Way of the Hunter wants to convey as realistic a hunting experience as possible. But of all things, the simulation of the animals destroys any immersion.
A loud grunt echoes through the valley – my attention is fully there. Equipped with binoculars, I spy a mule deer 200 metres away. I calibrate the sights of my rifle, hold my breath, sight in on the deer, my finger curving the trigger slightly. Pausing once more …
Way of the Hunter begins with a typical hunt: in the tutorial I have to shoot “Hollywood”, a mule deer with abnormal antlers. The game also explains why: My grandfather has already shot Hollywood”s father and both are now to be displayed on a diorama in the hunting lodge. In the later course, on the other hand, I can choose the animals to be hunted myself and must also pay attention to the diversity of species.
But one after the other: I pull the trigger and wince slightly as I spy the blood splatter through the scope. Hollywood jumps up, driven by adrenaline, and runs away badly wounded.
Examining the blood trail, I notice that the colour of the blood is pink, it is a medium amount of blood and that the blood has been contaminated by air bubbles. Here Way of the Hunter scores with a high level of detail. Furthermore, I receive information about the time until expiry and the distance until expiry – i.e. approximately how far the animal could still escape.
After the promising tutorial, however, Way of the Hunter reveals many weak points and inconsistencies. The title actually wanted to knock the top dog theHunter: Call of the Wild from the throne of hunting simulations. I”ll explain why it doesn”t succeed despite its beautiful open world and great bullet physics in our review.
The strange behaviour of animals
One of the positives of Way of the Hunter is definitely the huge open world. The two maps, one in the USA, the other in Europe, more precisely Transylvania, are each around 140 square kilometres in size, very varied and extensive. Exploration takes place on foot or with a jeep, which is available right at the beginning.
Later on, it is possible to make a quick trip to hunting huts and campfires that have been set up in the various areas. However – and this is where the fox bites its tail – the paths are very long despite fast travel and a jeep.
As a result, one spends a large part of the time walking and an almost even longer time crouching. Because although animals keep spawning out of nowhere right in front of your nose, you should travel carefully and quietly for hunting success. One wrong step, one run too fast and the animals will take to their heels. Fortunately, you don”t really need much patience. Sometimes it takes five minutes, sometimes 30 minutes, and the animals come back as if nothing had happened.
It doesn”t matter whether I ran too fast and startled the animals, or whether I used a shotgun or rifle to create a powerful sound effect. Unfortunately, this is no exception and several times during the test I experienced situations where animals returned a short time after being shot.
To give you a sense of how this plays out in the game, I”ve picked out one appropriate example from many: Stands are all over the place in the world. Such a “high seat” is of course ideal for observing the surrounding environment. And so I stand on the high seat for 20 long minutes until I suddenly notice a movement in the river to my left. Am I hallucinating already? The pack of white-tailed deer wasn”t there just now, was it?
And indeed – a group of six adult animals has spawned about 150 metres beside me directly in the water. I put the rifle on again and pull the trigger. By now there is no longer any hunting feeling. Blood trails follow, the meat of the animal is sold and back to decency. After 30 minutes, everything starts all over again.
Immersion is a difficult word
Whether immersion or authenticity: the main thing is realism. That”s what Way of the Hunter wants to be. Thanks to the implementation in the Unreal Engine 4, this also succeeds visually very well – as long as you don”t move. Head bobbing and the rendering of textures in the distance can be quite disturbing. Fortunately, the former can be switched off.
The story cannot be switched off. I really wanted to enjoy the story of Way of the Hunter – and the first comic to introduce me to it is also quite promising. My grandfather is a hunter, my father detests hunting and as a child I am fascinated by hunting.
Here, however, the simulation squanders a chance to bring the protagonist River more to the fore. After the first comic, I only run through checkpoints. Communication with NPCs takes place via e-mails or walkie-talkies – I don”t see other people in the game. This makes everything seem far too staged. Especially because the beginning of the story is so good and for a short time I thought: Damn, after Death Stranding finally a good story again.
Unfortunately, it comes to nothing and there is not much left of the “accomplished hunter who takes over his grandfather”s tradition-rich family business” promised by the developers of Nine Rock Games and publisher THQ Nordic.
