Hounds Online

Hounds Online Classes

• Assault – designed to hold the front line with a Shield Pistol as its core weapon, balancing survivability with steady damage. Key skills include Poison Shot, Sonic Wave, and Rush.
• Techs – heavy support fighters that push with grenade launchers and bring utility to the squad, including Ammunition Supply Tools, Sentry Guns, and Shield Generators.
• Specialists – a damage-leaning role centered on a minigun, backed by tools like HP Recovery Resonators and Smoke Grenades to keep pressure up.
• Support – long-range specialists that rely on sniper rifles to remove priority threats and assist the team with Impact Mine, Freezing Grenade, and Enemy Detect Fire abilities.

Hounds Online Review

Hounds: The Last Hope is a 3D MMO shooter developed by Reborn Games and published by Netmarble EMEA, which entered open beta on April 17th, 2015. The premise is straightforward but serviceable for the genre: an alien invasion (the Wickbroke) has overwhelmed Earth, and the remaining forces are running operations to reclaim territory, learn more about the enemy, and survive long enough to turn the tide. The campaign is delivered through mission tiers that gradually push the conflict forward as you secure zones, gather intel, and take on increasingly dangerous infected variants.

Although the story content is the main backbone, Hounds also offers a full PvP side that is easy to jump into when you want shorter sessions. Across five modes, PvP becomes a place to leverage class tools and gear investment, and it also functions as an alternate income stream. In practice, missions tend to be the better route for experience and equipment, while PvP often feels like the more reliable way to build up gold for purchases and repairs.

Hounds: The Last Hope is available on its own website and on Steam.

Getting Started

Your first hour is guided by a tutorial sequence that introduces the basics, movement, shooting, melee, and interacting with objects, then begins layering in the game’s broader MMO systems such as skills, crafting, and the consignment shop. Once that onboarding is done, you create a character by choosing a name, class, and appearance. Customization is limited by modern standards. You pick a gender and then select from a small pool of preset faces and bodies, with early cosmetic variety mostly coming from a few armor sets you can mix to a degree. Most meaningful visual changes arrive later through equipment upgrades rather than the creator itself.

Moment-to-moment controls are familiar for PC shooter players. Movement is handled with WASD, melee is mapped to E and F, and dodging is done by combining Spacebar with a direction. Reloading sits on R, which keeps the core loop readable during busy fights.

One of Hounds’ more interesting design choices is how it handles skills through a point budget rather than a simple “unlock everything” tree. You receive a fixed pool of skill points, and each ability consumes part of that pool. Allocating a costly weapon skill, for example, leaves fewer points for other options, so builds naturally involve trade-offs. Abilities are also split into categories: class skills tied to your role, weapon skills tied to what you equip, and a mix of active abilities (triggered during combat) and passive bonuses (quality-of-life and stat improvements like faster reloads). On top of that, “Recruit” abilities act as high-cost power picks, offering strong effects in exchange for a large portion of your budget, such as temporary stamina freedom that can be used to reposition or escape.

The Early Progression Loop

The opening missions are structured to steadily introduce additional systems rather than dumping everything at once. A key example is the gear recycling loop: unwanted equipment can be broken down into crafting components, and those components can then be combined into higher-grade materials for stronger crafts. This turns excess drops into forward momentum, at least in theory, and helps the game feel less wasteful than pure RNG loot models.

Materials also drop directly in stages. Many missions hide glowing containers that can be shot for random crafting items. The catch is that advanced recipes often require large quantities of basic components, which nudges players toward repeating content, shattering lots of surplus gear, and building up stockpiles before they can consistently craft upgrades.

Difficulty is another early reality check. With starter equipment, several story missions can be punishing solo, especially when enemy density ramps up. The game strongly benefits from grouping, and parties of up to six can enter story quests together. Scaling increases the number of enemies and introduces tougher variants when multiple players are present, which keeps co-op from becoming a simple steamroll. Areas that are manageable alone can become chaotic with a group, especially when heavier Wickbroke units show up and force the team to manage positioning and pressure.

Gameplay

Hounds sits comfortably among mission-based online shooters, and its overall pacing and structure can feel reminiscent of games like Warface. In PvE, you have room to operate independently, but wandering too far from the squad can still lead to being overwhelmed, especially when spawns intensify. In PvP, team coordination matters even more, lone players are often quickly punished by organized groups, so voice comms or clan play can noticeably raise your win rate.

