and to the side of their body. Hitting the bughive in their chest only counts as a bodyshot. But, Hives constantly turn to face their target, making their heads hang off to the right (your right) side of their body, making a melee attack to their head easy to land. You can also strafe to the side as you run at them, in order to avoid the Swarm they spawn for longer because of its slower turning speed.
  • Using an Antidote shot will make you temporarily immune to poison, so dealing with Hives will be a little easier. You'll still take damage from Swarms, you just won't get Poisoned.
  • Dealing with a Swarm can be confusing when you're new to the game because Swarms make an ambient screaming noise similar to the Hive, most noticeably when they disperse.
  • 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.
4. When Enraged, they can ignite any flammable objects they touch or move near to. This includes: other zeds, Crows, Hunters, barrels, etc.


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 3-5 shots at close range 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).

Immune to: Fire, Poison Clouds. Less Bonus Damage taken (40-50% less) from direct Poison damage i.e Poison bullets.

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 at minimum, plus potentially securing a down.

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

Significant Changes:
Patch 1.16..2 - Immos now immune to Poison Clouds. Take less damage from direct Poison damage i.e Poison bullets.

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 (assuming 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 (they'll start growling, and then run at you). 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 can only be headshot if you hit through the gaps in their helmets, which might not be easy or fast to do.

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, Cloud kills them very quickly).
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). Poison is also good for this. Hounds are not smart enough to go around the fire/poison cloud, so they'll continue running at you through it and 9/10 times will all die without even landing a hit on you.

• 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.

• You can cheese them by positioning an obstacle like a rock, tree stump or even a horse corpse between you and them. Their pathfinding AI will slow them down as they navigate around the obstacle, making them very easy to hit (Hellhounds can't make sharp turns quickly).

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, close-range buck/penny/slug shot blast, or Poison ammo.

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.

Bounty and Wild Targets

As of writing this guide, there are seven Bosses: The Butcher, The Spider, The Assassin, Scrapbeak Rotjaw, Hellborn, and Ursa Mortis.

There are two kinds of Bosses: Bounty Targets and Wild Targets.

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.

All bosses have a Frenzy mode, which is activated when they take a certain amount of damage (every quarter of their total health, meaning 3 possible frenzies total) 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. As a rule of thumb, their sounds will get particularly loud when they are in Frenzy and quiet down again when they are done.

Most Bosses have a Weakspot that when hit, deals more damage compared to hitting it elsewhere on it's body.

Butcher and Scrapbeak can both be stunned periodically(roughly every 7 seconds) 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. Sometimes they can even be stunned, allowing you to land more hits/shots temporarily.
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.).

Bounty Targets

Bounty Targets 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. Some compounds have multiple potential Lair spots. The Lair's appearance will be changed depending on the Boss that resides in it.
You track Bounty Targets by interacting with Clues, which are found in Compounds. The Clues will narrow down the possible compounds the Bounty is in.
The number of Bounty Targets present in the match will be displayed in the top left of your screen.

• 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. Runs non-stop for a duration, meleeing with a set rhythm, throwing fireballs more often and leaving a trail of small fire spots. Weakspot: Head. When the Head eventually drops off due to damage taken, there is no replacement Weakspot.

• 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. Weakspot: Centre of its mouth. Aim at the face. Try not to get grossed out.

• Assassin: 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 classed as Heavy) damage - after which the illusionary Assassins 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. Weakspot: The red portion in its chest, centred on a large exposed organ, presumably its heart. Note: This Weakspot needs to be struck in order to prevent the Assassin from damaging you when he manifests for a Melee attack.

• 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. Weakspot: Face/Mask. If meleeing, weapons with stabbing/jabbing attacks are easier to aim and land the hit.

Wild Targets

Wild Targets spawn in a certain spot out of a selection of potential locations, just like Bounty Targets. However, these spots are open, rather than inside a Lair or Compound. For example, Rotjaw can only spawn in Deep Water, which restricts her potential spawn location to large bodies of water, outside of Compounds.
Wild Targets have their own ways of being tracked, and they will by default, not be displayed in the top left of your screen. If you interact with one of their trackers, find the Target itself or the Target is killed, then they will be revealed in the top left of the screen.

