What better day to completely surprise Predator fans with a brand new Predator game than the birthday of the legend himself, Kevin Peter Hall! Announced during Sony’s “State of Play” and coming from IllFonic, the developers of Friday the 13th: The Game, Predator: Hunting Grounds is Predator’s big solo return to the realm of video games since Concrete Jungle in 2005! Check out the cinematic reveal trailer below!
In an article published on the PlayStation Blog, IllFonic CEO Charles Brungardt went into more detail about what to expect of Predator’s return to video gaming:
One group of players will control members of an elite Fireteam: who pack state-of-the-art conventional firepower, from shotguns and SMGs to sniper rifles and more.
One player will control the Predator: a stealthy, acrobatic killing machine bristling with exotic alien technology such as the infamous Plasmacaster.
As the Fireteam attempt to carry out paramilitary missions – annihilating bad guys and recovering important items – the Predator will be closing in, using its advanced vision mode to track and ambush its prey.
While Brungardt didn’t go into too much detail, it sounds like Predator: Hunting Grounds will be an entirely multiplayer experience with some similarities to the way Friday the 13th plays with one player controlling the Predator and the other players as the prey.
Though not confirmed, it also appears that Hunting Grounds is going to be a PlayStation exclusive. It’s currently slated for release in 2020.
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There are some assets on display like a jungle setting (something we've known) and the various shrubs or shrub textures (it's hard to tell). There's also a mechanical thing with what looks like a map. However it might just be a grid of some sorts.
The article doesn't really say anything about the game itself but it is due out early next year. I just sincerely hope it doesn't release as late as March since the schedule has some heavy hitters in there. It's a small game under a small studio with a dedicated fanbase, but if released too late you really got got have something big to distract from Avengers and Cyberpunk.
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I'd hope if it were included that we'd get some landmarks from the film, like the hunting camp and totems dotted around, or the big alien drilling machine.
https://www.thewrap.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/predators-every-predator-movie-ranked.jpg
I'd love a city map though.
Iwo Jima, Cambodia, Beirut.
Drawn by heat and conflict.
Oh, my!
Here's hoping that means it'll include more settings than just a jungle at launch.
Friday the 13th had proximity voice chat that led to some very fun situations, so I wouldn't be surprised if it showed up here too, though yeah obviously without actually being able to record it.
That mud camouflage idea is cool, it could definitely help give the humans an edge, though you should probably only be able do it once at one spot. Otherwise it wouldn't take long for the thermal vision to be rendered useless if every match turned into a race to the mud spots and the entire human team could just camo themselves.
I'd also like it if you could string bodies up, even if only at certain predetermined spots like in Concrete Jungle, which would give you bonus "trophy" XP as the Predator but leave you vulnerable while you were doing it. It'd give you a reason to do it, but also come with a downside that the human players could exploit if they caught you doing it, or saw one of their fellow players strung up and realised that was something you were trying to do.
And yeah as has already been mentioned, the Predator as a character has a lot more variety in terms of what he can do than Jason does, so I wonder whether they're going to go with a pre-set list of stats/attributes like with Friday the 13th or have more of a customisable loadout for him? You could do cool things with either I think, like have a pre-set Predator that focuses on melee with no ranged weapons, one that's all about range but not got a lot up-close, one that perhaps has the medkit so he can heal/regain health but with the trade-off of not having as many weapons as other Preds etc.
Likewise if they went with a player-custimisable loadout they could possibly go with a points or slots-based system, where each item you could equip would take up a certain amount of space in your loadout, so that you could have one or two powerful items at the cost of others. You could either go with one big, powerful weapon or gadget and not a lot else, or try to balance things out with multiple items that cost less in points or slot space.
Either way Illfonic definitely did good with the multiple Jasons fan service in Friday the 13th, so it's a pretty good bet that whatever system they're going with we'll be getting multiple different Predators to play as.
"Kodera-san added that backward compatibility is positive not simply because you can play old games on the next-gen console, but also because the community can enjoy the games together via cross-generation gameplay."
https://twinfinite.net/2019/05/ps5-backward-compatibility-sony/
I'm going to go with Evolve as a similar comparison in concept, because it's about four hunters and a monster, and it's multiplayer.
Friday the 13th The Game is entertaining, but mostly just because it's goofy as hell. Navigating the menus is a more immersive Jason experience than actually playing the game, but there's some nice fan service here and there. Just gets repetitive though. Evolve felt like a new thing any time I played it.
The F13 game was originally developed by IllFonic and Gun Media. Once they were sued, all DLC stopped and the game was pulled off the market. If you purchased it before then, you got to keep the game. But all DLC stopped. Then, to make matters worse, they lost the lawsuit.
Once Black Tower Studios took the game over it was already too late.
