The Cathedral

Lore & Background

The Cathedral stands as a monument to a faith that the bayou slowly reclaimed. Its stained glass is shattered, its pews rotted through, and the altar is buried under muck and the detritus of whatever horrors now nest in its shadow. Yet the structure endures—its flying buttresses still arch against the humid sky, its bell tower still catches the wind and sends a low, mournful tone across the water. Locals in the surrounding settlements speak of the church in hushed tones, not out of piety but out of a practical dread: the dead do not stay buried here, and the living who enter rarely leave without a wound.

In the world of Hunt, the Cathedral serves as one of the hunting grounds where the Contract's bounty is pursued. The architecture, while a liability for those who fight in open fields, becomes a tactical playground. The multiple levels—ground floor nave, side chapels, the upper gallery, and the bell tower—mean a hunter can be flanked from above, below, or through a narrow side aisle before they even register the threat. The reverberant acoustics make gunshots travel and echo, turning every discharge into a beacon that tells every other hunter in the building exactly where you are.

The bayou seeps into the lower levels, pooling in the crypts and softening the stone floor into something treacherous underfoot. Vines and fungal growth creep up the columns, and the air carries a sweet, cloying rot that makes it hard to tell the scent of gunpowder from the stench of decay. It is, in every sense, a building that is dying—and it drags everything inside it down with it.

In Their Own Story

The rain had stopped, but the bayou kept its slow, patient drip. Mara pressed her back against the cold stone of a pier, counting the seconds between the distant groan of the creature dragging itself through the lower crypt. Three. Four. Five. The echo swallowed the sound, stretched it, made it sound like it came from everywhere and nowhere.

Above her, the bell tower swayed in a breeze that hadn't touched the ground in weeks. She could see the silhouette of another hunter—just a hat brim catching the grey light—perched on the gallery railing, watching the nave like a cat watching a mouse hole. They hadn't seen her. Not yet.

She checked her magazine. Two rounds. The Contract's bounty was in her satchel, warm and wrong, pulsing faintly like a second heartbeat. All she needed was to cross the nave, reach the east door, and be gone. Forty feet of open stone floor, and two other hunters who had been circling the side chapels for the last ten minutes.

The creature groaned again. Closer this time. The drip-drip-drip of bayou water on the altar stone marked the seconds. Mara exhaled, shouldered her rifle, and started to move—slow, slow, the way the old men in the settlement used to walk through the church before the rot took it. One step. Two. The bell above let out a single, low toll, though no one had pulled the rope.

She did not look up.

Reader's Guide

The Cathedral is built around a central nave flanked by side chapels, with a bell tower and upper gallery rising above the main floor. The exterior grounds are limited—mostly a courtyard and a few approach paths—so most of your time will be spent inside the stone shell.

Zones to track: the main nave (wide, open, terrible for close-range ambushes), the side chapels (narrow, good for flanking), the lower crypt or undercroft (dark, tight, where creatures tend to drag themselves), the upper gallery (overlooks the nave, great for a scoped shot), and the bell tower (highest vantage, but a long, exposed climb). The exterior courtyard is a brief breather between engagements.

Monster behavior: creatures in The Cathedral tend to patrol the lower levels and the nave floor, dragging through the crypts and the open stone. They are less predictable in the upper gallery and bell tower, but a loud gunshot anywhere in the building will draw them upward. Listen for the wet, heavy footsteps and the low vocalizations echoing off the piers—that is your warning that something is in the nave.

Loot and chokepoints: the side chapels and the area around the altar tend to hold the better loot caches, but they are also the most contested. The narrow passages connecting the nave to the chapels are natural chokepoints—hold one end with a shotgun and watch the other. The stairs or ladders leading to the gallery and bell tower are vertical chokepoints; a single hunter with a good angle can deny the entire upper level.

Map-specific mechanics: the acoustics are a double-edged sword. Every shot echoes, giving away your position to anyone in the building. Conversely, you can use that echo to track where a creature or rival hunter is firing. The upper gallery and bell tower give you a height advantage, but the climb is slow and leaves you vulnerable to anyone on the ground floor watching the stairs.

Tactical tip: if you hear a creature in the crypts, do not rush down. Instead, climb to the gallery and let it drag itself into the open nave where you can shoot it from above without committing to the dark. Save your close-range ammo for the other hunters who will inevitably be hunting the same creature. The Cathedral punishes greed and rewards the patient hunter who lets the building do the work.

Did You Know?

• The Cathedral's enclosed, multi-level design makes it one of the most acoustically reactive maps in the game—gunshots carry and echo across the nave, making every shot a positional giveaway to every other hunter in the b
• The bell tower and upper gallery introduce a vertical layer of combat that is relatively rare in Hunt: Showdown, forcing players to think about flanking from above rather than just laterally.
• The map's limited exterior space means that, unlike more open maps, most engagements happen inside the stone structure, making it feel more like a siege than a field hunt.
• The Cathedral's gothic architecture—flying buttresses, vaulted ceilings, and narrow chapels—creates a stark tonal contrast with the industrial and rural settings of other maps, giving it a distinct visual and atmospheric