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ms-rampage · 3 years

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The New Trainee

Summary: Paige, Kate and all the other hunters show Felix how to kill monsters. Monster Hunting 101.

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: Some language

Note: OC Felix Miller belongs to @the-chaos-siblings (also requested by him)

“Okay so the monster you saw us killed. That was a Wendigo, they’re pretty much humans that resorted to cannibalism, and turned into monsters” Paige tells Felix.

After he witnessed a Wendigo, and saw how they killed it. Paige and Kate along with everyone that lives on the compound showed Felix how to hunt, and kill monsters.

“Humanoids that are tall and pale. A huge part of Native American mythology” Kate adds.

“So fire and silver bullets kill them?” he asks.

Both sisters nod, “Yep, they’re usually in groups, but they’re more likely to be by themselves” Paige tells him.

Her husband Kenneth, along with their hunters friends/family Adrian, Cody, Mark, Martin, Nate and their mother Mandy walk into the living room.

“That Wendigo was living by itself, but I’m sure there’s more lurking out there in the woods” he tells them.

“So what other monsters exist?” Felix asks, “Do vampires exist?! Werewolves? Demons?! The loch ness monster?!”.

“Yes, yes, yes, yes and maybe” Paige answers, “Unless it's freakin' Godzilla, it real!”.

There were some “animal” attacks in the wood areas of Hope County, Montana, and everyone including forest rangers have concluded them as either bear, or cougar attacks, but the local supernatural hunters say differently. Because after Wendigo’s attack they leave nothing behind, and the campsite had some blood evidence, but no bodies of campers. The site was “too clean” for the Cult to have kidnapped any innocent “sinners”.

“So I kinda know how to kill vampires” he tells them, but he has an unsure tone in his voice, “A wooden stake to the heart, holy water, sunlight and garlic”.

They all exchange looks, knowing that’s how you kill them in movies, and it's a huge misconception.

Kate awkwardly clears her throat, “Well umm, Felix, that’s actually a huge misconception. We all know in movies and tv shows. Killing vampires with a wooden stake or repelling them with garlic is actually false”.

He looks at her confused, “Then how do you kill them?”.

“Decapitation” Kenneth tells him, “You chop off its head, and that’s it”.

Kate takes a seat next to him, “So we’re gonna start off with vampires, and how to kill them, and how they originated”.

Paige clears her throat, giving him a lesson in Monster Hunting 101, “So as you may know, vampires live forever. Never age. Up until you give them a nice clean head cut. Vampires originate from the Alpha vampire, the very first of the kind. Progenitor of vamps. Killing them is easy, decapitation, but those bastards are fucking strong and fast. Sneaking little bastards”.

“You can “cure” a vampire” Cody tells him, “Dead man’s blood. The blood of a dead person. It sedates them”.

“It doesn’t really cure them, it just makes them weak, and causes them pain without actually killing them” Ken adds.

“Next!” Paige exclaims, “Demons! Corrupted human souls!. Twisted, perverted evil spirits! Ghosts with an ego!”.

“Abominations” Adrian mutters before taking a sip of his whiskey.

“There are many, different types of demons” Kate tells him, “There are the typical, everyday black eyed demons. Then there’s red eyed demons, white eyed demons, and yellow eyed demons. Princes of Hell, Knights of Hell. Crossroad demons. It’s all a goddamn hierarchy!!”.

“Basically demons are human souls that were sent to Hell for whatever reason, and were left in the fiery pit to be tortured until there is no humanity left in them” Mandy tells Felix, “Turning them into demons. Direct opposites of angels”.

“Killing them is very easy, depending on who and what type you’re dealing with. Holy water, salt and iron. Holy fire, hex bags and exorcism” Kenneth explains, “Are all all you need to deal with those bastards”.

“A Devil's trap” Nate tells him, “Is what you need to trap a demon. It imprisons, binds and overpowers them. Most demons are unable to cross a salt line, but it can be used to harm them”.

Felix is trying to process all this information, not even 10 minutes into “Monster Hunting 101” and he already feels confident on killing monsters.

"Okay I'm starting to feel confident in this!" he tells them, "Where do find these monsters?!?".

“You may feel confident now, but these evil sons of bitches? They’re the worst!” Adrian says, before taking another sip of his whiskey, and filling his glass up again, "They're everywhere! Any small town. Like Hope County for example". He takes another hit of the alcohol, drinking it like water.