The sale of wild animal meat was also announced. And this is very simple in Way of the Hunter: as long as I don”t run over the animal and don”t riddle it with a complete magazine, I can sell the meat directly via the corresponding context menu. Transporting the carcass into the car and a trip to the butcher are thus superfluous. The animal disappears before my eyes and the job is done.
The immersion is also destroyed when tracking shot animals. If we take too much time, all traces of blood disappear and the hunt was a failure. However, we do not receive any information that the hunt has failed. It would be more realistic if the blood traces disappeared bit by bit depending on the age or if we received a hint that we only have a limited amount of time left to track down the animal.
It becomes more immersive when the difficulty level is adjusted. Either directly in the menu with predefined presets or via the options with which hunting sense and other aids can simply be switched off.
Weapons and equipment are positive – but the grind is brutal
For all the criticism of Way of the Hunter, the simulations are still convincing in some places: the bullet physics in particular seem comprehensible and realistic. With the bullet camera, I get precise information about the force with which the bullet hits, which bones and organs are hit and what the effect of the whole thing is.
A wide variety of weapons and equipment are at my disposal: in addition to rifles, there are shotguns and decoy whistles for luring animals. The game is tracked with one of two binoculars or various aiming devices for rifles. Depending on the hunt, I select the appropriate equipment in advance in the hunting lodge or at the boot of my car and am then ready for the stalk.
During the stalk, I keep discovering grazing areas of the animals – places where they stay to feed or rest, for example. The places I find are highlighted on the map and the more need zones I uncover, the more information about the animal is unlocked in the encyclopaedia. This tells me when the animals are grazing, sleeping or drinking. Of course, this is no guarantee for a successful hunt.
And to celebrate any hunting success at all, especially in the later stages when I hunt black bears, moose or waipitis, better equipment is needed. This is where the fierce grind for money begins. Whether it”s a decoy whistle, a new rifle or a sighting device, everything costs a lot of money.
The sale of game meat, on the other hand, brings in relatively little. So you are almost forced to complete some of the story missions again and again. Taking out a loan would be helpful here. The new rifle would be financed through a loan and part of the proceeds from the sale of game meat would go directly to the bank. However, this is not implemented in the game.
Quirks in multiplayer
A kill in multiplayer is also no guarantee for a hunting success. Four of you can go hunting in multiplayer, but without character customisation. You all play as River, the protagonist in Way of the Hunter, but that is not the biggest problem of the multiplayer.
In our test, connected players sometimes failed to see hunted animals, even though they were clearly in front of the host of the session and could not be claimed by him – in other words, they were clearly marked as the co-op partner”s prey. The error occurred frequently and caused a lot of frustration.
Missions cannot be completed in multiplayer either and time cannot be fast-forwarded at the moment. According to the developers, a corresponding feature is currently being discussed.
However, there is one advantage to hunting together: the money from animals you kill in co-op will also be credited to your single-player account.
Editorial conclusion
Those who have read texts by me in the past know that I love everyday simulations and can also overlook minor problems when playing. Compared to theHunter: Call of the Wild, Way of the Hunter has a lot of weaknesses and could therefore not fully convince me.Although many options can be switched on and off to create a more realistic hunting feeling, bugs and glitches still remain with it. And what bothers me the most: There is no field of view slider, time cannot be fast-forwarded in multiplayer and the button assignment cannot be changed. That should actually be standard in 2022.
All in all, I personally had many fun and exciting moments with Way of the Hunter. However, they are overshadowed by the aforementioned serious shortcomings and at some point the fun of the game completely stopped. I will give the game another chance after some patches and fixes, in the hope that some of the mechanics will be reworked. At least the head wobbling can be switched off via slider. Run through Way of the Hunter once and think of the comedian Otto, how he runs around clumsily and giggling. This is what the head movements in Way of the Hunter look like.
If you want to get a taste of the hunting simulation genre, Way of the Hunter is a good introduction. Those who want it to be more realistic will not get around theHunter: Call of the Wild. The huge open world is partly inhabited by animals and pheasants croak at you in almost every corner. But the hunt for moose, waipitis or bears is a highlight – if you can find them. In the end, Way of the Hunter is a solid first work for the newly founded studio of Nine Rock Games. If the studio and publisher stick with the title, the not-so-strong simulation could ultimately become a really strong simulation with more content and realistic animal behaviour that could knock theHunter: Call of the Wild from its throne. In my view, the potential is there.
