Something is developing around Crytek’s game, but don’t get too excited, because it’s not as big a change as you might think at first.

The US ratings board, the ESRB, has rated Hunt: Showdown 1896 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series and PC (giving it a Mature 17+ rating). The rating reads: “This is a first-person monster hunting game set in a fantastical version of the Victorian era. Players use bladed bats, clubs, brass knuckles, and pistols to kill zombie-like creatures and human rivals. Combat is punctuated by impact sounds, gunfire, and blood splatter effects. Some weapons allow players to crush zombies’ heads or cut off their limbs. One type of zombie explodes into blood and guts when killed; another type is depicted wearing human skin as a “cape”.

That doesn’t say much, but we should add that the rating is different from Hunt: Showdown. Last year, David Fifeld, Crytek’s general manager, told Rock Paper Shotgun that there were no plans for a sequel, and that it was simply impossible to make anything of quality in that time if it was indeed a new game: “I would say we would be even less aggressive than Overwatch or, you know, Destiny 2. No, we have no plans for Hunt 2. We just plan on moving forward. You could say that chapter two of Fortnite was Fortnite 2 – they made a new island, they radically overhauled a whole, huge part of all the systems, but they just called it chapter two of a game called Fortnite. So that seems to be more of the trend that we’re going to be following as we update Hunt: Showdown. When we talk about other products in the Hunt franchise, they wouldn’t be replacements for Hunt: Showdown, they’d be brand extensions. Here’s another game you could make in the Hunt universe, but that game wouldn’t be meant to replace Hunt: Showdown, the thing people are playing.”

And so it’s safe to say that Hunt: Showdown 1896 will be a brand extension, or maybe they will and rename the game. Official support for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series will arrive in August, while the PlayStation 4/Xbox One pairing will be dropped, which the ESRB hasn’t mentioned…

Source: WCCFTech, ESRB, Rock Paper Shotgun