“Hey, hey cowboy shit, easy on the whiskey” Paige tells him, "Drink water for once!". He gives her a mocking look before drinking again.

“Anyway! Werewolves are pretty simple to kill, silver bullets” Kate says loudly “Now ghosts are also very easy. They hate salt, and iron. If you want an evil ghost/spirit out of your house. You find the bones of the person, salt em and burn em”.

“Now if the person was cremated, you have to find something they love, something they held dearly to, and you destroy it” she adds.

“We’re just teaching you the basics on killing monsters because there’s a lot of information on this crap” Paige tells him.

“Okay so how did all of you get into this stuff??” Felix asks them, “How did you all discover these creatures??”.

All the hunters exchange looks, “It’s a very long story, but to summarize our story. Our family has been a part of this whole game for 5 generations” the eldest Winchester explains to him.

“My family’s been doing this for 3 generation” Cody explains to him, “I’ve been hunting monsters since I was 5 years old”.

“My family’s been loyal members of the Men of Letters” Martin tells him, “They do the same thing, track and hunt down monsters”.

“Well in your case it's British Men of Letters” Kate tells him.

“Pretty much all of us come from 3-5 generations of monster hunters” Mandy explains to him.

After getting to know everyone in the household, and now having the acknowledgement on hunting monsters. but Felix knows he’s gonna have to learn a lot from these people, and get used to the special weapons they use to kill these creatures. Learn how to speak, and read Latin and Enochian.

“Pretty much Halloween will be an everyday thing for you” Kenneth tells him, “Our lives are a horror movie”.

With that all said, Felix has one hell of a journey into this life ahead of him.

“Actually for great practice, we actually summoned a demon” Paige tells them, everyone looks over at her.

“You did what??” her husband asks her, “You summoned a demon?? When we have our toddler and infant kids in the house?!?”.

“Yeah but it’s fine. I have him trapped in the bunker. In the torture chamber” she tells them.

Kenneth was always strict when it came to summon monsters in the house for training, or for getting information.

They go down to the bunker, into the chamber where they keep monsters and interrogate them.

“Before I open the door Felix” Paige turns to him, “No, you can’t fuck it because its an evil entity”.

He gives her a bummed out expression, “Then what has all this training been about??”.

“Killing monsters” Kenneth answers. Patting his shoulder.

She opens the loud metal door, and they see a man tied to a chair, inside a devil’s trap.

He lifts his head, with a smug smile on his face. “Well hello there red” he says to Paige with a teasing and cocky tone in his voice.

“Shut up demon trash” she responds, throwing holy water in his face, making it burn.

He growls in pain and also in annoyance. “Stupid human!”.

“She said shut up!!” Kenneth orders him, throwing holy water in his face again.

Paige gets into the killing demons lesson. “Okay, so this thing on the floor is a devil’s trap. If the trap is broken, then this fucker right here will smite all of us”.

“I will boil your flesh!” the demon growls at her, his eyes going black.

“Anyway!” she says loudly, ignoring him and his threats, “There are many ways to torture demons. Like for example throwing holy water in their faces. It burns them, and they can’t cross a salt line”.

Kenneth goes to a table on the other side of the chamber, and brings over a variety of weapons, setting them down on a table next to his wife.

“Demons also hate iron. Like holy water it burns them” she continues.

Kenneth hands Felix a knife that can kill demons. A knife with a wooden handle, and a sharp blade. It looks like an ordinary hunting knife, but it can do great damage to demons.

The blade can’t kill all demons, it can’t kill Knights of Hell, and Princes of Hell. Like Abaddon, Alistair, Samhain and Lilith.

“Now what you’re holding is an Ancient Demon-Killing Knife of the Kurds” Kenneth tells Felix.

“Or, you can just call it a demon killing knife” Paige corrects him, taking less time on saying the name, "Or just simply a demon knife".

“Ohh I see. He’s the new trainee!” the demon mutters, “How cute!!”.

“Demons are cocky little bastards” Kate tells them, leaning against the chamber's doorway.

“Oh Katie how ya doing?!” he asks, eyes blackened “I heard about your little boy toy Johnny Seed getting possessed by Saleos”.

She scoffs, rolling her eyes “Yeah and what happened to Saleos afterwards?? He got casted out and sent back to Hell. He knew he fucked up when Lucifer punished his ass".

