The Hunter: Call of the Wild

I went into The Hunter: Call of the Wild with a pretty open mind. My experience of hunting games is mainly tied to more arcade hunting games like Big Buck Hunter. I have never been hunting in my life, heck I have never even shot off a real gun in my life so my experience of actual hunting is zero! Still, even though I knew that this was a realistic hunting game I thought that it had a pretty interesting look and some good ideas.

Man, The Ultimate Hunter!

The goal of The Hunter: Call of the Wild is to track, hunt, and kill various animals. You can hunt all kinds of animals in this game. Stuff like deer’s, coyote’s and even bears are fair game here. The goal of the game is to become a master hunter and the more animals that you take down the closer to this goal you become.

Tracking The Poop

To say that this is a slow-paced game is a massive understatement. If you want a game where you can just run around in the woods and shoot animals, this game is not for you. Everything you do in this game has to be slow. You start by finding some tracks or some animal scat and then you need you slowly and methodically stalk your prey and shoot it. As you progress through the game, you will get stuff like calling whistles and animal lures that can help you on your hunting journey. I found that The Hunter: Call of the Wild was pretty exciting once you did manage to track down an animal. The stats though as I played showed that I scared off hundreds of animals and only managed to track around 50! Each hunt can take anywhere from an hour to two and there is no pausing! This means that you cannot just jump in for a quick session.

Ready For War!

You start the game with a very basic rifle, but you eventually earn much cooler weapons. My favorite is the bow as it is quiet and it makes you feel like a real primal hunter even though you are using a really cool high-tech kind of bow. The progression in the game, like everything else in the game, is very slow. However, I would assume that even with the impressive arsenal on offer, you will probably find something that you like and stick with that.

Can’t See The Forest For The Trees

I will be honest and say that the first thing that drew me to The Hunter: Call of the Wild was the visuals. This is the best-looking hunting game that I have ever played. It looks very lifelike and while the animals will be what most people focus on and the animals do look and move great. It is the environment that blew me away.

Seriously, the woods in this game are amazing and I found myself just wandering around being amazed at how real they managed to make them look.

Pros:

• This game looks fantastic!
• There are many different animals to hunt
• It can be quite exciting when you are tracking an animal
• Plenty of weapons and hunting accessories to use

Cons:

• You cannot pause your hunt!
• This game is very slow and perhaps too realistic for the average player

There's nothing quite like the thrill of the hunt, and The Hunter: Call of the Wild brings that experience to players with as much realism as possible. In this hunting simulation game, it's your job to journey to a variety of different hunting reserves around the world, bagging rare predators and other animals with your hunting skills. Although having a steady aim and a patient trigger finger is important, you will also need to smartly track your prey in its natural habitat. The Hunter: Call of the Wild is all about putting you in the thick of nature with some of the fiercest predators on Earth and seeing who has the skill to survive.

Main Game Features

• Hunt with 80 different weapons
• Track prey across 14 different environments
• Rating system that awards smart and ethical hunting

Survival and Tracking

Although other hunting games have come and gone, like Big Buck Hunter and Cabela's Dangerous Hunts, The Hunter: Call of the Wild is a breed of its own. To start, you must create a custom character and complete a few training missions to learn the ropes, but after that, all bets are off. There are 2 hunting reserves included in the base game: the Hirschfelden Hunting Reserve in Europe and the Layton Lake District of the Pacific Northwest in North America. Both maps are massive, containing acres of terrain for you to use as your playground. However, simply surviving in these rough conditions can be a challenge, and locating your prey will be just as difficult as killing it.

Once you've accepted a quest from your in-game phone, you'll travel to the respective reserve and begin tracking the prey. Don't expect any waypoints or hints to help guide you, since The Hunter: Call of the Wild expects you to figure out everything on your own. A lot of your time in this game will be spent scavenging through nature, looking for things like tracks, droppings, and other signs of your prey. You can't just run around though, as animals are constantly alerted to your scent and the sounds you make, and will run away if they feel threatened. In this way, simply finding your desired prey is very difficult and requires a stealth-styled approach.

Hunting Your Prey

If you can find the right animal, making a kill shot requires more than just aiming and pulling the trigger. First, you must make sure you have the correct weapon equipped, since not all animals can be ethically hunted with the same weapon. There are over 80 weapons to choose from, including rifles, shotguns, crossbows, and more. Once you've picked your vantage point and begin aiming, you'll also have to take into account things like wind speed, bullet drop, and surrounding foliage. Missing a shot or improperly wounding a target will harm your end-of-mission awards, where precision and smart planning are key to getting the best score.

As you successfully complete hunts and other objectives, you will earn in-game currency and experience that can be spent in a variety of ways. You can increase your hunter's level through skill trees, which unlock passive bonuses and new abilities to use. Money can be spent on new equipment and weapons, further boosting your options in the field. Unfortunately, The Hunter: Call of the Wild doesn't have many tutorials or tips, so if you're not knowledgeable in firearms or general hunting, expect to do some extra research. On the other hand, the game contains online multiplayer that supports up to seven hunters at a time, so you can always ask your more experienced friends for help.

Conclusion

The Hunter: Call of the Wild is an immersive simulation of hunting that cuts no corners, providing players with the full experience, no matter how boring it might seem. While some players will want to cut to the chase, true hunters will appreciate the attention to detail and preparation required for each outing.

Pros

• Very realistic simulation gameplay
• Lots of weapons and prey species
• Maps feel huge and detailed

Cons

• Will be boring for non-hunters
• Not a lot of action
• One small mistake can cost you a lot of points