Hunt: Showdown's tradition of dropping horrifying little freaks into the Wild West continues with the 'Hellborn,' a roaming fire demon that hurls molten lava balls

A few weeks back on PC Gamer, Crytek debuted Hunt: Showdown's first new map in three years, Mammon's Gulch. We all had a good time taking in the sights of Hunt's vision of Colorado, a sun-baked mountain range with oil fields and an extensive mining operation, but Crytek was holding something back: There's a new wild target on the loose in Mammon's Gulch, and it's arriving alongside a new event called Scorched Earth.

That target is the Hellborn, a towering fire demon who wanders the map hurling balls of lava at hunters who dare provoke him. Crytek describes the Hellborn as an "amalgam of fire and flesh" who "moves frantically to slag trespassing Hunters, scorching everything in its considerable reach."

At a glance, the Hellborn looks like the meaner big brother of the Immolator, a low-level monster that poses no major threat as long as you don't pierce it with anything sharp. The Hellborn is a different story—taking a ranged position against hunters and lobbing lava balls that explode on impact and leave lingering fires. As a "wild target," it's considered a miniboss worth an extra bounty mark on top of the primary bounties.

According to Crytek, the Hellborn "can be tracked audibly by listening in Dark Sight." This is a notable change from Hunt's first wild target, the killer alligator Rotjaw, who can be tracked through special markers and alligator traps on the map. The Hellborn reveal trailer suggests the demon's location might also be telegraphed by the appearance of burnt trees near his lair.

Scorched Earth

The Hellborn is the centerpiece of Scorched Earth, Hunt's first seasonal event with its new 1896 tag. Crytek is doing things a little differently with challenges this time. Instead of assigning random challenges to individual players with a strict time limit, Crytek is adopting a similar model to Apex Legends or Fortnite, assigning everyone the same set of challenges every week that can be completed anytime throughout the season.

But the real meat of Hunt's seasonal events are pact traits, special perks that are activated by visiting supply points on the map.

The Wilderness Pact Traits

• Surefoot (new): Sprint with primed throwables or while using a First Aid Kit
• Beastface (conditional trait effect): Avoid triggering animals or breaking branches
• Frontiersman (conditional trait effect): Gain an extra Pledge Mark for the first 30 Event Points collected per Mission

The Lawful Pact Traits

• Peacekeeper: Restore an empty Health Chunk after looting a dead Hunter
• Packmule (conditional trait effect): Find extra ammo when looting dead Hunters
• Vigilant (conditional trait effect): Double the range of Dark Sight

The Demented Pact Traits

• Berserker: Boost melee damage
• Adrenaline (conditional trait effect): 25% speed boost for 20 seconds when at critical health
• Ghoul (conditional trait effect): Restore health when damaging a Boss Target or wild target

The Scorched Earth pact traits don't have the most dramatic effects I've seen, but if history is any indicator, Crytek will be monitoring how players use these traits and might adopt them permanently in Hunt. That "conditional trait effects" thing is confusing, but it basically means joining a pact upgrades that trait if you already have it. Beastface, for instance, usually makes it easier to sneak past noise-making animals, but with the upgrade, even branches won't break under your feet.

The Scorched Earth event begins, and the Hellborn comes to town, when the Hunt: Showdown 1896 update arrives on August 15. We'll have more to share about the update and the accompanying CryEngine 5.11 engine upgrade soon.