“So you all do this for a living??” Felix asks them, "Do you ever tell people about this sort of stuff??"

“Yep! And nope because people tend to freak out if they were to ever find out about this stuff” Paige answers, “And now we’re showing you how to kill evil sons of bitches”.

“So take the knife and stab douchebag” Ken tells him, “Stab him right in the chest, or stomach. Wherever you’d like”.

The demon starts to laugh, “He doesn’t have the guts to kill me!. He doesn’t-”. Getting cut off by Felix without hesitating, stabs the demon in his abdomen, doing a knife trick before stabbing him. Making the redish orange light come out of his eyes, mouth and the stab wound. They all look at him like proud parents.

“Well shit” Paige chuckles, with a smile on her face.

“I didn’t think you were gonna stab him” Ken tells him.

“I think he’s ready for a real hunt” Kate tells them.

#my writings #oc: paige winchester #oc: kate winchester #oc: kenneth smith #oc: mandy winchester #oc: adrian wray #oc: mark massie #oc: nate massie #oc: cody reynolds #oc: martin quinn #oc: felix miller #writers on tumblr

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popatochisssp · 4 years

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I tried to resist, I really did, but @llamagoddessofficial is literally The Worst and has inspired me to think about cowboys, one of my very vulnerable Achilles’ heels. I have many of these, I am a many-heeled abomination, at least 90% composed of heels

So, FUCK IT-- Wild West AU

Sans (Undertale): He’s the town layabout, no job and just drifting around as he pleases, often sleeping out in broad daylight. He’s got a bit of a reputation as a grifter, liable to trick a fella out of his own boots if he ain’t careful, but he’s pretty well-liked and considered harmless enough to get away with it. If you don’t know better than to ignore his tricks and swindling, the figuring is that you deserve to get yourself conned-- now you know for next time, eh?

Papyrus (Undertale): A simple cowherd working for one of the local farmers. He’s kind to the animals and does good work for his employer, but he’s got big dreams, bigger than working on somebody else’s farm... What he really wants is to start his own ranch-- his own horse ranch! It’ll take a long time to save up the money, even with his brother’s (dubiously legal) help, but he knows he can do it! And in the meantime, he’ll just look longingly at all tied horses of cowboys just passing through and think, ‘SOMEDAY...’

Sky (Underswap Sans): He tends bar at the local saloon! A lotta people think he’s gunning to own the place with how happy he seems working there, pouring drinks, tapping his toes to the music, enthusiastically busting up the fights the rowdy drunkards get into... He likes the work just fine, sure, but really what he’s after is the sheriff’s job-- the lawman around his parts is a bit of a yellow-belly and the way Sky sees it, it’s only a matter of time before his nerve runs out. He’ll be keeping an eye-socket out, waiting for his chance to step in.

Paps (Underswap Papyrus): He runs the local general store, keeping everything well-stocked for anybody who needs goods and supplies and selling it at reasonable prices. He’s the quiet type and keeps to himself, but everyone knows he’s a very respectable sort of fella and can overlook that he seems a bit antisocial at times. Nobody really minds if they’ve gotta ring the bell on the counter to get his nasal ridge out of whatever book he’s reading, because he’ll get them exactly what they need and not make them pay an arm and a leg for it.

Jasper (Underfell Sans): He’s a cardsharp, making his living by gambling. He...may also be wanted for...aggressive solutions to gambling-related disagreements, but quite frankly, he doesn’t take kindly to being called a cheater--most especially not when a gun’s pulled on him afterwards. The reason aside, he stays on the move by following his brother from town to town and helping him with his work...but he does hope someday he could settle down again somewhere where nobody’s after him, maybe...maybe start up his own smithy, like he used to have ages ago... That’d be nice.

Pyre (Underfell Papyrus): A bounty hunter, making his living from tracking down criminals and bringing them in for the cash they’re worth, dead or alive. He always tears down his brother’s poster whenever he sees it and happily...discusses...with some others in his profession why they should leave that particular bounty be. Most agree that it’s really not worth the money, having to come up against Pyre in the process, and any that don’t are quickly reeducated. The law itself...mostly turns a blind eye to this-- they won’t rescind Jasper’s bounty, he is a criminal, but...Pyre is very skilled at hauling a lot of truly dangerous criminals off the streets on a regular basis and they like that on their side... So, there’s no need to bog him down with any aiding and abetting charges either, right? At least, not as long as he’s so useful...