Co-op stages are segmented into multiple sections, separated by a rest area that functions like a breather and preparation point. In these break rooms, you can replenish ammunition and handle gear repairs before pushing into the next segment. The game also offers several PvE mission categories. Main Missions progress the narrative, Sub Missions add supplemental objectives and rewards, Boss Missions emphasize larger threat encounters, and Daily Missions rotate to encourage variety and provide a steady checklist of content. The overall structure gives players a clear “what to do next” flow that resembles the guided mission cadence found in Warframe.

Skills are a major part of both identity and performance, and they matter beyond raw damage. Techs and Specialists in particular bring group-impacting tools that change how missions play. Specialists can deploy resonation fields for healing, while Techs can provide shield support, place automated sentries, and drop ammunition supplies. That last piece is more important than it sounds because ammo costs and repair bills can eat into mission earnings, especially when you are pushing tougher content and burning resources quickly.

Shattering, Crafting, and Consigning

The item economy revolves around three connected systems. First is shattering, which allows you to dismantle gear you do not intend to use, converting it into components. As expected, higher-rarity items take longer to process, so common equipment is quick to break down, while rare and legendary pieces require more time.

Crafting builds directly on that dismantling loop. Once you have enough components, you can fuse them into stronger materials and eventually craft new gear. Crafted items frequently outperform typical drops, which makes crafting feel like the most reliable long-term path to power if you are willing to invest the time. It also gives value to “bad” drops because almost everything can be fed back into progression.

Consigning is the game’s player marketplace, essentially an auction house where you list items for other players to buy. Search tools help narrow down categories and stats, and it is generally the most efficient way to turn spare gear into gold or target specific upgrades without waiting on luck.

PvP

Hounds offers five PvP modes: Death Match, Annihilation, Close Combat, Sabotage, and Occupation. Death Match is the standard team fight to a kill threshold (fifty kills), and it works as a quick test of aim, positioning, and build choices.

Close Combat is the oddball mode where firearms are removed and players focus on the grab mechanic. In other modes, grabs can feel frustrating because a successful grab is an instant kill. Here, since everyone is playing by the same rules and bullets are off the table, the tension comes from spacing, baiting, and timing your approach.

Annihilation condenses the action into a one-life, round-based format. The first team to lose all players loses the round, and the mode fits well for short sessions when you do not want to commit to a longer story run.

Sabotage follows the familiar plant-and-defuse formula, while Occupation focuses on holding control zones to build score over time. None of these modes reinvent PvP, but they are implemented competently, and the rule sets generally support the game’s class abilities without making matches feel completely lopsided.

Cash Shop

The cash shop includes many items typical of free-to-play online games. You will find convenience and survival options, including revives during combat or at the next rest stop in PvE, as well as items that increase skill point totals or reduce the time required to shatter equipment. The most controversial element is the ability to purchase random equipment boxes tied to specific slots. Even with slot targeting, randomness can create an uneven playing field, since lucky pulls can translate into meaningful power advantages while others effectively pay for materials they did not want.

Final Verdict – Good

Even with the concerns around monetization, Hounds: The Last Hope delivers a capable co-op shooter loop backed by a surprisingly involved progression and crafting economy. It does not dramatically innovate in mission structure or PvP design, but the combination of PvE stages, class utility, and build planning can be engaging for players who enjoy grinding toward better gear and optimizing a role within a squad. If you are looking for a co-op-focused third-person shooter with MMO-style systems and you do not mind repetition as part of the climb, Hounds: The Last Hope was an easy recommendation during its run.

Hounds Online Links

Hounds Online Official Site
Hounds Online Steam
Hounds Online Wikia [Database / Guides]
Hounds Online Facebook Page
Hounds Online Subreddit

Hounds Online System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
CPU: Core 2 Duo E4300 1.8 GHz
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT 256 MB or better
RAM: 1 GB
Hard Disk Space: 5 GB

Recommended Requirements:

Operating System: Windows XP / Vista / 7 / 8 / 10
CPU: Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4 GHz
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce GTS 250 512 MB or better
RAM: 4 GB
Hard Disk Space: 5 GB

Hounds Online Music & Soundtrack

Coming soon…

Hounds Online Additional Information

Developer: Reborn Games
Publisher: Netmarble

Open Beta Date: April 17, 2015

Shut Down: April 29, 2018

Development History / Background:

Hounds: The Last Hope came from South Korean developer Reborn Games and was published by Netmarble for a worldwide audience. The release was localized into multiple languages, including English and Turkish, with Netmarble’s EMEA branch handling regional publishing and distribution. On January 28, 2018 it was announced that Hounds Online would be shut down on April 28, 2018.