Those who are old enough to remember this super-alien antihero in their childhood days should enjoy a slight bit of nostalgic satisfaction from playing developer Illfonic’s take on the 1980’s sci-fi action film, The Predator.
Younger gamers, however, will be left scratching their heads as to why this not particularly popular movie was turned into a video game.
Illfonic is the same dev behind the movie-to-video game adaptation of Friday the 13th. And while they had the good intention of trying to present a similar experience with their 4-vs-1 format, Predator: Hunting Grounds manages to fall just short of expectations.
The Hunted
Predator: Hunting Grounds is an immersive asymmetric shooter set in the jungle, much like in the iconic film. As soon as you play your first game, you’re presented with a choice. Either play as one of four Fireteam members, or play as the Predator.
While many players no doubt want to experience being a badass alien war general moving swiftly through thick jungle to eliminate anyone and anything in its path, it really isn’t that simple. You have to actually be good at being the Predator for it to be any sort of fun.
In addition to that, playing as the Predator involves lengthy wait times. From the bit that I played, I averaged between five to seven minutes in queue. One time, it took me a whole 10 minutes before I got in.
This saw me play on the Fireteam more often than not, which ironically led to a much better experience.
When I was able to control the Predator, I was embarrassed constantly. Herein lies the biggest problem Predator: Hunting Grounds has. Playing as the Predator is not all it’s cracked up to be. Being a member of the Fireteam was so much more fun.
Sure, the Predator can maneuver himself effortlessly through the lush forest, jumping from tree to tree with ease, while taking advantage of a plethora of abilities designed to terrorize other players. He can shoot lasers from long distances, can track foes with heat signatures, and can even cloak himself with partial invisibility.
It all sounds pretty terrifying on paper, but we’re instantly reminded that the Predator is being maneuvered by a human being sitting at home with a PS4 controller. And if you’re not any good playing as the Predator, then things go south pretty quick. Sometimes, it’s so easy to beat the Predator, it’s almost laughable.
Gameplay and online experience
Predator: Hunting Grounds is a fully-online experience. There’s no campaign mode where you have to go through any backstory.
Cosmetics of Fireteam members are customizable, and the game has loot boxes featuring various aesthetic options, if you’re into that sort of thing. It doesn’t take long for you to get your loadouts starting to look cool.
Once you’re in-game however, action quickly transforms into a mindless shooter with really no distinct or standout moments. Every session feels the same — you head into the jungle, looking to complete a set of seemingly unimportant tasks. You go through the motions, as if you’re there just to check off boxes.
There are a handful of maps but they all look and feel alike, and offer pretty much the same experience. There are NPC’s roaming around, but sadly, the AI is really, really bad. They keep going down the same passages, and you can predict where they will pop up next. On top of that, they’re very easy to kill and don’t pose much of a threat if you move around enough.
The real fun begins when the Predator enters the picture. Admittedly, if the player controlling him is good enough, then the tension spikes and it becomes a real challenge. There were a few rounds where I was genuinely on edge, as was the rest of my team.
Unfortunately, these playthroughs were few and far between. The Predator sucked more often than not, and he was very easy to kill, especially if Fireteam members stuck together. With four guns pointing at just one Predator, he’s no match.
Gameplay is so simple, and there really isn’t much strategy necessary for victory on the Fireteam side, that I rarely found myself conversing at all with any of my teammates. There’s just no need to do so. In my opinion, this takes a lot away from the enjoyment this particular 4-vs-1 format potentially has.
Visual experience
If it’s any consolation, the graphics are above average. There are a few hiccups here and there, with textures not loading fast enough for you to notice. The camera is sometimes an issue, especially around tight corners, and the framerate is just horrendous and erratic. These should be fixed in future updates though, hopefully, and they aren’t too bad that it will impact the game in a negative way.
Nevertheless, the game is beautiful and really nails the feel of the jungle with the bright colors and the realistic looking surroundings. Sound design is pretty decent, from the squishes boots make when treading through the mud, birds chirping lightly in the breeze. And then the iconic Predator wail that signifies he has entered the area. It all really makes for an immersive experience.
The Predator does look awesome, and is also customizable to your liking. Faithful fans of the franchise will be pleased with how good their favorite baddie looks. Turning on invisibility mode is fun, and lets you move around the jungle undetected. You can go for some flashy stealth kills, or go all-out with your explosive lasers.
To balance things out a bit, the Predator relies on an energy bar that depletes quickly enough so that he’s not too powerful. It regenerates after some time, and after the Predator takes time to heal up, the hunt is back on again.
The Bottomline
Predator: Hunting Grounds is okay to play in the first few hours of diving into the lush jungles, whether as one of four Fireteam members, or as the iconic Predator himself. Fans of the franchise will certainly like it more than others, and that’s understandable. It was made with good intentions. However, I can’t change the fact that right now, it’s a disappointment and hard to recommend.