Mal (Swapfell Sans): Formerly a simple banker, forced to go on the lam after some lowlife tried to rob his brother and he shot the man dead in a duel. Normally a perfectly acceptable way of dealing with such base thievery, except that the snake in question had friends in high places who thought Mal ought to hang for enforcing his own justice. He made his way to a distant, nigh unknown frontier town where he made himself its sheriff-- easier to keep the law from finding you when you are the law, isn’t it? He keeps his past tightly under wraps, and with as little contact with anyone from a big city as his town has, it’s just as easily done as said.

Rus (Swapfell Papyrus): The local teacher, soft-spoken and kind, great with the kids and patient with all their questions and always coming up with the most interesting little craft projects to keep them busy and happy. Everyone loves him and nobody’d ever guess in a million years that he was a wanted man, too, guilty by association with his brother. He’s a bit jumpy around loud noises and a little (a lot) wary of any strangers who come to town, but most just pass it off as one of his many eccentricities and think nothing of it.

Slate (Horrortale Sans): Frontier towns are great, exciting opportunities for people to explore and make new lives for themselves...except when they’re not. Slate’s from a town bought up by a crooked railroad baron, and when the settlers and homesteaders wouldn’t pack up and leave, the bastard caused a rockslide in the pass into town, so they couldn’t leave. A lot of people were successfully starved out by the tactic, but some survived via...unpleasant means. Slate was one of the few who eventually made it out, scarred and broken from the ordeal but still alive to try and start their lives over, somewhere else. He’s a humble miner now, quietly doing his day’s work and going home and never breathing a single word about where he used to live...before.

Papy (Horrortale Papyrus): He lived the same horrible nightmare as his brother, and it drove him to study medicine! So many people were injured in the rockslide, to say nothing of the sickness and suffering afterwards, and he read as many medical textbooks as he could get his hands on so he could be more helpful than he was. Nobody in his current hometown minds that he’s self-taught, a doctor is a doctor, and he’s certainly the most caring and attentive one the people around these parts have ever had!

#undertale #sans #papyrus #headcanons #wild west au #underswap #us!sans #us!papyrus #underfell #uf!sans #uf!papyrus #swapfell/fellswap #sf!sans #sf!papyrus #horrortale #ht!sans #ht!papyrus #yeehaw

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sage-nebula · 7 years

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oohhh, pokemon games or your personal pokeverse for the meme?

OOOOH, this is going to be really hard, since there are so many characters that I’m sure I’m going to forget some, but I will try! Also, these two things are kind of one in the same for me, because I adapt the games to my personal ‘verse as they come out. So like, for me, even if they’re technically not, the Red and Green we see in the Gen VII games would be, in my ‘verse, my versions of Red and Green. (And Leaf is also there, but she was drawn to the Aether Foundation because she was curious about Ultra Beasts . . . oh Leaf, what did you get yourself into?)

But hmmm, okay, let’s see---

Zinnia --- MY GIRL, MY LOVE, THE LEGEND, THE LOREKEEPER. BEST CHARACTER IN THE GAMES HANDS DOWN, 500/10, BEAUTIFUL, FANTASTIC, ASTOUNDING, A++++, WHY DOES NINTENDO KEEP TREATING HER LIKE DIRT, I’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND.Okay, now that that’s out of the way, I love Zinnia. Okay? I really love Zinnia a lot. She’s hands down easily my favorite character across the games, period, and I am beyond salty that Pokémon Generations denied her an episode. Like, honestly, my salt for this exceeds even my salt that they used Blair instead of Lea in the B2W2 shot, and that’s saying something. (Even if it just barely surpasses it. Just barely.) I love everything about Zinnia. I love that she has the best Trainer Class in all of the games (LOREKEEPER, how cool is that?!). I love that she comes from what is heavily implied to be an aboriginal race of people in the Hoenn region, that this is just a part of her character but does not define her (and that this is even lampshaded, with this exchange:STEVEN: “You’re the---!”ZINNIA: “The Draconid, yup. But you can just call me Zinnia.”This is after she has introduced herself, so Steven really has no excuse---and Zinnia calls him on it in a way that feels completely natural and flows with the script. Love it. I love her sass, and her snark. I love her determination. I love that she knows she has to sacrifice herself and she tries to look for another way, suggests that the others come up with another way, but when she sees that there isn’t she does what must be done anyway because she knows she has to. And I relate to her, too, in her grief over Aster; Shiloh died shortly after the ORAS games came out (they released in November of 2014, and Shiloh died in my arms on 9 January 2015), and so I was playing the Delta Episode right around that same time. Zinnia’s speech about the original Aster hit me hard, becuase that is exactly how I felt about Shiloh, right down to:“We were always together, in good times and in bad. I loved her . . . I loved her with everything I had, but . . . I still lost her.”Word for word, that’s how I felt about Shiloh. Her grief, her desire to do anything to see Aster again---I empathize, oh so deeply.I love Zinnia. I love everything about Zinnia. Fandom hates her, but of course they do, fandom always hates my faves. But I love her. I just wish Nintendo could show her the same amount of love. //salty4life

