Hunt: Showdown's first performance patch promises a smoother experience

Crytek has released the first "performance patch" for Hunt: Showdown, and says it should address "most of the severe performance issues" that players have reported so far. Some players may see a big jump in framerate but the studio said the goal with this update is to improve overall performance for everyone so all players have "a more stable and stutter-free experience."

CPU-heavy processes have been optimized, according to the patch notes, which should be of particular help on low-end hardware, and the "overall memory footprint" has been reduced as well. Servers should be more reliable, and upgrades to the backend technology "pave the way for further improvements to debugging user-reported issues." I'm the honest sort so I'll admit that I'm not entirely clear on what a lot of that stuff means, but on the whole it sounds like good things are happening.

There are also a number of bug fixes in the update, again with a focus on addressing "stalls" (Crytek noted that the term is used rather loosely to describe three separate situations), and a handful of known issues including a potentially large stall that can actually cause you to be disconnected from the servers (that one is on the priority list) and FPS drops caused by inventory switching or the mini-map.

Hunt: Showdown went into Early Access on Steam in February, and reviews are currently "mixed," with many negative user reviews citing bugs and performance issues as the reason for the thumbs down. One review that I particularly enjoyed likens the game to a tasty milkshake that's so thick, you just can't get it through the straw.

"But every now and then you'll get a little tiny sip that makes you wanna keep trying," it says. "Eventually you just set the shake down and wait. That's what this game is."

Hunt: Showdown doesn't have a full release date, by Crytek said it expects to keep the game in Early Access for at least a year. A video of lead design director Chris Auty, lead rendering engineer Theodor Mader, and technical director Sebastian Laurent discussing the update and answering a few community questions is down below.

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Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.