The Hive is the gunman's home base — and in Gunman Contracts - Stand Alone it is not a cosmetic lobby. It is where weapons are stored, where they are modified, and where the shooting is actually practised. If you skip it, you are skipping the progression system.
What the Hive contains
The developer's launch content list breaks the base into four parts:
| Station | Function |
|---|---|
| Gunwall | Store and unlock weapons |
| Gun bench | Skin weapons and modify gun sounds |
| Gun range | Skill games and training stations, plus a classic gun range |
| Holographic combat area | Holographic combat training |
Separately, the base is described as featuring a speed-shooting obstacle course, pop-up target practice, a classic gun range, and holographic combat training.
The gunwall is your loadout screen
Weapons are stored and unlocked on the gunwall. That single line tells you how the game thinks about progression: your arsenal is a physical wall in a physical room, not a menu.
What follows from that:
- New weapons appear as you progress, so the wall is the first place to look after a contract.
- The wall is also storage, meaning what you have unlocked is visible at a glance rather than hidden behind a filter.
- Going back to the Hive is part of the loop, not an interruption to it.
The gun bench: three jobs
The gun bench is a different station from the gunwall and handles three things:
- Per-weapon attachments — confirmed to exist; the specific attachment list per weapon is not published
- Skins — cosmetic changes to how a weapon looks
- Gun sounds — you can modify how a weapon sounds
Being able to change gun sounds is an unusual feature for a shooter and fits the game's stated "action-movie inspired" pitch. It is cosmetic, but it is unusual cosmetic.
Practice stations, and why they matter here
This is a single-player game with leaderboards covering every contract, skill game and challenge. That makes the practice stations more than a tutorial:
- Gun range skill games — targeted drills with their own leaderboard entries, useful as a low-stakes accuracy check between attempts
- Speed-shooting obstacle course — a movement-and-accuracy course rather than a static range
- Pop-up target practice — reaction training where targets appear unpredictably
- Holographic combat training — combat scenarios without the cost of a failed contract
If you are coming from non-VR shooters, the VR side in particular benefits from this: aiming and reloading are physical skills here, and practising them in the Hive means you are not learning them mid-mission.
A sensible first visit to the Hive
- Walk the gunwall first so you know what you own before you need it.
- Run one round of the gun range skill games to calibrate your aim and your settings.
- Do the speed-shooting course once to get comfortable with movement.
- Try the holographic combat area before your first real contract.
- Then launch Takedown Mode or the safehouse contract — not the whole campaign at once.
That sequence takes a few minutes and replaces the first twenty minutes of dying in a story mission while you learn to reload.
Still unverified
- Whether every station is available from the very first session, or unlocked as you progress
- The number of skill games on the gun range
- How many weapons are available to unlock at launch versus how many are tied to later Early Access updates
待确认 — these will be confirmed from in-game observation and updated here.
Related guides
- Weapons & Attachments — what the gunwall and gun bench are actually for
- Challenge Modes — Takedown and Last Stand, launched from the Hive
- Beginner Guide — how the Hive fits into your first two hours