• Rotjaw: Gimmick is Diving/Surfacing and Stamina Drain. Diving/Surfacing: Dives below surface of water, obscuring self from view and becoming immune to damage. In order for Rotjaw to be damaged, she has to be visible out of water. Ripples do not count, her body has to be visible. Stamina Drain: Electrocutes her attacker when she is melee'd, draining all their stamina. Use Stamina Boosts to counter this. Spawns Rotpools around her when half-health, which deal minor damage, aimpunch and drain stamina.

• Hellborn: Gimmick is Fire. Ignites nearby entities/objects around itself. Throws molten rock projectiles that deal impact damage and ignite what they contact with. To Counter: two dynamite bundles will kill it. Choke Bombs damage it while it is in contact with the cloud, and extinguish the flames it creates, including on the projectiles HOWEVER the projectiles will still deal physical impact damage (approx 24 damage).
  
• Ursa Mortis.: Exclusive to Post Malone's Murder Circus Event. Gimmick is Bleed. It is blind, and can only track you when you make loud noises such as sprinting and shooting. There are Brambles scattered around its lair-- stepping on them breaks them, inflicting Light Bleed on you as well as making noise so Ursa can track you.

Mechanics that aren't necessarily obvious

Some things in this section, especially the gun handling mechanics, are much simpler than they sound and can easily be learnt, even by newer players. If you have prior experience/knowledge of firearms, it's intuitive since it's mostly grounded in reality. It's just difficult to explain well through text alone.

Unlimited Sprint: You can sprint indefinitely. However, after a certain duration you'll become Exhausted (shown by a small grey icon with a picture of a set of lungs in it) and your sprinting top speed will decrease to a lower cap (it will still be faster than walking). Exhaustion can be removed/prevented by gaining the Stamina Boost status effect, or by not sprinting for a length of time.

Handle Guns While Sprinting: You can reload while sprinting. Your movement/reload speed does not decrease. Guns can also be cycled, ammo swapped, and fire mode/sight toggled while sprinting.

Interrupt Reloads: you can interrupt a reload by pressing the Fire button (Left Click by default on PC) while reloading. There is a small time delay for this, it is not instant. Switching weapons while reloading/cycling guns also interrupts that process. For cycling the gun, this means the next time you bring that weapon out, your hunter will automatically cycle the gun, so there will be an additional delay before it is ready to shoot.

Gateloader Revolver Partial Reloads Interrupt Penalty: All conventional gateloader revolvers (so excluding the Scottfield, Caldwell 92 and Chain Pistol as of now) suffer time penalties (they take longer to do the process) when reloading partially. This happens when either reloading while partially empty, interrupting the reload while partially empty, or both. These time penalties are represented by spinning the revolver cylinder. The time penalties are flat values, the length of the penalty does not change regardless of how many rounds you are missing/reloaded. If you reload from fully empty, and do not interrupt the reload, there will be no time penalties.

Top-break/Swing-out revolver auto empty: As of now, only includes the Scottfield and Caldwell 92. When fully emptied, the casings are ejected all at once instead of one at a time, making a faster reload from partially empty compared to gateloader revolvers. However, top-up speed (reloading while partially empty) is slightly slower compared to normal gateloader revolvers.

Projectiles can be shot: Dynamite, Frag bombs, flash bombs, even concertina arrows and explosive bolts, these can all be detonated mid-air by being shot. This situation is unlikely to occur, but is still fun and actually somewhat viable if using Dragon's Breath or Flechette ammo. You can also shoot a throwable to detonate it early if the fuse is already lit while still in the opponent's hand (note: this only applies to flammable throwables, so you couldn't, for example, shoot someone's explosive crossbow bolt to detonate it while it's in the crossbow).

