When it comes to taking on the role of a big, merciless killer, you would expect your power to quickly outmatch your victims, but that isn’t always the case. Focusing more on the stealth aspect from the original Predator films than how swiftly they were able to take out humans, IllFonic has balanced Predator: Hunting Grounds by having a weaker killer with all the advantages they need to outsmart the squad of humans they are up against.
Gameplay
In this asymmetrical 1v4 game, you either take on the role of a sole Predator or one of the members of the Fireteam executing operation Voodoo. Both roles play completely differently from each other and should be approached appropriately.
If you are the Predator, your goal is to eliminate all members of the Fireteam. If even one member escapes after completing the objective, it is considered a loss and when you take down one of the players you need to claim a trophy (rip off their skull or rip off their skull with spine intact) in order to officially kill them. In order to take them down, you have multiple gadgets and abilities to work with, all of which are customizable. The main items you will utilize are the blaster, your slasher, heat vision, and cloak device. If you are unable to utilize your items to grab the win, you will first go into a Second Wind phase which will give you the option to heal or initiate self-destruct. If you fail to heal, there is one last phase to initiate self-destruct, but it takes a while and you are left vulnerable so the Fireteam can strike you down without allowing that.
The movements for the Predator are surprisingly smooth though. When it comes to climbing trees, there will be an indicator of a red color wrapping the tree and the “X” button marker for you to initiate the climb. It does the whole climb as one animation and gets you on the closest branch. Moving from branch to branch can be done by either leaping or just moving forward to the next one where you will automatically slide around trees.
If you are on the Fireteam, you will be using the expected FPS mechanics to complete a random set of objectives in order to complete operation Voodoo. Completing the objective gives you the win and knocking down the Predator to where they are forced to self-destruct, or even if you stop him from self-destructing, you win. You can also customize your set up however you want, including multiple gun options and extras like adrenaline shots and frag grenades.
The aspect that had me most concerned when I first saw it was the Field Lockers. This is essentially loot boxes as they give you three items at random, but you don’t have to spend real money to open them. You get these Field Lockers from playing well in games and by purchasing them with the same currency you use to purchase items in the customizations menu. Also note that once you unlock something from these, there is still a chance you have to purchase the item to use in the customizations - it’s just an actual option to you now.
Expectations
When playing as the Predator, it seems they put a lot of thought into stealth-based gameplay for the killer but I would like to see a strength boost option. This could be in stats or boosts, but it felt like this killer had a very forced form of gameplay in order to properly utilize him as a killer. I was unable to win a single match as the Predator as it just seemed like the way I play as the killer in these types of games doesn’t fit well. If it helps, I play as multiple different killers in Dead by Daylight and was rather skilled with Jason in Friday the 13th, so I would just like some more variety in gameplay style options for players.
Conclusion
Predator: Hunting Grounds is one of the more challenging 1v4 PvP titles as the killer, but pretty fun to play as a member of the Fireteam. It seems there is still some balancing that needs to be done, but it is still pretty well put together. I look forward to seeing this game completed a little bit further and how it will be at launch with the tweaking it’s sure to get following the response from this open beta.
