Way of the Hunter

Way of the Hunter is an entertaining hunting simulator with a message to convey. The story was charming, and the gameplay was engrossing, though at times it felt like the deer had better detection skills than the hunter.

Way of the Hunter is an engaging hunting game. You’ll skulk around the bushes, experience some breathtaking views and unfortunately step not only in animal feces but also in a couple of bugs and simplifications. It’s obviously not a game for everyone, but it’s plenty satisfying and might devour a lot of your free time.

Net of some annoying bugs, Way of the Hunter is a simulation that certainly knows how to satisfy hunting enthusiasts, giving them a journey into the wilderness that allows them to take multiple approaches to take down elusive prey and almost always convincing behaviors. At the same time, we are talking about a great exercise of patience, to be used both when the long hunts do not lead to the desired results, and during the campaign mode which, given its playful structure, did not turn out to be as interesting as we hoped.

Way of the Hunter is a deep and immersive hunting sim with beautiful visuals that fans of the genre will love. Unfortunately, its slow-burn gameplay and pacing, combined with the precise shooting mechanics make this game hard to recommend for new players.

Graphics aren't everything for a hunting game, but they're still important. Way of the Hunter's gameplay needs to be improved.

Way of the Hunter brings us a hunting simulator that would have been a great experience. Due to its steep learning curve and various problems, it turned out disappointing.

Way of the Hunter isn't successful at integrating the realism it promised into the game. If it solves technical problems with further updates, then we'll have a good hunting game that we can spend hours playing. In it's current state, I can't recommend unless you have a deep passion for hunting. But I gotta admit even with optimization issues and game breaking bugs, it's still comforting to watch stunning sights.

A solid hunting sim, despite animals displaying behavioural problems and some bugs.

After each direct hit, you can see in slow motion and in great detail which trajectory your bullet traveled, where and with what force it hit the animal, which vital organs were pierced and at what point your poor prey died. No gratuitous violence, but a realistic, almost scientific representation of how you killed that innocent pheasant or that cute little deer. After more than three decades of playing video games, there is very little that makes us uncomfortable, but 'Way of the hunter' occasionally made us gulp.

What holds Way of the Hunter back is that most of it doesn’t feel fully realized or polished. Performance is an issue, bugs are an issue, accessibility is an issue and, in many cases, the quality of the game’s systems are an issue. While I suspect things will improve over time, Way of the Hunter is a long way from where my expectations lie.

There are people who will enjoy the dedication to making Way of the Hunter an ultra-realistic hunting simulation. Though I fear those people will instead be spending their days actually hunting. If you play video games to get some immersive feel and still have fun doing that thing you wouldn’t normally do in real life, you might not be as appreciative of the dedication to realism. While I fell into the latter camp, I know there are certainly people in the former camp. You’ll have to decide for yourself if Way of the Hunter is for you.