Preventing a weapon from cycling: Most guns' mechanisms must be cycled manually(by the character) in order to be ready to shoot again (cocking back the hammer, opening and closing the bolt, etc). This is automatically done after firing, once you have released the Fire button. You can postpone the gun being cycled by holding down the Fire button instead of tapping. This will cause the gun to fire, but not cycle. This is useful for watching where your shot lands, but it's not really a big deal, and the vast majority of the time you won't be using this function on its own. However, it's important to know this because it is related to the following point.

Lossless Reloads: Certain guns are designed so that their action must be opened in order to load the magazine. These guns eject a cartridge or more when reloaded while partially empty, and these ejected cartridges are then lost, meaning reloads will cost more ammo than what you're actually loading into the gun. This can be avoided with the Bulletgrubber trait, which saves the ejected round(s) from being lost. However, losing rounds from a reload this way can also be avoided (with some exceptions) by two methods: 1) Cycle-Reloading -- pressing the Reload button while the gun's action is being opened during the action cycling animation, and 2) Hold-Reloading -- Holding down the Fire button to fire the gun and then prevent the gun from cycling, and then pressing the Reload button while still holding down the Fire button. In this way, you can learn to reload more consciously and stay topped up with these guns without needing Bulletgrubber.

Lossless Reload Exceptions: Bulletgrubber prevents the loss of one or more rounds from a partial reload, for all lossy-reload guns except as of now, Swift revolver variants. Cycle-Reloading and Hold-Reloading can also do this(though only saving one round, not multiple). It does not affect the Berthier(+ Deadeye, Riposte), Swift revolver variants.

En Bloc Ammo Switching/Lossless Reload: This only affects the Berthier (+variants) as of now.
You lose the rest of the rounds in the clip/chamber when reloading while partially empty(again, this is prevented with Bulletgrubber). But this cannot be prevented with Cycle-Reloading and Hold-Reloading. However, the gun can be losslessly reloaded by switching ammo types. For example, taking one stack of regular Long Ammo and one stack of Spitzer. If I fire one shot (let's say regular ammo is loaded), and then wanted to reload, I'd lose the two reg ammo rounds remaining in the gun. Instead, if I switch the loaded ammo type to Spitzer, and then back to reg, the gun would be loaded back to full without me losing any ammo.

Breech Loading from Empty: Some guns, when reloaded from empty, start by loading a round directly into the breech, before loading the magazine. This means that if you cancel the reload after loading that round, the gun will not need to be cycled before being ready to fire. This can help in situations where you get ambushed by an enemy while reloading. Guns affected: Martini Ironside, Winfield Slate, 1865 Carbine.

Cycling After Reloading From Empty: This section applies to manually-cycled non-revolver guns. After being completely emptied, they must cycle again to load a round into the chamber, no matter how many rounds you're loading. This means that by default, when you reload, you fill up the magazine to full, then cycle a round into the chamber, leaving the gun ready to shoot but with one round missing from the magazine (or even more missing if you interrupted the reload). This can be a hindrance if you get jumped by an opponent/enemy, as you'll need to cycle the gun before you can shoot. You can avoid this by always remaining topped-up to full, or at a minimum, always ensuring there is a round in the chamber of the gun at any given moment. Alternatively, you can cancel the reload from empty after loading one round, causing the gun to cycle and load that round into the chamber, and then start reloading again, leaving the gun ready to fire even if you interrupt your reload again. This is easier to do with the loading gate guns (e.g Winnie C, Vetterli etc) as they can top up without losing rounds by default.

Mechanics that aren't necessarily obvious - Part 2

Opening Barriers: Hinged Windows, Window Shutters, Gates, and Doors can be opened not just by walking up and pressing the Interact button. Note that the following methods do damage to them, unlike using the Interact button. 1. Meleeing them. 2. Explosive force (Dynamite, Frag Bombs, Choke Bombs, etc). 3. Buckshot/Flechette/Pennyshot blast.

Metal Surfaces: Thick Metal can only be penned by the Nitro. Thin metal, such as corrugated panels, stairs, and window mesh can be penned with regular Long ammo or better penning ability.

