Battle Royale games are becoming a dime-a-dozen now. With so many options, it’s difficult sticking to just one or two. This is especially true for mobile versions of these games. For me, this is because I don’t always have to be at my PC or laptop when I’m in the mood or I have some spare time. It was one of these moods that led me to Cyber Hunter.
Running headfirst with Cyber Hunter
While it may sound like a futuristic anime title, Cyber Hunter is actually a mixup of several different game styles. Developed by NetEase Games, at its core, Cyber Hunter is a battle royale game. But when playing the game, I realized it’s a bit more than that. For starters, there’s character customization.
In PUBG Mobile, we saw that while you could purchase crates to unlock clothing items and custom weapons and effects, that was all there is to it. With Cyber Hunter, there was some pretty in-depth character customization.
I started off my journey in Cyber Hunter as a Wanderer. Similar to other battle royale games, 100 players drop on to a map. The map, in this case, is 6×6 square kilometers of open road, fields, and towns as well. While running away from the shrinking play area as all battle royale games do, you will come across a plethora of weapons and armor.
These include sniper rifles, submachine guns, assault rifles, pistols, and shotguns. Armor helps absorb damage taken and lessens the blow if you accidentally fall or get hit by a vehicle.
What makes Cyber Hunter unique is the customization of weapons. For example, I got a shotgun that I can use to heal my team mates. I also stumbled across a grenade launcher that is created just to demolish buildings. Vehicles too can be customized as well. Apart from being able to carry my team, I found a Cerberus that transforms into a battle ready mech suit.
The gameplay is strangely familiar, but also different
At first glance, Cyber Hunter borrows a lot of the visual elements from PUBG Mobile. The layout of the buttons, and even the chatbox and settings options are all almost identical to the way its laid out in PUBG. However, Cyber Hunter also differs from PUBG Mobile in a number of ways. For example, as you gain more XP, your character levels up. Each level up in turn can be used to activate a new feature in your companion drone.
The companion drone follows you around (not literally) and is able to create objects based on your preference. Taking fire from an enemy? You can use your drone to create a temporary wall for some cover. If you’re on foot and you need to get to someplace fast, you can get your drone to create a high-tech bike for you. Jumping off a high cliff? No problem. The drone can act as a glider and help you smoothly descend to your location.
Of course, all this isn’t free. The drone uses quantum energy blocks to make all this happen. Fortunately, these quantum energy blocks can be found while looting houses. So it’s best to keep an eye out for them. You are also likely to find crates and supply drops around the map as well. You can open them to get you some extra goodies such as ammo and medi-kits if you’re injured.
One intriguing feature that Cyber Hunter has was an auto-fire feature. Rather than pressing the on-screen fire button, all I had to do was to simply aim my gun at a target and the gun would automatically fire. While this was pretty cool at close distances, it loses practicality over longer distances. It’s also annoying because you end up just spraying bullets around the enemy rather than hitting them. So it was a no-go for me and I switched to manual aim.
Dodging bullets taken to a whole new level
Speaking of aiming, firing at an enemy is trickier than most other mobile battle royale games. Why? Because of the way characters move in Cyber Hunter. Apart from the standard movements such as forward, backward and sideways, you can also vault over low walls and tables.
In addition, Cyber Hunter adds a level of parkour to the mix when climbing up staircases and walls. Rather than just simply climbing up (because that’s too mainstream), you can scale up walls much faster.
So when you’re taking fire from another player, you can actually vault from side to side and dodge bullets. This makes it more challenging to find your mark. It also makes auto firing redundant as you just waste time and ammo trying to hit a moving target.
My thoughts on Cyber Hunter
I honestly did not know what to expect when I downloaded Cyber Hunter. After the initial tutorial etc, the first few matches I played were, incredibly fun. It’s like Fortnite and PUBG had a child. You get slightly cartoonish graphics and aptly named weapons. You can collect quantum blocks to create and customize weapons and the gameplay is not exactly intense, but challenging.
Overall, if you want to try out a new battle royale game, Cyber Hunter aims to fill that gap. As always, there are transactions that use real cash but they’re not really needed to get ahead in the game. Gameplay is smooth as silk at maxed out settings on my Pocophone F1.
Granted, Cyber Hunter is fairly new. It launched on the 29th of April 2019. So there may be some bugs and inconsistencies in game. But the developers are taking strides to ensure smooth performance for all. Cyber Hunter is available for both iOS and Android. You can check out their Facebook and Instagram profiles to stay updated for more.
Have you played Cyber Hunter? Love it? Hate it? We would love to hear from you.
