With many games being released in Beta over the years (in no small part thanks to Steam's Greenlight initiative), and some others having made full releases in a close to Alpha state, Crytek seems to be taking the long and arduous road of getting a new multiplayer-focused game out in the open via an initial feedback-gathering closed Alpha. The company's Hunt: Showdown has gone through a hellish development cycle, seeing some concept changes, name changes, and more than a handful of problems going on at developer Crytek. However, with it being the most high-profile currently being developed at Crytek, it's really the company's poster child initiative (unless you count suing Cloud Imperium Games in that place.)

Hunt: Showdown is a free-to-play, 4-player co-op, FPS title that sees players battling in a Van Helsing-esque setting, Civil War-era and steampunk-inspired weapons. Taking a break from the asymmetric gameplay that was being touted by many games some time ago (Fable Legends, Evolve, and the shelved Bioware-developed Shadow Realms), the two player teams compete between themselves to track down an AI-controlled monster in an open-world map. How the teams choose to play is up to them: it's fair game to ally, use, or mercilessly hunt each other. I guess some of the more interesting gameplay videos will cover some manner of Lovecraftian monster barging in uninvited and relatively unannounced into a pitched, two-way firefight.