Predator: Hunting Grounds - Review

Predator was one of the most iconic Horror/Sci-fi/Action movies of the 80’s mostly due to the wonderful design of its highly deadly and scary main protagonist, the franchise has spawned a bunch of sequels and spin offs over the years as well as its fair share of video games, none of which have lived up to the original film in my opinion. Illfonic (creators of the recent Friday The 13th game and the best forgotten Dead Alliance) have now thrown their hat into the ring, bringing the franchise to PC and PS4 with their latest offering Predator : Hunting Grounds, will it come out all claws slashing and all guns blazing?

Upon loading up the game you are presented with a fantastic (well apart from the textures, more on that later) representation of a predator choking the ever loving crap out of a poor unsuspecting soldier, the title screen actually looks great and both the predator and soldier reflect what customisations you apply to them as you unlock them through gameplay, a nice touch. I suggest choosing the tutorial mode before you jump into the multiplayer game as this will show you the intricacies of controlling both the soldiers and the predator in the game and is extremely useful for learning how to play the predator. The tutorial does a good job of showcasing the parkour style of movement the predator uses when running up and along trees and introduces you to its various vision modes and cloaking technology. It also grants experience and a couple of loot boxes for completing it which will allow you to earn some cosmetic items to customise your character so you can tinker with your characters look before you jump into the main game mode.

If you have played one of Illfonic’s previous games, Friday The 13th, you will be very familiar with the gameplay in Hunting Grounds, the premise is that a team of four people choose to play soldiers whilst another person chooses to play a Predator. The team of soldiers are deployed and must complete a series of objectives such as hacking computers and recovering data and gunning their way through waves of AI controlled human adversaries in order to reach a helicopter extraction point and escape the level with their lives. Of course, whilst all of this is happening the player controlling the predator is scampering from tree to tree trying to hunt them down and ruin their day by stopping them from escaping the level by ripping their spine from their squishy shells. Playing as a soldier in a team that communicates well together can be a great experience, the gameplay is especially tense when you can hear the predators distinctive snort and catch glimpses of its cloaked form darting from branch to branch, there are some genuinely scary moments to be had here.

Playing as a predator is a different but also genuinely fun experience, as you can literally toy with your foes and let them think they are about to escape with their lives until you come swooping out of the trees at the last moment and eviscerate them. Sounds great right? And it is for a while, I just don’t think there is enough here to keep people interested for an extended period of time, one of the main reasons for this is that the controls just aren’t polished enough, especially when it comes to playing as a soldier. The controls are floaty and the gunplay just doesn’t feel right, there is really no weight or recoil to the guns, there is really no excuse for a lack of polish in this area given that one of the main points of the game is to shoot other things. On the other hand, though not perfect, I think the controls of the predator have been implemented fairly well, it really is a blast to scramble up trees and scurry across branches and leap down onto your unsuspecting prey, it is just really a shame that the same care wasn’t taken with gun mechanics.

Graphically the game is also a mixed bag, the actual model of the male and female predators are fantastic and you can tell that a lot of care has been taken to make these look fantastic, I wish the same could be said for the models of the soldiers as these look very generic and much lower quality. The textures are also another problem with both the predator and soldier models as they all look very plasticky and waxy which can be jarring in terms of reality. The maps although they serve their purpose are very generic and lack any inspiration in terms of their design, so do not expect a graphical blockbuster here.

Whilst there is fun to be had here especially if playing with a group of friends, and there are a fair amount of things to unlock through the game from cosmetics through to skills and gun attachments, it is hard not to question how quickly this game could become boring, given that there is only really one game mode and as far as I know there are no different game modes planned for the future. This is a budget title and even though that shows I find it difficult to be too harsh with what is on offer here, I can see the developers vision and with just a bit more polish especially in the gun mechanics department then the vision just may have become a reality. If you liked Illfonic’s Friday the 13th (I did) and can approach this from the point of it being a budget game then you will probably like Predator : Hunting grounds and I recommend you give it a try, just don’t expect anything approaching a Triple A title here. Ultimately though when all is said and done it is hard not to be a little disappointed with what is on offer and I find myself wishing that a major studio had of picked up the license to see what could have been created with a little bit more care, manpower and polish.

Review code provided by PlayStation