Developer Insight: Devil’s Trail Survey Results
Hunt: Showdown 1896 Patch Notes — May 26, 2026
Aggregated from Steam, cross-tracked with Battle.net coverage on GamePatchNote.
Hunters,
Welcome to our blog post on the survey results for Devil’s Trail where we will go through the bigger points of the first event survey we put out. If you haven’t already seen we also have another survey running which focuses on cosmetics & cheating which you can take here: surveymonkey.com/r/2SXDFV5
You are an integral part of this game that we all love to work on, and your feedback influences every step of the developmental process. As always, thank you for sharing your feedback via the survey and our social channels. Please continue to participate in future surveys to help us shape this game for all of you.
You’d better equip your Salveskin so you don’t get burned by these fiery facts!
All-Ears Removal
This newly added (and removed) Trait was not included in the survey because we heard your voice during the release. We understand that we missed the mark on this Trait. We would alter it drastically if we ever wanted to bring it back, but at this stage we have no immediate plans to do so.
Battle Pass Progression
Survey results show that 46% of players felt the Battle Pass progression speed was fast. This is significantly higher than we’ve seen for any of our previous Battle Passes. Our internal numbers also showed more players reaching max level than any other Battle Pass we’ve released. Many of you reported to have completed the Battle Pass within 2-4 weeks. Some appreciated the lower time pressure this brought, while others felt they lacked motivation to keep playing after completion.
All these data points tell us that while our Weekly Challenges system is motivating players to play, it is also causing our players to complete the Battle Pass and burn out of the Event early (no pun intended). So, moving forward, we will be adjusting the number of points given out by the Weekly Challenges. You will still be able to complete the Battle Pass solely through completing these Challenges—we still want the Battle Pass to be very rewarding for your play time!—but in Update 2.8 it, there will be more Challenges to complete that should take a little longer. This will help make things feel rewarding for more of the update cycle. We’ll keep adjusting the balance of progression here based on your feedback, so please keep it coming.
Inferno’s Return
We are glad to see many of you enjoying Inferno’s return. A key part of its return was to address its performance and the audio mixing. We were glad to see many comments complimenting the team for addressing those issues.
At launch we did see that there was a large variance in how many times players got to experience Inferno. So throughout launch week we were slightly adjusting the numbers behind the scenes to make sure everyone got a sufficient chance to play on this Time of Day. Going forward, we’ll be regularly bringing Inferno back to Hunt as a weekend event, along with the Inferno-specific Supply Points, rewards, and the Hellborn. This will mean that during these times you won’t have to wonder about whether you’ll encounter this Time of Day by chance or not, creating a more intense moment for the community to share and one you can plan your loadouts around accordingly. You may also see it appear as a very low chance event in the general rotation for Time of Days from time to time, where we’ll be monitoring its impact on your Mission experience and tactical play.
Hidden Extractions and Scouting Maps
With 2.7, we introduced the hiding of Extraction Points. This was a big change to the core game loop. We are glad to see most of the mechanics behind this change were enjoyed by players, with 73% of players wanting the mechanic to remain in the game. There were no discernable differences when viewing this through different demographic lenses.
With that being said, we are bringing hidden Extraction Points back for Update 2.8 as well. However, there were two points of criticism. The first was the Scouting Map revealing Wild Target locations. We are addressing this in 2.8 by not revealing Wild Target territories when players interact with the Scouting Map. The second point of feedback was that both Scouting Towers could sometimes spawn on one side of the map, which also could lead to the fights moving away from the lairs of Boss Targets. For Update 2.8, Scout Towers will not return. The Scouting Map will spawn in different locations, which we’ll share more information about soon. But we can share that it will now spawn in three different locations, with one of the locations being much closer to Boss Target lairs.
Conclusion
Thank you as always to those who complete the surveys. As some of you may have noticed, we did have this survey localized. We’ll continue to offer this for the next few surveys, as we hope to collect more feedback from our non-English speaking players as well.
Don’t forget about the current survey which is open until May 29th (12 am CEST). In that one we are gathering feedback on our Anti-Cheat and match fairness as well as our latest set of Legendary Skins and Legendary Hunters. For our Anti-Cheat steps, you can read up on what we have done in the last quarter here.
Follow us on our social media and our Discord for more updates regarding Hunt. Until then, we’ll see you in the bayou and the gulch!
Your Hunt: Showdown 1896 Team