The game remains absurdly unbalanced with glitches that have remained since launch. That radio silence has now been ended with a balance patch, then some social media presence but largely the game remains unfixed. I have little hope for this Predator game if that's that track record we have to contend with.
https://www.exophase.com/game/predator-vr-psn/trophies/
Discussion moved to new thread: https://www.avpgalaxy.net/forum/index.php?topic=62242.0
For those talking about F13. Right now it got 8 maps, 3 locations have 2 versions (normal and reduced) and other 2 locations that are bigger sized. The locations of stuff like objetives is random per match, so it changes even if its the same map, matches are hardly ever the same. There is a lot of customization for the counselors, a lot of creative executions for the 8 Jasons you can play as. Hope they add a lot of Predators we have seen, movies and EU.
A big issue is the balancing, hope they make it defeating the Predator very hard, in F13 killing Jason became too easy, they buffed Jason some months ago but for high level players its still not a issue to kill him. Once my party killed a Jason 3 matches in a row. f**king boring. But they managed to add a "campaign" mode for the game and it was interesting.
The lawsuit kind of screwed the other upcoming dlc, they were going to add more stuff like Jason X skin and other maps. Other rights issues prevented them to bring Remake Jason and FvsJ Jason. If the team doesn't face the same problems we could have a lot of continuous support for this one thus adding more stuff over time.
I know, it's shocking (in a good way) that we're actually getting a pure Predator game here. I'm crossing my fingers that they don't try to fiddle with the idea at the last minute and, idk, try to sneak in some sort of tie-in with another universe.
Despite my being horrible at multiplayer games, I will be giving this a shot
I can't belive they aren't going to add X-Men, or a Predator-Incredible Hulk to this. Amazing. Good old-fashion Hunt-kill-Pred. Wow. Who would've thought.
And guess what everyone. It's going to be a hit. Go figure.
That would be something interesting. Be the predator.
I would not be surprised if the game will be also cross play compatible as there is a game called Helldivers which can be played between PS3, PS Vita and PS4 for example.
This Predator game may be released early 2020 for all we know.
Love Voodoo's mud idea. Would force the pred to use different vision modes but would also be a risk for the human players as there would probably be only be a few locations to get it, so the predator could lay in wait.
When you think about there are so much small thing you could implement. Force the pred player to use the target laser for ranged attack so the humans have a little advance warning when they are targeted, put a river on the map so the humans could use it to secure their flanks etc, play with the vision modes. Infrared may give a big advantage, but you could be blindsided by a mud covered opponent when you overly rely on it or temporarly blinded with a flare or something like that, small makeshift traps or mines.
A lot of potential there.
Wow! Very creative!
It's not likely to be implemented for reasons already stated but that would truly be something special. Nice idea!
I can also imagine the Predator having different taunts based on the films.
Though as of right now we only know of three weapons and gadgets;
Wrist blades
Plasmacaster (it got name dropped)
and one vision mode likely the typical thermal vision.
While the outline is a bit distorted, the Predator design is most likely Jungle Hunter seeing as it got used in Ghost Recon and Mortal Kombat. It likely is since on the wristblade gauntlet the distortion curves towards the back like JH's.
1, Voice Commands: If the game has a voice command system (Killing Floor 2 and EDF 4.1 for some PS4 examples) where a radial menu can have your character say things like "Follow me!" "Over here!" "Run for it!" and other helpful suggestions to your team mates, what if the Predator could use vocal mimicry to issue the same commands in order to lure nearby enemy players into traps and ambushes?
2, True voice chat and Proximity Chat: In Halo 2 and 3, only players on your team could hear your voice at all times while in-game (except for pre-game lobbies, where everyone can communicate freely). However, there was a feature called Proximity Chat that let you and enemy players hear each other if you were close enough. If Hunting Grounds had this feature, perhaps Vocal Mimicry could allow the Predator player to record the actual dialogue being spoken between team mates that he can overhear while stalking them nearby, and throw it back at them (with the distortion effect applied) as a taunt mechanic? The obvious downside is, given the usual vulgarity and immaturity of online gaming, the Predator player could inadvertently mimic some really questionable or offensive stuff.
3, Just a Taunt: Pretty much just relegating it a taunt button that randomly spits out one of the iconic mimicry lines from the films ("Anytime...", "Want some candy?", etc) or some of the iconic roars and laughs. Maybe even Pussyface's "Motherf**ker!" and "Shit happens."
https://blog.us.playstation.com/2019/05/09/predator-hunting-grounds-revealed-during-state-of-play/
All cool cinematics/cinematography may work in the first run for single player type of game which this one is not but P1+P2 films are still going to beat them easily.
Completely agree! All good ideas there, I especially like the bloodtrail. Even more so with Ironman's idea of the nightmare map...that'd be amazing.