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theHunter: Call of the Wild
theHunter: Call of the Wild, imaginatively and uniquely titled, is what you might guess; a hunting game. That should, if you know nothing else, be where your guessing stops.
theHunter is not a big hoo-rah game of being a big ballsy bastard, speeding around, blowing the crap out of animals. Unless you set out to deliberately break the game it is a rather chilled and serene experience. If you do set out to break the game you can rack up kills quickly and easily (or at least you could, according to some.) That, however, is against the spirit of the game, and you’re only cheating yourself, because if you play within the spirit of the game theHunter is a beautiful experience, visually impressive and mentally relaxing, about tracking through a huge open map where you will, after a challenge, find an animal worthy of your hunt.
Some people have described theHunter as a walking simulator. And you will do a lot of walking, as well as crouching and crawling. This isn’t a problem. The maps included with the base game are stunning examples of slices of a world that’s interesting and a joy to be in.
The animals you shoot are a way of offering purpose and keeping score in a game that’s about slowing down and experiencing what’s around you. You won’t die. You won’t lose. You’ll continue on for as long as you like.
The Mechanics
The basic mechanics are you shoot an animal. To shoot an animal you have to find an animal. To find an animal you follow their tracks (often for a very long period of time, sometimes frustratingly in circles,) you listen for their calls, or you learn through exploration where their feeding, watering and resting grounds are.
As you play you earn cash from harvesting animals and XP from successful kills. This allows you to purchase better weapons that better suit your play-style and for taking down more difficult prey, and better equipment to give you more of an advantage. The XP allows you level up skills that allow you to track, shoot, and learn more about what you’re following.
There are missions, but they’re very loose. At most they’re encouragement to explore the map and widen your range.
As with most “walking simulators” a big part of the game is it’s very much what you make of the experience. It’s possible to kill some animals (once you’ve figured things out) quite easily. However, to get bigger, more unique, higher score animals you’ll need to really work on your tracking, your knowledge and your patience, and have some luck. But that’s not that point, not really. It’s very much about the journey. Spending one hour at the beginning of the game tracking an animal as you’re starting out can be just as rewarding as finding a rare animal late in the game (not that I’ve ever got that far.) Everything along the way has meaning for you, because it’s your doing, in a beautiful world, with your skills and determination.
The Narrative LP
I like writing and creating and I’m not a big fan of games telling me what to think. I like games that are rich and deep enough that you create the moments of importance yourself, not because it’s written that way, but because of the effort you put in, where your triumphs and successes are your own. I suggest you buy and play the game to get that experience because I will be creating the moments of importance writing this as a narrative LP from the perspective of the character in the game, with her own backstory, thoughts, issues and hopes informing what she, as the narrator, says in the LP.
Do come along for the journey with your star, Eimear Fudd.