Hunt: Showdown 1896 Update Breaks Steam Deck Compatibility

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Update 8/15: According to new reports, Proton Experimental's Bleeding Edge is allowing the game to boot, with some reports of crashing. You can change to this bleeding edge by changing the Proton Experimental beta in its preferences.

Hunt: Showdown has been an extremely addicting experience that I purposely stay away from because I will get sucked in. I remember playing the first-person co-op shooter with my friends when it first released, and I had an absolute blast. It was playable on the Steam Deck as well, making it a decent game to play on the go. Sadly, the new update may have crushed portable play for right now.

The new 1896 update brings with it a huge new map with 16 new locations, new weapons and weapon variants, new tools and custom ammo, weekly challenge redesign, and tons of other miscelaneous changes to improve gameplay, but alas, it also breaks Steam Deck support.

When you try to start the game now, it will hang on a black screen and then go right back to your library. I tried this myself and had this happen on Proton 9.0-2, Proton Experimental, and Proton GE 9-11. It seems as though something is stopping the game from launching completely, when it was working completely fine before. There is a Github Compatibility Report up right now that is addressing the issue, but there hasn't been any development yet since the issue just popped up.

Here's hoping that the game gets fixed so we can play again soon, because it is an awesome game! The update sounds great too, so I would like to experience this on the go.

Hunt: Showdown 1896 is on a free weekend and on a 20% off sale until $23.99 until August 22nd.

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