Kennel/Coop Mesh: This mesh works slightly differently to window meshes. It is fragile and thin enough to allow certain ammos to pen which otherwise couldn't pen on other thin metal surfaces. As far as I know, the ammos that can pen through kennel/coop mesh are any with Regular Medium or better penning ability, plus these Special Ammos: Medium Incendiary/HV/FMJ, Dragon's Breath, Slugs. (See Penning section for more information).

Reducing Fall damage: The surface you land on can reduce the amount of fall damage you take. All "hard" surfaces (including mud) will make you take full damage. These surfaces reduce the fall damage you take, if you land on them: 1. Haybales. 2. Bodies of water (enough to be considered Deep).

Mud on Equipment: All equipment can have different levels of mud. This level changes based on different factors, but it is purely a cosmetic change in the end. The factors: 1. Gains +1 mud level with each match it survives 2. Immediately gains +1 mud level if you go down with the item and then you get revived. 3. Contraband starts with low-level mud. 4. Can be removed using Weapon Cleaner found in the world. 5. Can be removed by paying BBs.

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 assume 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 assume 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 Spyglass 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 (assuming 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, Kerrty, Homereel, JustBree, Delaney and Gunsmackk.

• 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. You can also practice techniques like quickscoping, quickswap kills, landing headshots, etc. 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.

Interesting Weapon/Loadout Combinations

This section covers some cool combinations which can help you if you're interested in experimenting with playstyles and loadouts but don't know where to start.

Weapons:

Budget Nitro: Caldwell Rival + Slugs
Budget Sniper: Winfield Marksman+ FMJ or Vetterli Marksman + FMJ/HV
The "Hitscan machine gun": Winfield M1873 / Bayonet (bigger mag) / Swift (faster reloading) + HV ammo + Levering -- "I'm in the ghetto ratatata"
Flamethrower: Winfield Terminus + Dragon's Breath + Levering -- "Original or Extra Crispy?"
The "Slot Machine": Winfield Terminus + Penny shot + Levering -- "Winner winner chicken dinner"
The "Flintlock" build: Double Romero Handcannon + Slugs or double Springfield Compacts.
The Uzi build: two Chain pistols, one in each weapon slot + Fanning.
The "John Wayne": Winfield M1873 + Terminus Handcannon
The "Oprah Winfrey Concertina build": Double Hunting bows + Concertina ammo + Concertina Bombs. -- "You get concertina, and you get concertina, and everybody gets concertina!"
The "I really want to set you on fire while social distancing" build: Winfield M1873 + Incendiary ammo AND Bornheim + Incendiary ammo.
The Explodey build: Crossbow + Explosive ammo AND dual Uppercuts + Explosive ammo.

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.

• 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, though I haven't seen enough of him in matches to really comment on the change. /

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. /

• Guns/clothing clipping through objects: If a Hunter has big clothing(ponchos, long coats, wide-brimmed hats etc) these can clip through objects if they are close enough to that object. For example, when they crouch, poking their coat through the floor. This clipping can reveal their position if you can see it. Same goes for weapons. All weapons, if not lowered, can poke through walls, floors and other objects, poking through to the other side if the object is thin enough, when you are right up against these surfaces. This reveals your position to anyone who can see this clipping. Obviously longer weapons and clothing are easier to accidentally clip through walls compared to shorter ones.
  
  • Gun glitching out (makes sound, doesn't damage) when you switch between ammo types too many times while in a match -- applies to all single shot guns and the Berthier. I think it gets fixed by swapping the affected gun out with another weapon in the world and then picking it back up again.
    Bear Traps are sometimes not placeable, instead they drop at your feet when you try to place them-- the fix seems to be to swap between your weapons a few times and then attempt to place the Bear Trap.
  • Terrain Desync: when the game thinks you're somewhere that you shouldn't be, it can hitch and then teleport you to a nearby location, usually down onto the ground. This tends to happen when you try to climb onto/into awkward places and walk on top of railings/edges.
  • Also, every now and then, Hunt might forget what's new and what isn't, marking most of your inventory/BoA/BoM/Store/Trials with the little orange plus icons. This may also be accompanied by your game settings being reset, losing your keybinds, sensitivities, etc. None of your progress, Hunters, purchases, and currencies should be affected though.
  • Underground Sound: Some compounds have underground areas (such as the Chapel's basement). These areas have inconsistent silencing/muffling effects on sound. For example, assuming you are outside, gunfire in these underground areas can be completely silent, muffled, or regular volume. All sources of sound are potentially affected.
  • Funky hitboxes: Certain objects, such as the tops of the fence surrounding Fort Bolden, have hitboxes larger than the object's model. So it may look like you're aiming over or around them but actually your projectiles will collide with it.
  • Unrendered faces: This is a very rare issue, but sometimes faces on certain objects eg rocks, planks, etc are not rendered, allowing you to see through them. This is a bug. That object will still have its regular penning value, so while you may be able to see through something like a rock or very thick wood, it doesn't necessarily mean you can shoot through it.

