Beautiful Light vs Hunt: Showdown 1896: what is actually different
Both are horror flavoured PvPvE extraction shooters where death costs you. The difference is who the monsters are: in Beautiful Light, six of them are other players.
Hunt: Showdown is the obvious reference for anyone looking at Beautiful Light: horror atmosphere, AI monsters, rival players, and a death that takes something away from you. The two games share that DNA, then split on the one design choice that matters most.
| Beautiful Light | Hunt: Showdown 1896 | |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Deep Worlds SA | Crytek |
| Status | Early Access, December 2026 | Released |
| Players per match | 24: 18 operators and 6 anomalies | 12 hunters |
| Team size | Squads of three | Solo, duo or trio |
| Objective | Secure the artifact, extract by helicopter | Track a boss, extract with the bounty |
| Monsters | AI anomalies and player controlled anomalies | AI only |
| Play as a monster | Yes, six slots per raid | No |
| On death | You lose the kit you brought in | Your hunter and their gear are gone |
| Setting | Post-apocalyptic, modern military | Late 19th century America |
What they share
Both games are built on the same tension: a map full of AI threats that punish noise, rival teams hunting the same objective, and a loss on death that makes every fight a decision rather than a reflex. Both lean on sound, light and patience more than on raw aim.
The real difference: the monsters play back
In Hunt, every monster is AI. Their behaviour can be learned and exploited.
In Beautiful Light, six of the 24 players in a raid are anomalies, monsters controlled by people, with a win condition that has nothing to do with the artifact. Their objective is to hunt, kill and eat operators so that nobody extracts. Anomalies also keep a progression track separate from your operator, unlocking abilities and new anomalies as they feed. More on that in the anomalies guide.
That turns the PvE layer from something you learn once into something that adapts, which is the core of Beautiful Light's pitch.
Scale and squads
A Hunt match holds 12 players, who can queue alone or in teams of two or three. A Beautiful Light raid holds 24, always in squads of three, plus the anomaly players. More bodies on the map means more third parties, and the artifact gives everyone the same place to converge.
Death and progression
In Hunt, a dead hunter is gone for good, along with their equipment and the traits they earned. In Beautiful Light, the Steam page says a death costs you everything you brought into the raid. Deep Worlds has not said that dying also wipes your character progression, so as far as confirmed information goes, the gear is what you risk, not the progression tree.
Which one should you play?
Hunt: Showdown 1896 is out, mature, and a known quantity. Beautiful Light does not launch until December 2026, and even then it arrives in Early Access with 2 maps and 1 playable anomaly.
If what draws you in is the idea of being the monster, or of fighting monsters that think, Beautiful Light is the only one of the two built around that. Check the release date and the system requirements before you commit.
Sources
- Beautiful Light: Steam store page
- Hunt: Showdown 1896 match structure: Hunt: Showdown wiki, Bounty Hunt
BL Guide, unofficial community coverage of Beautiful Light. Every figure on this page comes from an official source, and anything unconfirmed says so.