Hunt: Showdown
CRYTEK
NOVEMBER ‘22 - PRESENT
LIFE SERVICE
Hunt: Showdown is a competitive first-person shooter with PvE elements, wrapped in a Southern gothic horror setting.
Working on Hunt, I act as a feature owner reporting directly to the Design Director. I lead development on game modes, new player experience, progression, and some live balancing. What I relish working on a live service title like Hunt is being able to get player feedback and iterate on features quickly
During my time at Crytek, I’ve had the opportunity to hone and learn many new skills. I’m most proud of the following:
Feature ownership: Being responsible for the quality and delivery of key features, on time and in budget. I’ve demonstrated my ability to be entrusted with high level brief and run with it, leading cross-disciplinary teams to achieve our goals.
Live design: I’m responsible for the balancing and maintenance of engagement and monetization mechanics, from weekly challenges to Battle Pass balancing.
Visual Scripting: Using CryEngine's custom visual scripting tool, I’m empowered to help prototype and deliver my features.
Data analysis: Analysing user data to interpret live game trends and assess feature KPIs to inform design decisions.
Community engagement: Contributing as a team ambassador to our partners and community by appearing on dev streams, helping draft comms, and responding to feedback in social channels.
Feature highlights
Bounty Clash
Hunt: Showdown is practically synonymous with its core gamemode, Bounty Hunt. Slow-paced, high stakes, intricate and expansive, it is what keeps players coming back to the game after over 7 years. However, the game’s fantastic shooting mechanics and iconic arsenal had players wanting more frequent and accessible action than Bounty Hunt could reliably offer - with this in mind, we started ideating on a new limited-time mode to serve those needs.
I led this ideation process, and the subsequent development of Hunt’s first new game mode in over 4 years: Bounty Clash. It aimed to deliver a very condensed PvP experience, allowing players to quickly hop into the action. It pits 12 players against each other in a single compound, with a only one reward token to extract, all in 15 minutes or less.
The mode’s launch was a resounding success, transitioning from a limited-time mode to a permanent entry into Hunt’s mode rotation and surpassing all the internal metrics we’d set for it. Working with a small team of 6 developers, we delivered an update highlight on time and within budget. The mode continues to be supported and updated, and remains popular with the playerbase.
Progression rework
As Hunt continued to evolve and mature, many progression mechanics implemented in the early days of the project were no longer meeting players’ needs. It took a very long time to unlock all items, with some unlocks being gated behind counter-intuitive or repetitive requirements. The problem was amplified as Hunt has a Prestige system, allowing users to reset their progression, which means progression issues are felt again and again by repeat-Prestige users.
I was tasked with redesigning and implementing an updated core progression, with a focus on increasing accessibility, clarity and overall progression speed.
To do this, I worked hand in hand with our data analytics team to interpret our available user data and create projections of new progression speeds. This informed our balancing decisions, and lead to us shipping a greatly improved progression experience.
Shooting Range
As my first assignment upon joining Crytek, I lead the team creating and implementing the Shooting Range for Hunt. Working on this feature quickly helped onboard me and got me working with multiple disciplines, from Level Design, gameplay programming and UI.
This long-requested feature helps players better understand Hunt’s complex gunplay and abilities. It continues to be a staple of the game’s user experience.
Other features I’ve contributed to:
Controller haptic feedback rework
As part of Hunt’s initiative to grow its console user base, I contributed to a fundamental controller settings rework by improving the game’s haptic feedback for all weapons, items and principal player actions.
Hunter progression
I helped design & implemented a new system that builds on Hunt’s fantasy of taking a nameless bounty hunter into the bayou and making them a legend. Players unlock new cosmetic by reaching max. level with certain hunters.
Monetization & engagement
I’m the feature owner for weekly challenges, and work hand in hand with game & live design to adjust challenge balance based on the latest content, battle pass requirements and community sentiment.
