Video Game / Huntdown

Crime doesn’t pay… unless you’re a bounty hunter.

In the mayhem-filled streets of the future where criminal gangs rule and cops fear to tread, only the bounty hunters can free the city from the corrupt fist of felony. Lay waste to the criminal underworld and make a killing in this hard-boiled action comedy arcade shooter.

Huntdown is an action comedy arcade-style shooter developed by Swedish independent video game studio Easy Trigger Games and published by Coffee Stain Publishing. You play as one of three bounty hunters who are tasked to bringing down the gangs. It's up to three bounty hunters to take on these gangs to clean the streets. They are the hot-blooded and unpredictable Anna Conda, the battle-scarred cyberborg John Sawyer, and the cold, calculative Mow Man. The gangs who rule over the city are the rebellious and uncontrollable Hoodlum Dolls, the hockey-loving Misconducts, the motorcycle-riding Heatseakers, and the martial arts-trained NO.1 Suspects. The bounty hunters must fight these gangs on their own turfs to beat them and their leaders to reclaim their bounties. There are several weapons to take and use through each level that are scattered and at the end of each level you face the boss. You play solo or play with a friend in co-op. It released on May 12, 2020 for the PC via Epic Games Store, as a timed exclusive, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Switch. The game later ported to Steam on May 12, 2021 with new features like online co-op.

