Hunt: Horrors Of The Gilded Age Coming This Fall For PC

Just ahead of E3 next week, Crytek USA announced their first title and it's a four-player cooperative action-shooter, presumably made in the same vein as popular co-op shooters like Left 4 Dead and Killing Floor.

The company let loose a brief teaser trailer to give gamers an idea on what to expect from this CryEngine-powered action title, as the voiceover makes it plain and clear that this is truly an action-shooter. You can see the engine in action below, but there is no gameplay to be found, so beware.

The game is only being scheduled for release this year on PC. It's part of Crytek's “games-as-a-service” initiative, which means that it's likely to be free-to-play and will shutdown when player engagement falls by the wayside. Whoopee!

David Adams, CEO of Crytek USA Corp., commented in the press release about the game, saying...

"In HUNT: Horrors of the Gilded Age, players will be counting their bullets and crying out for help as they delve deeper into the shadowy world we've created. From the outset of the development process, we've poured our imaginations into the game so that everyone who plays HUNT will discover a challenging experience that feels fresh, captivating and rich in possibilities."

The game is set in the mid 1800s – and that means plenty of western-style weapons and tools – and centers around popular folklore monsters being the main catch of the day. The game will – very much like Killing Floor – feature increasingly difficult mob encounters, so things will ratchet up to a big boss fight at the end of levels, but the start will see players taking down cheap disposable zombies like a plastic Happy Meal toy imported from a $0.2 an hour sweatshop in China that ends up being stepped on by a parent in the middle of the night who suffers from a weak bladder.

The game will also use a very similar feature for random monster encounters like Left 4 Dead's “Director”, ensuring that players of various skill levels will also face down against appropriate and unforeseen challenges to keep the play mechanics fresh and unpredictable.

I tend to get the feeling that the CryEngine seems to be a better showcase tool than a game engine these days, but hopefully Crytek USA can turn it around and start proving that the game engine can be used to hang with Unity and Unreal Engine on the game production front. Right now Unity is kind of running circles around the other two in terms of accessibility and game production efficiency (barring some of Unreal Engine 4's new blueprint scripting features).

Attendees of E3 will be able to get some hands-on time with this co-op shooter at Crytek's booth. We'll continue to keep you posted about updates and info on the game as it crawls ever-so-close to its fall release on PC. I imagine if the game does well on the Glorious PC platform we might see a console port down the road.

For more info feel free to pay a visit to the official website.

Will Usher

Staff Writer at CinemaBlend.