Leaf Tyler --- I am always, always, always going to have a soft spot for Leaf, the girl who I honest to goodness wish had been in the original Kanto games (and she was originally going to be, but it was either a time issue or a cartridge space issue or both that kept her out), the girl that I know eight-year-old me would have latched onto with a grip so tight you’d think she had rigor mortis on top of being frozen solid. I’ve of course fleshed her out far beyond anything Game Freak has done, but I love every bit of this girl that I’ve created.She’s whip-smart, she’s incredibly determined, she’s headstrong when it comes to what she wants and what she chases after. She doesn’t let the criticisms or condemnations of anyone get her down (and boy have there been a lot of those given her insistent belief in legendaries that the rest of Kanto---or at least her home town of Pallet---scoffs at). She’s incredibly passionate about what she loves and nothing, not even eldritch abominations or legendaries that can and will kill her, will frighten her away from her goal. She is a myth hunter who is determined to be a lorekeeper in her own right (even if not in the same way Zinnia is), and she chronicles everything she knows in extensive journals. Professor Oak probably suggests at one point that she try her hand at being a professor herself in an effort to get her to settle down, but nah. Nah. There are ruins to be spelunked, there are eldritch abominations to chase. She’s not stopping for anything.Professor Oak just sighs.

Whitlea “Lea” Fiona Fair --- How could I not mention my girl Lea? Lea, like Leaf, is rather headstrong and determined---but she’s always determined about all the wrong things (well, usually). This is a girl who sees life as a giant adventure and, if it isn’t, then she will make it one. She hates sitting still. She eats nachos for breakfast. She legitimately traded her Pokédex for a special Zelda edition DS Lite because she wanted to play Spirit Tracks, and she has forbidden Bianca from telling Cheren because Cheren will tell Professor Juniper and then Lea will get in trouble. She’s being followed around by a Victini she calls Thing because Thing imprinted on her, thinking she’s its mom, because she accidentally woke it up in Liberty Tower. She has dubbed N “Captain Unova” because he never understands any references. The only books she reads are comic books, she loves sports and games, won’t tolerate it at all if you fuck with her friends and, as of the latest chapter, is feeling seriously conflicted over this whole “pokémon liberation” dealio.Basically, Lea is a helluva lot of fun to write and, since I know all of Reversi even if I haven’t written it, I know all about her character development and think it’s great. I love Lea. I’ll always love Lea. And I still think she has the best design out of any of the female protags, hands down.

Mortimer “Morty” Matsuba --- I’m never going to ever stop loving Morty. Morty is a character I always loved due to his design, but I really fleshed out his character when writing liveblog drabbles of SoulSIlver back in the day, and I absolutely love him for being the deadpan snarker straight man to Eusine’s . . . Eusine. But even as he is a deadpan snarker who legitimately believes Eusine will get himself arrested one day, he still loves Eusine with all his heart and will always bail him out of whatever trouble (or prison) he gets himself into. (He would just rather Eusine not get himself into that trouble / prison in the first place.)

Eusine Minaki --- And of course I can’t mention Morty without mentioning Eusine. Again, I fleshed Eusine out a lot, and bouncing him off Morty was so easy, their banter came so naturally. So much of it was childish bickering despite the two of them being adults, but that’s what happens when you’re childhood best friends. As energetic and ridiculous as Eusine can be at times, however, he has a serious side to him as well that I like, and I took Lyra stealing his dream from him a lot more seriously than the game did. I like to think my version was better, even if it would definitely need a re-write now.

