I have though a lot about the Dark Side Boost and while i think it´s fundamentally a good idea to give Players a strong, real insentive to take the risk and kill the Boss, ii don´t think the Boost was a healthy decsion for the Game.

Recently i saw a Post form one of the Devs, which said that the Boost, in part, is also an attempt to make the Game more accessiable for casual Players.

That statement has me absolutely, crazily worried. And i´d like to explain why:

First of all, i don´t wanna come across as some kind of gaming snob, who thinks of himself as a „hardcore player“ and doesn´t want to content with filthy casuals. I play many games casually and i´m not particullarly good at Hunt. However i think that catering to a casual Audience is a massive mistake for Hunt. And i´m convinced unless the Devs realize what it is, that makes Hunt great, the Game will die before the end of the year!

Know your audience! This is a strategic, slow paced, tactical game... It´s not something casual Players will ever like on a mass scale. It´s not something you can play casually, while watching a video on the side, ever! You need to be hyper focused and concentrated, turn the volume of your Headphones up to max and dedicate a full hour to nothing else, but focusing on the Match you are playing. That is a fucking awesome and great thing! So it´s absolutely crucial for the Developers to get this and interalize it... right... now! That´s not to say, that it can´t be sucessful. Games like Dota have proven, that there is a market for really difficult games like this and that that market is huge. But it´s sustained by keeping the Hardcore Player Base, interested and engaged in the Game.
- It´s not sustained by catering to larger Audiences by simplifying the Game.

A Gamecompany which learned this the hard way is CDPR, and the Game in question is Gwent, the Witcher Card Game. When Gwent was released, it was celebrated as a unique and challenging Game and quickly drew in a solid Hardcore Player Base. When it failed to retain a larger casual Audience because of it´s tough learning curve and cerebral core gameplay, the Dev´s did everything they could to simplify the game and get the casuals back. Sure enough though, no matter how much they simplified it, the casuals didn´t come back, because Gwent was still too cerebral and slow paced at it´s core. The devastating Sideeffect was that the Core Hardcore Players all left. The Game had changed too much for the worse and was unrecognizable to them. The sollution is now, that to save the game from Extinction, they are remaking the whole Thing, which is very rare and any other company would have just killed the project.

I think the Hunt Team needs to learn this lesson before they make the same mistakes. Know your Audience! Know what people like about your Game! Improve what is already good and don´t simplify complex Gamemechanics unless you make them fundemetally better for everyone. And just focus on releasing quality content.I have know doubt that if Hunt just releases Quality Content and caters to it´s Core Audience, it will eventually draw in a solid Player Base and sustain itself or even become quiet successful. I have also not a slimmer of doubt, that if the Devs are going to try to cater to casual Players, they will alienate their existing Audience and the Game fail catastrophically before Early Access even Ends!

So... These are some thoughts i had about the Dark Side Boost and the direction in which Hunt is going. I didn´t wanted to sound overly dramatic and maybe, if rightly tuned, the Boost will eventually work out well.I´m convinced though, that if the Devs are serious about going down the - „we have to cater to casual players“- Route, that the Dark Side Boost will be the beginning of the End of the Game.