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General Tropes

• Advancing Wall of Doom: Sonny Rooster's invulnerable armored carrier will chase you in the latter half of his level,
• A Taste of the Lash: The Overseer whips the motorcyclists that pull his chariot whenever they stop.
• Anti-Vehicle: Remote Bombs are provided in most of the Heatseekers levels. They're very useful for the high armor but predictable vehicle enemies.
• Arm Cannon: Unholy Goalie has a minigun instead of a left arm. It swaps over to his right when he faces the other direction, though.
• Arms Dealer: The Heatseekers. Their stages are filled with crates that can be broken open to reveal bonus weapons. The final fight against Ringo Road Rage is on his transport, and there are eight different weapons available to pick up and use during the fight.
• Attack Animal: All gangs will occasionally use attack dogs against the player. They are VERY fast but cannot jump.
• Background Boss: The Shogun in his mech will move to the backround to fire weapons at the player.
• Badass Biker: The Heat Seekers Gang, expanded to all kinds of tricked out vehicles like muscle cars and freight trucks.
• The Bad Guys Are Cops:
  • Troy Lawman is implied to be a former cop, which is how he stole his riot mech so easily.
  • Marlo the Mutant has corrupt cops and a police helicopter as backup during his level and boss fight.
• Big Badass Rig: Ringo Road Rage has an absolutely massive one for hauling weapons, including a laser cannon mounted on the back of the cab.
• Breakable Weapons: Melee weapons break after a handful of swings.
• Car Fu: The bounty hunters always arrive at the final level of each area by slamming their car through several gang members (or through a wall in Unholy Goalie's level).
• Chariot Pulledby Cats: The Overseer rides a chariot pulled by two motorcycles, complete with whipping.
• Continuing is Painful: In Arcade Mode, continuing after running out of lives will cost you a 10 percent of your accumulated score for the area. This is justified In-Universe as Tony the Surgeon's fee.
• Disney Villain Death: The Shogun is finally finished when he falls off the debris and plummets to his death. The Bounty Hunters almost follow but are saved by Tony and his flying ambulance.
  • Suki the Sniper also dies in this fashion, with her jetpack exploding and sending her plummeting to her doom.
• Downer Ending: It turns out that Shimamoto Corporation was in fact Evil All Along, having used you to take control of the city. Now that you're finished, they place a bounty on both you and their own head, Rose Wolfmother. It ends with Rose being assassinated by another bounty hunter as the screen turns to black.
• Dual Boss: The Dudson Twins.
• '80s Hair: Everyone in the Misconducts gang is required to dye it blonde and wear it long or poofy.
• Expy:
  • Anna Conda's name and eyepatch are a reference to Snake Pliskin.
  • The leader of the Heatseekers, Ringo Road Rage, is designed to look like a fatter Ben Throttle.
• Eyepatch of Power: Anna Conda has one.
• Fat Bastard: Ringo Road Rage is extremely obese. He has to stop and catch his breath multiple times while fighting the player.
• Fish Eyes: Shell Shock Murdoch has these bulging out of his head. His defeat portrait has them popped out and hanging by tendons.
• Flame Spewer Obstacle: Last two stages of the third chapter have pipes that shoot out flames at regular intervals.
• Flamethrower Backfire: Psychonaught's second phase is her running around screaming and burning after her flamethrower ruptures. Don't get in her way.
• Freefall Fight: The final part of the battle against The Shogun is this.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Unholy Goalie's uppercut attack has an image of a skull in the particle effect.
• Futuristic Superhighway: Both Dean Dandy and Ringo Road Rage fight you there, in the former case you're on a traffic island while Dean is trying to use his hoverbike to knock you into the traffic below, in the latter you're on Ringos massive convoy truck and he periodically rams cars in front of him making them bounce along the truckbed to hit you.
• Gangbangers: The No.1 Suspects combine this aesthetic with a Chinese/Japanese aesthetic.
• Gatling Good: Miniguns are available among the various weapons in the game. They have an incredible rate of fire and large ammo count, but they have a short wind-up before they start firing.
• Getting the Boot: When being revived, Antonio "Tony" Salazar kicks you out of the van with only his boot can be seen.
• Giggling Villain: Psychonaught giggles while stalking you with her flamethrower.
• Gotta Kill 'Em All: Your main objective is to kill all four captains of each gang before targeting their leader. There are twenty bosses in total.
• The Gunslinger: Marlow the Mutant, who wields semi-action pistols in each of his four arms.
• Hard Light: Cyra Rhodes of the No. 1 Suspects attacks with a hologram version of herself, and then a giant snake when the first is destroyed. She is defeated when her control goggles explode in her face.
• Heavily Armored Mook: Every gang has mooks that can spawn with armor, requiring extra damage to break and granting a brief invincible period when removed.
• Humongous Mecha: Both Troy Lawman and The Shogun use these to fight the player.
• Jet Pack: The Heatseekers have minions wearing them, and Suki the Sniper uses one as well.
• Just Fine Without You: Teddy Taxman gets a phone call from his boss, Unholy Goalie, at the start of his bossfight and spends the first phase denying that any gunshots or alarms are going off near his office.
• Kill Tally: Tally marks with blood can be seen during Sid Handsome fight.