Gladion --- Gladion was a character I knew was going to be a fave from the moment I saw him, and while I still think that his development was rushed and poorly written in-game (and while my version of Gladion is far more temperamental, heh), I still adore him and his incredible theme music oh so much. The way Gladion reacted to the abuse Lusamine doled out on him is very similar to how I’ve reacted to the abuse I’ve gone through in my life, and so I find Gladion to be a pretty relatable character---including and especially when it comes to his scathing sarcasm, because damn. I can in fact be that way at times if someone aggravates me. There have been times when I’ve taken no hostages, I can freely admit that.

N Harmonia --- I love so much about N. He’s such a complex character, and perhaps one of the most complex characters Game Freak has written into their games---which is why it makes me sad that fandom tends to focus on only one or two of his traits and ignore all the rest. N is many things; he’s an older teenager / young adult who was abused and sheltered for pretty much his entire life, but he’s also an older teenager / young adult who was raised to believe that he is a King and a Chosen One and acts accordingly. N is one of those characters that is very difficult to write correctly, but I think he’s brilliant all the same. I love him. (And the fact that he is just as headstrong, blunt, and passionate as Lea makes them delightful to bounce off one another, let me tell you.)

Brendan James Anderson --- Brendan, son of Petalburg City’s Gym Leader Norman, is as surly and salty as they come, and I love him for it. He’s absolutely that moody teenager who is salty about anything and everything, and while some of his woes are understandable (e.g. he didn’t want to move to Hoenn, he’s salty at his dad for separating from his mom over work, et cetera), the truth is that he will complain endlessly about stupid things as well, and he damn well knows it. He likes writing poetry and reading, which is why he named his mudkip Moby Dick . . . aaand his mudkip appreciates this about as much as you would expect, so. Brendan complains about their vitriolic best buds relationship frequently (especially as Moby, once a swampert, routinely bucks him off mid-Surf and sends him careening into the ocean). I love writing Brendan because, personally, I find the fact that he is perhaps even saltier than the oceans that surround Hoenn to be hilarious. His complaining isn’t whining so much as it is just bitching, and sometimes you just need a salty af protagonist to get you through. (Also, it makes for a nice contrast with his cheerful neighbor, May Birch.)

Iris de Nadder --- A DRAGON PRINCESS, I love Iris, I love her so much, and I wish we got to see more of her in the original Black / White games, though I do love what we do get to see. I love how she protects Bianca after the incident in Castelia City, and though I definitely upped that scene in Reversi (wherein she flat out kicks the shit out of the Plasma grunts assaulting Bianca, mocks them for getting their asses kicked by a twelve-year-old girl, and sends them packing), I do still love what we see originally. I see Iris as being unwilling to take anyone’s shit, but also generally being upbeat and friendly, because honestly, a human’s life is too short to spend being prickly and unpleasant. Dragons? They live ages. But humans? Practically babies from birth to death in a dragon’s eyes. Iris only has a human lifespan, so she’s gonna live it to the fullest and encourage others to do the same. She’ll encourage others to be their best selves while being her best self, and I think that’s awesome.

Karen Noir --- Finally, the last spot will probably have to go to Karen of Johto’s Elite Four. Not only does she spout the truest words in any Pokémon game (that you should battle with the pokémon you like), but I love how I fleshed her out with regards to her relationships with Morty and Eusine. (Basically, she was Morty’s rival in childhood, but Eusine felt that Karen was stealing his BFF, so he and Karen actually have a rivalry in which Karen mostly just makes fun of him and Eusine gets angry, and meanwhile Morty just honestly doesn’t want to know what’s going on, he just wants the yelling to stop.) Plus, I mean, she’s a total badass and has a houndoom named Lilith that can and will fuck everyone up, so. I love her.

This is super long but I always have a lot of Pokémon feelings, so. It’s to be expected, I suppose!!

#top 10 characters meme #scrawlers pokeverse #long post for ts #tangelomadness

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entergamingxp · 4 years

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Hunt: Showdown review – a sweaty, stinking, cat-and-mouse masterpiece • Eurogamer.net

A rough beast indeed, Hunt: Showdown, slouching toward the daylight after a couple of years in Early Access. A peculiar chimera of genres – survival horror, battle royale, boss rush shooter, insect, demon, human being. It resembles Far Cry 2 at a glance, all flammable shades of brown, but it moves more like PUBG, shunning the clear ground, ears pricked for proximity chat. It has the vivid markings of a Monster Hunter, but those patterns are really just for show, like the eye-whites of a killer whale – masking the gunsights protruding from its abdomen. You certainly wouldn’t call it handsome, but you can’t seem to drag your gaze away. How did something so… multiple ever survive the evolutionary process? But alas, you’ve looked for too long. It knows you’re there now. No, don’t try to run! The creature’s girth is deceptive. We’ll have to see if we can bring it down.

