Hunters,

We are excited to let Web of the Empress out of the lair. It's live now! Along with Update 2.5, the new in-game Event brings you the trademark grotesque monstrosity of Bileweavers and their Nests, exciting new Tarot Cards, game mechanics, and strategic play around Locked Extraction Points, as well as many gameplay improvements, changes, fixes, and requested balancing adjustments. All courtesy of The Empress and her hungry little children!

See the gameplay trailer now:

New Faces Grace the Stage

Web of the Empress brings exciting new characters on the stage of horrors in the bayou. The Event brings an exciting 38-level Battle Pass with plentiful rewards and introduces the following Hunters:

The Empress: Once a high-society woman, Emelia B. Bryant was a Hunter fascinated by spiders. After being gutted and left for dead, she was infested by spiders whose eggs were corrupted by the Sculptor's power. She awoke, saved by the webbing that stitched her wounds, but transformed.

This event created the first Bileweavers: Corrupted spiders that burst from her body. Now calling herself The Empress, she sees herself as the mother of these creatures and worships their destructive, web-spreading chaos. Even though they are violent toward her as well, she has devoted herself to their proliferation as a testament to her dark, twisted rebirth.

The Hanged Man: Nine times the noose pulled tight. Nine times he survived. After the Corruption freed him from prison, he became a Hunter. Captured by Bileweavers and hung upside down in their lair, he had a vision revealing the power of the Tarot and the rise of a terrible Empress.

He now believes the Stormseer is using false prophecies to gain power and lead victims into a trap, and he works to oppose her and The Empress's destructive influence.

Stormseer: A sharpshooter from the west, Shana Barmont's fate changed when she was struck by unnatural lightning while escaping with a bounty. The strike took her eye but granted her dark, accurate prophetic visions.

She believes the Bileweavers must be destroyed and views The Hanged Man's Tarot cards as a manipulative trick. In turn, he distrusts her, believing her prophecies are a scheme to gain power and lead victims into danger.

Introducing New Gameplay System with Tarot Cards

A new type of powerful, single-use Consumable has arrived. Each Tarot Card grants a unique ability based on its traditional meaning, often with a dangerous drawback, creating a high-risk, high-reward dynamic. The new gameplay system changes the gameplay and adds complexity to the trademark tense situations of the bayou.

Their origins are mysterious, but rumor says The Hanged Man first learned of the Tarot Cards from a fellow prisoner. For now, their full story remains a secret, but their power to twist fate is very real.

Players will be able to inspect Tarot Cards while holding them in hand in order to learn each card's effect. Tarot Cards can be found in Bileweaver Nests and other web-covered locations, earned through Dark Tributes or looted from dead Hunters.

Strategic Extraction

Web of the Empress brings another gameplay change that turns up the heat further: Locked Extraction Points. A new Central Extraction Point has been added, which is always locked by default. In addition, at the start of each Mission, one other random extract is locked.

Players can unlock these Extraction Points by using the Tarot Card “The Chariot." The card will swap locked and unlocked Extraction Points and trigger a five-minute global cooldown indicated by a status icon and timer, adding a layer of strategy to extraction during Bounty Hunt.

A Horrific and Plentiful Enemy

The Bileweavers represent nature pushed past its limits into a cancerous, abundant growth. Each generation grows larger than the last, and they now swarm the bayou, constructing massive nests by pulling trees and buildings from the ground with their elemental webbing. These web-covered lairs are speckled with egg sacs and pose a formidable new threat to all Hunters, who are attacked on sight.

While individually weak, Bileweavers attack in overwhelming groups, making their nests high-risk, high-reward areas for Hunters brave enough to venture inside. Players will find exciting rewards in Bileweaver Nests.

More Content Caught in the Webs

Update 2.5 is packed with highly requested features and fixes that refine the core Hunt: Showdown 1896 experience. Players will master the improved melee combat, discover new Scarce Weapons, and experiment with rebalanced Traits. With 2.5, we also introduce the much request matchmaking features that allow duos to queue with a random third, and for solos to join with other solos or duos. With a sweeping suite of audio, meta, and UI fixes, this update proves the unwavering dedication of Hunt: Showdown 1896's team to sharpening the bayou experience based on player feedback.

Update 2.5 changes and Web of the Empress gameplay mechanics can be explored in detail in our patch notes.

Hunters, the bayou has a new Empress, and her children need to eat! Go play with them and find yourself a proper new Scarce Weapon, gamble your fate while staring at a Tarot Card in hand, and explore infested corners of the bayou. Your future is in the cards—you only need to draw it and survive.

Web of the Empress is live now. We hope you enjoy it!

Your Hunt: Showdown 1896 team

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