Hunt: Showdown 1896's first premium crossover cosmetic didn't go over well with a lot of players, who feel that the mask from Scream doesn't quite fit into a paranormal extraction shooter set over 100 years in the past. Is the Ghost Face Rampage DLC the beginning of the Fortnite-ification of Hunt? Crytek says no.
In an email correspondence with PC Gamer, the developer said that it plans to do more collaborations "with IPs and personalities that have ties to the world of Hunt," but that "you won't see Peter Griffin or anime characters coming to Hunt any time soon."
"We have been looking for a while at working with brands that can blend into the 19th Century world of Hunt, while staying true to themselves and our lore," said Crytek. "These collaborations around new characters allow us to continue to build unique and interesting stories within the Hunt mythos, while inviting new audiences to explore our world for the first time."
It's funny that Crytek doesn't completely rule out the possibility of a Mosin-Nagant-wielding Peter Griffin, but I don't think the "any time soon" was meant seriously. The developer says it is committed to integrating crossover cosmetics with Hunt's fiction, and it did give the Ghost Face costume era-appropriate styling—up close you can see that the mask has a cracked wood texture—and a story to explain why the killer from a '90s movie is running around in the 1890s.
"In retrospect, we should have done more to elaborate on the narrative we have built around the Ghost Face Hunter before we went for the full reveal," Crytek told us. "A lot of thought has gone into the crossover from an art and narrative side, there's a really cool story behind our iteration of the Ghost Face Hunter and we didn't provide that to the community from the outset. Lesson learned.
"From a narrative point of view, we focused on the iconic mask as a deadly heirloom passed down through generations, from killer to killer, finding its way to those easily corrupted with its foul whispers. We loved the idea of exploring the 1890's history of the mask, before it became a 1990s icon."
Crytek made a similar appeal in a public response to the negative reaction earlier this week, saying that the cosmetic makes sense if you accept that "in the 1890s, a madman took up the mask, driven into a bloody frenzy by its foul whispers on a hunting trip in Louisiana."
Some players are happy not to make a big deal out of it, but others remain disappointed, because, well, regardless of whatever lore Crytek comes up with to explain the mask's presence, it's still a Halloween mask from a '90s movie.
Perhaps even the unconvinced will be sympathetic to Crytek's motivation: It tells us that it hopes the collaboration will "capture the attention of horror fans not yet familiar with the Hunt franchise." Bringing in new players to an established game, especially one with Hunt's unique extraction loop and steep learning curve, is no doubt a challenge. And over its five-plus years, Hunt has so far resisted becoming the carnival of garish crossover cosmetics that shooters so often turn into—whether or not this is first step toward that fate is TBD, but Crytek says it isn't.
The Ghost Face Rampage DLC costs $10, so I don't expect the map to be full of Ghost Faces anyway, although ironically I can imagine that the negative attention might've inspired a few impulse buys just to get a rise out of other players. (I know I enjoyed using the annoying Batmobile car in Rocket League. Sorry for being that guy.)