If Hunt: Showdown’s unusual – and, as it turns out, fantastically exhilarating and engrossing – mixture of inspirations has a single guiding principle, it’s that predators become prey. It’s a game in which stepping on a twig while backstabbing a zombie can get you shot from a hundred yards off, and the ceremony of a bossfight offers zero defence against the player lobbing dynamite through a window.

In Hunt, you play patron to a “Bloodline” of bounty hunters, all seeking their fortune amid the rot of a 19th century Louisiana that has been overrun by demons. Your task, in the main bounty-hunting mode, is to find the lair of a legendary monster within one of two festering open world maps, using your sorcerous Dark Vision to chase swirling blue sparks to clues that narrow down the search area. Having slain and exorcised the abomination, you must collect a bounty and head to a map exit to complete the match. Along the way you’ll fight or avoid myriad lesser horrors – from vanilla zombies who can be treated as speed bumps, providing you don’t overlook the ones waving cleavers or torches, to chunkier threats such as the Meathead, a one-armed juggernaut that sees by way of a slithering entourage of leeches.

Hunt: Showdown

Developers: Crytek

Publisher: Crytek

Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4 (reviewed on Xbox One)

Availability: 18th February 2020

You’ll earn both character XP and coin for slaying these minor foes, but every bullet or firebomb wasted on a demon dog (and every bandage applied to your shredded flesh after discovering that the dog has friends) is one less to pit against the boss itself. There are three of them, right now – you never know which you’re up against before starting a match, so it’s wise not to specialise too much when equipping guns and consumables. The Butcher is the soft option, for all its bulk: a porcine bully armed with a flaming hook, easily slaughtered providing you keep your distance. The knife-wielding Assassin is wilier, dissolving itself into a cloud of flies in order to course through the crevices of barns and windmills; it can even clone itself to distract you, like a lizard discarding its tail. Worst of all, though, is the Spider, a viciously nimble wall-crawler that always seems to be behind or above you, its rattling feet setting your hairs on end. Many hours after first killing one, I still feel the urge to stand on a chair while fighting it.

Thankfully, bosses never leave their lairs, so you can always hurry outside to patch yourself up, scrounge some ammo or take potshots at your quarry through a gap in the boards. Except that you can’t, actually, because the sting in Hunt’s tail is that it’s a competitive affair. There may be other players in the vicinity – as many as a dozen per match, questing in groups of up to three. Enemy players aren’t marked on the HUD or map screen to begin with, but it’s easy to give yourself away while thinning the NPC herd, and as in Turtle Rock’s sadly forgotten Evolve, each map is awash with nefarious ambient warning systems such as patches of broken glass, clattering chains and flocks of tetchy crows. The bossfights, naturally, tend to involve a lot of telltale screaming and explosions, and once you’ve killed the boss, you must banish it to obtain the bounty – a two-minute exorcism ritual that flags your position on the map, giving rivals all the time they need to close in and set up a perimeter. Bounties themselves are visible on the HUD along with their carriers, which often makes exfiltration the most arduous part of the match.

It’s a recipe, all told, for two kinds of dread. On the one hand, there’s the revulsion you feel toward creatures who used to be regular folks and animals: the women whose chests have split to reveal mosquito hives, grimacing at you sideways; the men who resemble giant, groaning lumps of decaying coral. This is a fear that abates as you play match after match, memorising AI aggro ranges and unlocking new gear and skills such as blunt impact resistance or faster crossbow reloads. Beyond the first 10 Bloodline levels, hunters and their gear are lost forever when slain but, as in they are just as swiftly replaced, with one free greenhorn recruit available on the roster screen between matches (you can also buy “Legendary” hunters with real money, but the perks are strictly cosmetic). You learn not to grow too attached, though you can always extract from a round early if you feel totally outgunned.

