Hunting games are a popular niche of the FPS genre, but they're deceptively complex. While the premise "find and shoot an animal" is extremely simple, the actual mechanics of this task are often quite detailed. When an entire game is balanced around a single gameplay loop like this one, it can be difficult to keep things fun and keep players engaged.
If one needed any proof that video games can provide a satisfying hunting experience, Way of the Hunter provides it. Its take on realistic hunting in a gorgeous open world gives players a lot to love, but that's not to say that everything in the game is perfect. Here are some of the things fans loved about the game (and a couple that fans didn't).
6 Loved: Beautiful World
Simply put, Way of the Hunter is gorgeous. It's beautiful natural setting is fully open for players to wander around in, making the game as much an enjoyable walking simulator as it is a thrilling hunting sim. From the chortle of brooks to the sound of the wind, the world of Way of the Hunter feels deep and alive.
The animals feel like a natural part of it that environment, too, rather than mere puppets dropped onto a virtual stage to be shot at. Half the reason that hunting is so enjoyable in this game is that the Way of the Hunter does a fantastic job of depicting the journey to one's prey. Pulling the trigger and collecting one's prize may be the climax of one's hard work, but getting to wander these vibrant forests and fields is a pleasure in itself.
5 Didn't Love: Character Models
There's one downside to the beauty and authenticity of Way of the Hunter's world: deviations from that beauty and authenticity are all the more glaring because of the fidelity elsewhere. Though overall the game does a fantastic job at creating the forests, mountains, and trails that make up its landscape, its character models aren't always so pristine.
Though the animal models are by no means terrible, several of them are just a bit off, with proportions or movements that don't line up to their real world counterparts. None of these deviations are truly egregious--for the most part the game's animals are faithful recreations--but there's occasionally enough wrong that the player does a double take before sending a satisfying shot downrange and being swept away once more by the thrill of the hunt. In a game that's all about finding and shooting animals, it's just a shame that they don't always look more like themselves.
4 Loved: Realistic Shooting
If everything is great in a hunting game except the hunting, that game's going to struggle. Fortunately for Way of the Hunter, the actual mechanics of lining up and taking a shot are one of the best things about it. Way of the Hunter is an immersive open world game, and one of the things that makes it so immersive is the realism it brings to shooting.
Most of the calculations that a real hunter would need to make in order to land a shot, the player needs to make. Not accounting for bullet drop or the animal's positioning at the moment of impact is a sure way to lose one's prey, and it's this kind of gritty realism that makes shooting so satisfying. Unlike games in which the player is all-but guaranteed to land a shot, the possibility of missing (or hitting but only wounding) is always real in Way of the Hunter, which makes it that much more satisfying when the player does everything right and hits their mark.
3 Didn't Love: Slow Movement
There are plenty of shooters in which the player can sprint, run up walls, and vault objects in order to traverse their maps gracefully and move in closer for the kill. Most of these mechanics are highly unrealistic, however, so shooters that pride themselves on realism inevitably dispense with these exaggerated movements in favor of focusing on the ways in which people with guns actually move.
The problem is that the way hunters actually move is slow. Yes, it is realistic for the hunter's maximum speed to be relatively slow compared to the animals they're pursuing. It's also realistic for the hunter to choose to walk rather than run, slowing themselves down even further in exchange for becoming stealthier and being able to sneak up on their prey. There is no question that these things are realistic. There is, however, a question about whether they're fun. Players' tastes will differ, and while some will enjoy the realism of stalking one's way forward, others will be frustrated by the game's slow movement.
2 Loved: Tracking
Tracking in a hunting game is a juggling act. If it's too hard, the player will never find their prey. If it's too easy, the player will find their prey with zero effort, denying any sense of accomplishment that would otherwise come with the find. Striking the right balance between the frustration of finding nothing and the frustration of finding too much is hard, but games that nail it provide an almost unparalleled moment of satisfaction.
Way of the Hunter nails it. With binoculars, scopes, calls, Hunter Sense, and the hunter's own eyes and ears at their disposal, the game lets players choose how they want to track animals, and they basically all feel good. By giving players enough resources to accomplish their task without too much stress while still making the hunt exciting, Way of the Hunter accomplishes one of its most basic but essential missions: to make tracking fun. In a big open world, that means everything.
1 Loved: Bullet Camera
In high skill activities, not having enough feedback is frustrating. When the player does something wrong, they don't necessarily know what happened and how not to make the same mistake going forward. When the player does something right, they don't necessarily understand how to capitalize on their strengths.
Way of the Hunter solves this problem with a detailed bullet camera for every kill. The player is able to see everything from their bullet's trajectory through the animals body to the point at which the bullet lost momentum and was no longer doing maximum organ damage. This kind of detailed record keeping allows the player to understand what they did right, or wrong, with every shot. In a game that takes realism so seriously, that makes a huge difference. Rather than land a shot and not know whether it was blind luck or their skills that brought the animal down, the player will always have a good idea of how their skills as a hunter are progressing.
Way of the Hunter is available now for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.