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 (assuming 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 assume 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 passive. 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, sexism, 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 sidearm (a fast pistol complements this playstyle) to try and get a follow-up hit, securing 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 class.

Trait: Basically the same as perks seen in games like Call of Duty or Dead By Daylight. Either Active or Passive. Active ones add extra, manually controlled abilities (e.g Serpent, which allows you to interact with objectives from a distance). Passive 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.

End

I hope you enjoyed the guide and learned something new!

Please share this guide with other people, I put a lot of work into it and the more people that see it, the more helpful it can be.

Feel free to leave feedback in the comments, I'd appreciate constructive criticism so I can improve the guide.

Thanks to Shardwalker for helping to proofread.

[monsterdhal]

Although quite some topics are outdated by now, this is still a great quide. It is way more than "somewhat informed"! Having a reasonable amount of play-time on my account, I still learned some interesting new things. And I find it still worth sharing with new players, as long I mention the potential outdatedness. Thank you for your huge effords!

[CertainUndeath]

Yeah, you are correct, that was fixed! I've updated that section. I'm still trying to find the time to update the guide consistently but life stuff plus the stagnating viewcount and no real return on this make it hard to justify the effort and time. It's still a passion project, and while I don't plan on abandoning it any time soon, I'm working on finding a way to balance passion with productivity. Such is life.

[Korza]

Just visited this guide again and found a few things that have been fixed in the meantime:

In the Chapter: Things to be aware of - Part 1 - Left peeking and being "taller" when ADSing or holding certain weapons (like the Berthier) have been fixed relatively recently, do I know this correctly?

If so, you can change them if you want.

[Korza]

Excellent !

[Cripto]

Splendid effort and knowledge, it spares hours for us to test, reload, search on net, frustration of nonexistent good tutorial in game...Thank you!

[Dan]

Bro said 'doesn't go into deep analysis of each thing' then wrote a 50 page essay on the game

[BirdOfPray]

Epic guide. Thanks for the great info!

[76561198247939296]

No problem, thank you for being so open to feedback and spending your time on making such an in-depth guide.
Happy hunting!

[CertainUndeath]

Glad the guide is blowing up! I'm aiming to add in a section for clutches so I'll include what H-Bomb said. In the end, the guide is just to build a foundational understanding anyway so I won't go too in-depth, I'm aware it's getting pretty chunky now. I'll check out Delaney and Gunsmackk and mention them in the guide, thanks for the suggestion :)

[76561198247939296]

Again, I direct you towards Delaney on YouTube, as well as Twitch, as he released a guide series dedicated specifically to clutches, from which you will gain heaps more information than this wall of text.
To end this off, I would like to congratulate the authors of this guide, for creating by far the most in-depth, and quite frankly the most useful guide that I have ever seen posted, easily rivaling and topping guides that I have read from P100s with 6k hours in the game.
If I were a new player reading this guide, even though it is a game's worth of knowledge to digest, it would be an immense help to my intro into this game, as not only are the standard bases covered, i.e, gamemodes, ammo, weapon types, metas, etc, but the intricacies and minute details are covered that would otherwise take a good few hundred hours even to figure out by one's self.
Once again, thank you for creating such an amazing guide, as you are doing any and all who read this a favor, and happy hunting!