Things largely rely on the player controlling the Predator for it to be any fun at all. I guess it was the same with Friday the 13th, too. But at least in that game, the four other players couldn’t really kill you as easily. The masked madman Jason was significantly more formidable than the oftentimes extremely frail Predator.
In fact, eliminating the Predator, in theory, should be the most enjoyable element of this game. I mean, taking down a killing machine by outsmarting it and working as a team should be fun right? Unfortunately, it’s so easy to kill the Predator, and it happens far too often for it to provide any satisfaction.
With Predator: Hunting Grounds, things get old very fast, and you’re stuck in a repetitive loop of progressively boring gameplay that just fails to hit the mark.
Predator: Hunting Grounds was reviewed on a PS4 by Carlos Cinco. He is a longtime Combat Sports Journalist, who has contributed to top Philippine media including Rappler, FOX Sports Asia, Solar Sports, and more. He currently writes for Singapore-based martial arts organization, ONE Championship. On his free time (if he ever gets any), he plays video games. You can contact him at [email protected].
Gaming
The regular PlayStation 5 is getting an AI upscaling feature
The feature debuts with Wolverine and Ghost of Yotei.
If you’re an owner of a regular PlayStation 5, watching a PS5 Pro owner might touch you with a tinge of jealousy. Besides the upgraded console’s better hardware, it also has something called the PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution (PSSR), which uses AI to improve resolution and framerate. Unfortunately, that feature isn’t available on the regular console. But Sony is throwing the classic console a bone today by adding Quick Spectral Super Resolution (QSSR), which does the same as PSSR but on the older machine.
Since the introduction of PSSR, fans and developers alike have asked whether the older console can have a version of the technology. Developed with AMD, QSSR is an AI upscaling feature that improves performance for modern games on the PlayStation 5. For now, the feature is debuting first on Ghost of Yotei and Marvel’s Wolverine via a set of patches. Moving forward, Sony will also allow its developers to add the feature for their respective games.
Now, the choice of games is deliberate. Marvel’s Wolverine is still fresh on everyone’s mind. Meanwhile, Ghost of Yotei has just released a Complete Edition, which packs in a new story expansion and a roguelike mode. You don’t even need to Complete Edition or the corresponding paid upgrade to enjoy the new feature.
SEE ALSO: Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition review: More of a great thing
A year away from Ghost of Yōtei was enough to make me rusty. It wasn’t enough to make me forget why I loved it.
What immediately jumped out to me is how beautifully connected this game’s open-world mechanics are. Moving about and exploring felt like picking up where I left off after roughly a year of not really touching the game.
The Guiding Wind, the birds that point you toward locations of interest, and the encounters scattered throughout Ezo all work together to keep you busy without the tasks ever feeling like a chore. There is always something worth looking toward, whether it is a quest, a hidden location, or simply another reason to stop and appreciate the scenery.
And of course, the new area is just as beautiful as everything else we’ve seen in the base game.
That is probably the biggest compliment I can give Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition. It does not feel like an expansion bolted onto an existing game. It feels like another excuse to step back into a world that already knew how to pull me in.
Picking up where I left off
I started my playthrough of the Complete Edition with Echoes of Sekigahara. I thought it was going to be a quick romp, but it’s proving to be a longer experience than I initially thought it would be.
I’ve spent roughly five to six hours playing through it, and I don’t think I’m anywhere near completing the story.
That said, I did get sidetracked quite a bit.
Which tends to happen with these Ghost games.
Not to their detriment, though. Every other quest and encounter in the open world feels like a contained story on its own that is well worth your time. The game has a way of presenting distractions that never really feel like distractions. You can set out with one objective in mind, stumble into something else, and suddenly realize an hour has passed.
That familiarity came back surprisingly quickly.
The new region introduced in Echoes of Sekigahara brings unfamiliar enemies, new weapons, and memories tied to Atsu’s past, giving the expansion its own identity while still operating within the systems that made the base game so easy to lose yourself in.
The Wolf quest line in particular was the first one I tackled, and it was quite a ride.
I’m deliberately leaving the details there.
This is the kind of story that is better experienced without knowing too much going in, and the review guidelines themselves ask reviewers to avoid major narrative developments and surprises.
Finding my footing again
While movement and exploration felt natural, it took me a while to get reacquainted with the combat.
My Atsu had many skills mastered, but being a year removed from the game meant I was rusty. I was dying against what I would consider fodder enemies.
There is something humbling about returning to a game where you once felt completely in control, only to discover that your muscle memory has apparently packed its bags and moved somewhere else.
Even now as I write this review, I don’t think I’ve gotten to the level I was when I first completed the game.
But I’m getting by just fine.
And that is partly because Yōtei gives you another toy to play with.
Massive weapons make a massive difference
The new wrinkle in combat is the Massive Weapons you get to pick up and swing around.
They are an absolute joy to use.
