Hunt: Showdown is raising funds for Australian wildlife with the Fire Fight DLC

(Image credit: Crytek)

Crytek has joined the ranks of game studios raising funds for fire relief in Australia with the release of the Fire Fight DLC for Hunt: Showdown. The package includes two weapons inspired by New Orleans firefighters from the 1890s: The Algiers Phoenix heavy knife, and the Sparks LRR, a charred rifle that symbolizes resilience against the destructive power of fire.

"The New Orleans Fire Department began in April of 1829, when a group of men organized a volunteer fire department called the Fireman's Charitable Association. After 62 years of volunteer service, the New Orleans Fire Department became a paid fire-fighting force in 1891 – just four years before the main action of Hunt takes place," Crytek wrote.

"In October of 1895, a fire that started in a tenement building took out most of the New Orleans West Bank neighborhood of Algiers. Horse drawn fire trucks arrived to fight the blaze, but they were unable to stop the fire's spread. In memory of these historic fire fights, and with our hats raised to the fire fighters working tirelessly across Australia even now, we dedicate these two new items."

That New Orleans fire also sparked a major charitable effort (and also a lynch mob that indirectly led to the deaths of three people and 20 more injuries, but that's a whole different thing). According to Nola.com, a relief committee formed by citizens provided food and shelter for people left homeless by the blaze, and eventually raised nearly $16,000—the equivalent of roughly $457,000 today—for victims.

The Fire Fight DLC goes for $8/£6/€8, with all proceeds raised until March 31 going to Wires, Australia's largest wildlife rescue organization. The Wires website says the organization took more than 20,000 calls in December alone, a 14 percent over the previous year, and its volunteers attended more than 3300 rescues.

You may be surprised to see that this charity DLC has "mixed" user reviews on Steam. Some players have trouble accessing the DLC after they purchased it, apparently due to changes in some unique item IDs in the recent 1.2 update, which resulted in corrupted profiles and the appearance of previously unlocked items as locked. A rollback has fixed the problem (echoes of Destiny 2), but those angry negative reviews remain.

"We want to assure players that their purchased DLCs will be provided once we have a fix available," Crytek explained in an update. "In the following week all players who played in-between the release of update 1.2 and the rollback will receive a compensation."

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.