With the Beta looming, I started to get up to speed on Crysis 3 - I haven't pre-ordered, nor will I. I won't buy the game until people I trust tell me the MP on Consoles is not as terrible as it was with C2. I've been burned with that game, especially buying the two DLCs, and I'm not made out of money.

Still, I read up on what to expect. And "Hunter" Mode sounded great. First I heard about it, I thought "Awesome". Then I heard the rounds are only two minutes long, and I thought "Terrible". 5 rounds of two minutes each, and kills apparently being the main decisive factor... Sounds like Free-For-All Flood - only worse, because it tries to be really serious...



And does anyone know if Hunters in Hunter Mode will Respawn when killed? That would make this a little... one-sided. Like Flood in Halo - which is a nice game-mode, but for me more of a gimmick. Hunter could be even worse, since you apparently know where all of the enemies are all the time. But then again the rounds are only 2 minutes long, so this will probably devolve into an all out "cloak, sprint, kill" mode...

I'd much rather have 8 minutes but with no respawn for Hunters (once you kill a Cell, he becomes a Hunter, once you kill a Hunter he stays dead) - and the Cell have to... do something. Reach one of several extraction zones, defuse bombs, something, but the Hunters don't know exactly what or where. Or kill all the Hunters, of course.
I think that would feel a lot more tense and Hunter-ish for the Hunters, and a lot less prey-ish for the Cell.

It would also be nice to give extra XP according to how long you survive as Cell, then scale the XP to those Cell that are left when reaching their goal: the less there are left, the higher the XP each one gets - and then turn on friendly fire. You get nothing if die, of course, but once you're close to reaching your goal, the backstabbing could begin. Just to add some spice.

Apparently, you do get Bonus Points for Surviving as a Cell, but unless those points are really, really up-there, kills will be the determining factor, and I can just see people who don't care about nothing else try to get killed as Cell, so they can then get more kills. Hopefully, there is a significant incentive to play good and survive long as a Cell, otherwise I don't have a lot of hope for this mode.

I'm just a little concerned that Hunter Mode will be more like "Every Hunter Sprint like Hell and kill someone" and "Every Cell try to get killed to become a Hunter to get more kills", than the Stalking of the Prey and the Sticking together as a Team the trailer wants to imply. I'd like to see a tense game mode, where the Hunters have to be careful, but are also able to take their time stalking, while the Cell team is encouraged to work together, but have a certain pressure to do the objectives.

From the feeling, it should be like the part in Pitch Black where they are dragging the Power Cells to the crashed ship through the Darkness, but with Mercenaries dragging the Cells, and Riddike hunting them - every killed Mercenary becomes another Riddike. And two-minute rounds just don`t seem to be enough time for that...

I fear it will much more feel like the actual "Riddike" Game Mode in the Assault on Dark Athena MP. And that was terrible. It was great example of a good idea corrupted by "flawed" players. There`s no guarantee that people will play a game-mode the way it was created to be played. But there is a guarantee that certain people will always play any game-mode in a way that gets them the most kills, no matter how much that will break the game-mode, no matter how much fun/suspense/atmosphere they will actually miss out on.


The perfect "Hunter" Mode for me would be a mix of "Extraction" from C2 and "Hunter" from C3, with a dash of "Decoy" from Ghost Recon Future Soldier, and a little of "Invasion" from Halo Reach:


Rounds are 8-10 minutes maximum.

You start with two Hunters vs 10/14 Cell.

Cell has to complete a certain number of objectives (3-4), but objective locations, order and type will vary, while the Hunters must stop them.

One time Cell will have to hack one of three terminals, download the location of a bomb, then go there and defuse it.

Another time, Cell will have to find a Ceph Energy Core in one of three Crashsites, then carry the core to one of two extraction zones (but the player carrying the core will move significantly slower than the others), then hold that location until Evac arrives.

Each successful objective will gain the Cell players extra XP, and maybe a small advantage, like better/more powerful weapons and equipment, or a small-range Nano-Suit Jammer (like the energy emissions from the Ceph Core, for example).

The Hunters (by intercepting radio transmissions) know what Objective Cell has, but while Cell knows the exact location of their objective, the Hunters only know in general.
If there are three terminals, the Hunters will know where the tree terminals are, but only Cell will know which one they need to hack. If Cell carries an energy core, the Hunters do not see which Cell carries it on their radar, or know which of the two possible extraction zones is the actual one.

Each Hunter has only one life for each objective. If a Hunter gets killed, he will only respawn after Cell has completed an Objective.

Each Cell member that is killed by a Hunter becomes a Hunter, but only after Cell has completed an Objective - so the new Hunter doesn't know the exact location of the next objective and could rat out his former compatriots. He also will not yet "join" the other team in terms of voice-chat.

Match is over when all Cell are dead, when all Hunters are dead, when all Cell Objectives have been completed, or when "Emergency Extraction" was successful:

During the last Cell Objective (and only during the last one), should the Cell-Count fall to 2, the last objective will be cancelled and Cell will get an "Emergency Extraction" objective, designating a random area of the map "relatively" close to them, with a short time to reach it and escape. To increase their chances, they will also get unguided Air-Support.
The Hunters do not know where the Emergency Extraction zone is, and need to kill the remaining Cell in the remaining time, while not getting killed by the air-support.

XP will be gained according to individual performance, not according to team, with survival as both Hunter and Cell, and objective completion as Cell getting the most individual points. Bonus Points will be gained for the winning teams, but not as much.




But what do you think of "Hunter"?

Will it actually play as tense and tactical as the trailer suggests, or will the short time for rounds and focus on "number of kills" instead of "successful objective" force it into something like "Flood", only with even less time to think things through? Or, even worse, feel like playing Modern Warfare 2 on a small map, with everyone using Marathon-Lightweight-Commando and the tactical knife?

I would say let's give it a chance....it could be a very exciting and fun gamemode. Based on the alpha gameplay (PC) things look very, very, promising in regard to gameplay mechanics.