More importantly, they bailed me out of a few encounters already.
There is a satisfying weight to picking up one of these weapons and simply going to town on enemies. It changes the rhythm of a fight without asking you to relearn the entire combat system. After spending several hours trying to remember how I used to fight as Atsu, having the option to grab something enormous and start swinging was a welcome change of pace.
This was a definite win.
It also highlights one of the strengths of Yōtei’s combat. The foundation is already strong enough that adding another layer does not need to completely reinvent it. Sometimes, giving Atsu something massive to hit people with is enough.
Most Wanted keeps the blade moving
If you want to dive deeper into combat, Most Wanted is where it’s at.
PlayStation first-party games have had a habit of adding these roguelike-inspired modes to some of their games. There’s Valhalla for God of War Ragnarök and No Return for The Last of Us Part II.
Most Wanted takes that idea and puts Yōtei’s combat front and center.
The mode is a single-player combat survival experience built around escalating bounties, different playable characters, and experimenting with the game’s combat system. Unlike Echoes of Sekigahara, you can jump into it immediately without existing save data or base-game progression.
I’ve only had a couple of runs so far, but I can say I thoroughly enjoy the mode.
Mostly because I love the game’s combat mechanics.
That is what you engage with for much of Most Wanted, and it gives you a reason to keep testing yourself. You start a run, make your choices, fight your way through increasingly demanding encounters, and inevitably reach a point where things stop going according to plan.
Then you try again.
And again.
There is a particular satisfaction to a mode like this when the underlying combat is already enjoyable. Losing doesn’t necessarily feel like wasted time because every run gives you another opportunity to get better at the thing you were already having fun doing.
It can also be frustrating.
That is part of the appeal.
More Yōtei is still more Yōtei
It gives me more Ghost of Yōtei.
Echoes of Sekigahara gives Atsu another story to tell. Most Wanted gives the combat another place to shine. The Complete Edition also adds cosmetics, Trophies, Photo Mode content, and other extras. Meanwhile, the October 1 update brings additional Watanabe Mode tracks, Beauty of Yōtei mode, quality-of-life improvements, and a new high-contrast accessibility option to all Ghost of Yōtei players.
After roughly a year away, I was surprised by how quickly I settled back into the rhythm.
The wind blew, birds flew, a quest turned into another quest, and a random encounter became a story.
Then I picked up a massive weapon and started remembering why I enjoyed this game so much in the first place.
That cohesion remains Yōtei’s greatest strength. Its world constantly gives you reasons to move forward without making the journey feel like work. The Complete Edition simply gives you more reasons to keep going.
Is Ghost of Yotei Complete Edition your Play Match?
The Complete Edition gives you more of it.
Echoes of Sekigahara is shaping up to be a substantial addition rather than a short side adventure, while Most Wanted offers a compelling excuse to keep coming back to Atsu’s combat long after you’ve finished the main story.
I still have plenty more of both to see. But even after only a handful of hours with the new content, I know exactly how I feel about returning to Yōtei.
It feels familiar, fresh, and Most Wanted will both frustrate and hook you.
It’s absolutely thrilling.
Ghost of Yōtei Complete Edition is an easy Swipe Up.
After a year away, I came back rusty.
I’m still swinging. And I’m still having a damn good time.
CD PROJEKT RED has released The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered, a free upgrade that brings a wide range of visual, performance, and gameplay improvements to the acclaimed RPG.
The remastered version is available as a free upgrade for existing owners on GOG, Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Players who own The Witcher 3 on the original Nintendo Switch can also upgrade for free to the native Nintendo Switch 2 version.
The upgrade also includes both expansions, Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, even for players who originally owned only the base game.
PC and PS5 Pro
On PC, The Witcher 3 now supports Path Tracing alongside improved textures, foliage, lighting, rendering, and ray tracing. The remaster also adds dedicated PlayStation 5 Pro support, with PSSR enabling ray tracing at 60fps and a performance mode that can reach up to 90fps with VRR.
Gameplay also gets an overhaul. CD PROJEKT RED has rebalanced the skill system, revamped combat animations, added new finishers, and introduced an adaptive camera. Geralt and Roach also receive updated animations, including more fluid traversal, vaulting, and ladder climbing.
The remaster adds cross-platform mod support through mod.io on consoles. Players can access custom content ranging from new quests and equipment to balance changes.
Switch 2
Nintendo Switch 2 gets additional features through its native version. These include motion controls, gyro aiming, mouse controls, and touchscreen support. Players can use motion controls for actions such as aiming the crossbow, throwing bombs, casting Signs, and controlling Roach. The touchscreen can also be used to navigate menus and play Gwent.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt — Remastered is also available to purchase on Battle.net and the Microsoft Store, where it supports Xbox Play Anywhere.
The remaster replaces the Complete Edition on supported platforms and includes Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine as standard. It was developed in close collaboration with Yigsoft.
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