• Ludicrous Gibs: This is often the result of killing enemies with explosives.
  Anna Conda: "Ugh, they're on my hair!"
• Masked Luchador: Bad Boy Bob, though he speaks like Randy Savage.
• Metal Slime: Couriers will flee to a waiting escape vehicle when they spot the Bounty Hunters. Killing them drops their Stash, which is required to 100% complete the level.
• Multi-Armed and Dangerous: Marlo the Mutant has four arms, each using a semi-action pistol.
• Motorcycle Jousting: Dean Dandy does this to the player with his flying motorcycle, complete with giant metal lance.
• Noodle Incident: Tony says not to ask how he got his flying vehicle into the sewer because they wouldn't believe him.
• No OSHA Compliance: Sonny Rooster is fought atop a slag melting pit. Shooting him enough makes him fall into the slag, then crawl back out and keep trying to kill you.
• Offscreen Start Bonus: Before the boss fight against Ringo Road Rage, the player is presented with eight different weapons to bring with them from Ringo's cargo. However, once the fight starts nothing stops the player from walking back to the weapons and grabbing a new one except for a camera that doesn't pan unless you go off-screen.
• Opening Scroll: The opening movie explains the plot and premise.
• The Pawns Go First: Teddy Taxman lets his minions fight the bounty hunter before deciding to fight himself.
• Police Are Useless: For the most part and commented on by a couple of characters. Out of the 4 gangs you face, they are only active in involvement against two of them.
  • First one is them actually helping against the Hoodlum Dolls (the weakest gang mind you), but the majority of them gets murdered by the gang's mooks and elites, on top of one of their own apparently betrayed them and stole one of their riot mechs for the gang to use.
  • The other time is with the NO.1 Suspects, and they are competent and dangerous... but are working for the gang instead of against due to huge bribes.
• Punny Name: Master Yuudai. He likes to shout it when fighting his enemies.
• The Quincy Punk: The Hoodlum Dolls are a textbook example.
• Raised Hand of Survival: Sonny Rooster does this after falling into the molten pit, then climbs out. He continues to try to clobber you with his newly melted arms.
• Retraux: The game resembles one you'd see on an 16-bit console or MS-DOS era IBM PC, and has a very 80s Cyberpunk feel.
• Rollerblade Good: Many, many of the Misconducts use rollerblades. It fits with their Ice Hockey theme, since obviously real ice skates wouldn't work in subway stations and sewers.
• Sentry Gun:
  • Teddy Taxman's security system includes lots of these that move on rails vertically to shoot the Bounty Hunter.
  • These can be found as thrown subweapons.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: Shell Shock Murdoch of the Misconduct Gang is described as a World War 3 veteran. He spends most of his boss fight screaming Vietnam War slang or moaning about "The Horrors".
• Shield Surf: One of the Heatseekers minions does this while being towed by a muscle car and whooping like a maniac. Destroy the car and the surfer will bail painfully.
• Short-Range Shotgun: The pump-action shotgun actually has a respectable range of about two-thirds of the screen, and the auto shotgun is much the same. You’ll find yourself cursing the auto shotgun’s range when facing Grandmaster Yuudai, in fact. The sawed-off, however sacrifices this for damage and is less useful against bosses or other enemies you’d rather keep your distance from.
• Shout-Out: The narrator's introduction of the bad-guy gangs in the launch trailer copies the one of the trailer of The Warriors.
• Super Serum: Unholy Goalie is given some by a follower during his boss fight, making him even larger and stronger than before.
• Tornado Move: Master Yuudai does this and combined with his automatic shotgun.
• Turns Red: Several bosses do this once they take enough damage:
  • Sid Handsome picks up his weight lifts and uses them in his melee attack, as well as throwing them around as bouncy projectiles.
  • Psychoaught's flamethrower pack explodes, setting her on fire and causing her to run around causing collison damage as well as leaving a harmful trail of flames.
  • Once Nadja Drago's armor is knocked off, she activates a laser device that aids her in the second half of the fight.
  • Shell-Shock Murdoch's PTSD flares up after he takes enough damage, causing him to run around firing a lot or launching salvos of grenades.
  • Once Unholy Goalie's first health bar is depleted, he gets a serum injection that makes him Hulk Out, causing him to fight a lot more fiercely.
  • After enough damage, Sonny Rooster falls into the molten metal, then gets back out and uses his new stretchy melted arms to continue smashing.
  • When one of the Dudson Twins is killed, the other activates the traps around their arena to avenge her sister's death.
• Warm-Up Boss: Sweet Angel of the Hoodlum Dolls. His moveset is very simple, just stay away and jump over his heavily telegraphed throwing knife.
• Weaponized Exhaust: Psychonaught's last phase can kill the bounty hunters with the exhaust from her leaking fuel tank.
• Western Samurai: The Nº1 Suspects are comprised of African-American ninjas and martial artists along with the more traditional Gangbangers.
• The Worf Effect: The Misconducts are introduced by showing them easily capturing and executing members of the previous gang, the Hoodlum Dolls.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Not just the Bounty Hunters, but Rose Wolfmother as well. She's killed during the ending of the game.