Which means that it’s all about the second kind of dread, the all-pervading, remorseless awareness that at any given moment, somebody could be aiming a gun at you, somewhere out there in the sweaty blur of undergrowth, reading your position and direction in birdsign, the splashing of your feet (why on earth did you take that shortcut through the swamp?) and the hungry twitching of nearby zombies. It’s a horror I can only liken to horror of an omniscient god – and it’s alleviated only by the sheer malice you feel when you hear a cough, turn slowly and spy another player galloping through a cornfield with their microphone on.

You may have felt similar emotions while playing venerable MMO shooter DayZ – Hunt’s achievement, perhaps, is to take that game’s ethos of treachery and paranoia and pack it into rounds of 30-40 minutes apiece, with a clear, overarching rhythm of exploration, battle and escape. That’s 30-40 minutes at the outside: if there are 12 players in the field, it’s not uncommon to bump into rivals within the first few minutes. If you’re luckier, you might be the one player who doesn’t bumble into that gunfight and wind up all on your lonesome, farming the map’s denizens at your leisure. But of course, you can never guarantee that you’re the last person standing. If you plan on going loud it’s safest to pair up, as hunters can revive one another at the cost of the permanent loss of a health bar segment.

That fear of being watched teaches you to savour the devious intricacy of Hunt’s environment design. Every feature of this benighted landscape is the basis for some kind of tactical dilemma. Buildings harbour ammo or health refills, but that also means you’re more likely to encounter other players there. Randomly applied misty or night time conditions lessen the anxiety when breaking cover, but dial it up again when defending a lair during the banishment – it’s wise to douse the lanterns before risking a peek out the window. There are times when you might want to create a noise, perhaps tripping a generator to drown out any sounds you make while sneaking up on a camper.

Boss lairs, especially, assume a twofold existence in your mind. There’s the trepidation of invading them, particularly when battling the Spider, whose form – like the Xenomorph – is hard to make out against thickets of rusting farm tools and the entangled shadows of beams. And then there’s the process of defending them during or after a banishment, whereupon you become the lurking terror, reading the minds of invaders. A woman’s yell downstairs indicates that one nearby player has roused a zombie’s wrath. A creak above suggests that another – allied to the first? – is tip-toeing across the tiles. A distant burst of cawing reveals that a third is approaching from the north. If the dice fall your way, they might take out the one on the roof while you pounce on the first player below. But you’re not really worrying about players 1, 2 and 3. The player you’re worried about is player 4, the one you haven’t detected yet, the one you must always assume is there.

I’m not sure I’ve played a multiplayer game that breeds such tension since Rainbow Six: Siege. Hunt’s drawback, if you can call it that, is that it doesn’t offer much alternative to that tension. You can’t solo the game’s maps, and while there’s a boss-less Quickplay option, this isn’t quite the emergency release valve for pent-up jitters it sounds like. Rather, it’s a very nifty extension of the character levelling system.

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In Quickplay, you’re handed a random, cursed hunter and must track down three energy sources in order to activate a mystic wellspring and escape the map. Where in bounty hunt, new guns can only be looted from dead hunters, in Quickplay you’ll find exotic weapons dotted all over. You’ll also acquire a random skill for every energy source you tap. The result is a custom-created hero, endowed with choice gear and abilities that might be beyond your current Bloodline rank. Survive the ordeal, and you can recruit that character to your roster. The catch is that only one hunter can activate the wellspring and escape – and there’s nothing like the rage when you’ve cobbled together your very own Van Helsing and somebody yanks the rug away with an exploding crossbow bolt.

Long in the brewing – it began life at Crytek USA as a kind of Grimm fairytales spin on Left 4 Dead – Hunt: Showdown cuts a strange, skulking figure alongside the multiplayer shooters that dominate discussion today. It’s resolutely one-note, though each bounty hunt throws up a variety of deadly surprises, and profoundly unforgiving. Beyond that 10 level grace period it has no real interest in making you feel at home. That sheer impassivity, however, stokes emotions you simply won’t find in most multiplayer games. The way your pulse jumps when you catch the echo of gunfire. The bile in your throat as you read the Spider’s motions through the woodwork of a barn. And above all, the horrible triumph when a flock of birds take off nearby, and you aim your shotgun just as somebody peers around a wall.

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/hunt-showdown-review-a-sweaty-stinking-cat-and-mouse-masterpiece-%e2%80%a2-eurogamer-net/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=hunt-showdown-review-a-sweaty-stinking-cat-and-mouse-masterpiece-%25e2%2580%25a2-eurogamer-net

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