''theHunter'' is a series of simulation video games developed by Expansive Worlds and published by its parent company, Avalanche Studios. The first game in the series, known as ''theHunter: Classic'', was developed and published by Emote Games, in association with Avalanche Studios, and released in April 2009. Subsequently, Avalanche Studios bought the rights to the franchise and opened Expansive Worlds as a subsidiary that would exclusively focus on ''theHunter'' development. A standalone expansion, ''theHunter: Primal'', was developed and published by Expansive Worlds and Avalanche Studios, and released on March 15, 2015. The most recent entry in the series, ''theHunter: Call of the Wild'', was developed by Expansive Worlds and published by Avalanche Studios on February 16th, 2017.

Gameplay

''theHunter'' games play as first-person

hunting Hunting is the Human activity, human practice of seeking, pursuing, capturing, and killing wildlife or feral animals. The most common reasons for humans to hunt are to obtain the animal's body for meat and useful animal products (fur/hide (sk ...

games that recreate hunting wild animals in a manner as realistic as possible. The initial setting is on an open world island based on various locations, including the islands and surroundings of

Washington state Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from the national capital, both named after George Washington ...

in the United States. The player can hunt from a variety of animals ranging from Deer, Elk, Bears, Rabbits,

Birds Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

and other types depending on the reserves. To play the player must first create a character on the game's website, which includes social networking tools and messaging capabilities to allow players to connect and share in-game experiences. Creating a character requires selecting an avatar from a pool of unique faces, and adding a unique name. Once a character is created and the tutorial completed, the player can hunt freely, activate missions and earn one of two types of in-game currency called gm$. Completing the first 3 whitetail deer missions unlocks further missions from other animals in the game. Players must use natural cover to avoid detection by the animals in the game; each animal

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

reacts to different stimuli in different ways. Scent detection for the quadrupeds is their keenest sense, which means the player has to be aware of wind direction or the animal might smell the player's scent and run off. Players must also pay careful attention to the soundscape, listening for subtle signals that indicate the presence of animals in the locality. The core gameplay revolves around tracking and harvesting (killing) animals with the weapons provided, although a digital camera is also provided for those who do not wish to shoot with a gun or a bow (taking these digital pictures only store in files on computer). Animal tracks can be found and identified with the "Huntermate", an in-game GPS-like device that identifies tracks, scat, rooting, bedding, blood trails, and animal calls and grunts. To hunt certain species, ''theHunter'' requires the player to utilise the correct weapon for each hunt. Most bows are considered ethical for all species while rifles, handguns and shotguns of different calibre must be selected according to the animal the player will hunt. Players that break this rule lose a ranking on the animals trophy rating. Hunting areas added since May 2011 are: Settler Creeks (rugged North American mountain forest with abandoned homesteads); Redfeather Falls (rough Canadian mountains and swamps); Hirschfelden (German highland farms and forests); Hemmeldal (Northern Swedish snowy mountains, swamps and icy lakes), which is also the first reserve to allow hunting during snowfall; Rougarou Bayou (Southern United States); Val des Bois (rugged mountains, meadows and woods in the Alps), Bushranger's Run (dry, rocky and sandy Australian Outback), Whiterime Ridge (chilly arctic landscape surrounded by high mountains and icefields), Timbergold Trails (Rocky Mountains-inspired Reserve), and Piccabeen Bay (Australian tropics-inspired reserve). Subscribers can choose to start anywhere in these hunting areas (provided they have a tent, otherwise a hunting lodge can be chosen to start in a list of two or three in each reserve), and at any time of day, between 5 AM and 6 PM.

Development

''theHunter: Classic''

Prior to announcing ''theHunter: Classic'', British developer Emote Games and Swedish developer Avalanche Studios revealed on 8 April 2008 that they had formed a

joint venture A joint venture (JV) is a business entity created by two or more parties, generally characterized by shared ownership, shared returns and risks, and shared governance. Companies typically pursue joint ventures for one of four reasons: to acce ...

through which they would create a "unique cross-format socially-enabled game". ''theHunter'' was officially announced on 17 September 2008. The game was released as a free-to-play title in April 2009. Avalanche Studios announced on 18 February 2010 that they had acquired the

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

to ''theHunter: Classic'' from Emote Games. According to Avalanche Studios' chief technology officer, Linus Blomberg, the studio lost and 20 employees due to publishing deals in 2009, because of which they sought to take advantage of ''theHunter: Classic'' independently. He further noted that, although the game had 100,000 registered users at the time, the number of active users had declined significantly since November 2009. Christofer Sundberg,

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

for Avalanche Studios, explained that the company planned to establish a separately managed

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company, or daughter company is a company (law), company completely or partially owned or controlled by another company, called the parent company or holding company, which has legal and financial control over the subsidia ...

studio that would focus exclusively on ''theHunter: Classic''. This studio was announced as Expansive Worlds on 23 March 2010, with Stefan Pettersson, previously senior consultant at Netlight Consulting, leading the establishment as

managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

''theHunter: Primal''

On 24 November 2014, Expansive Worlds announced ''theHunter: Primal'', a standalone expansion to ''theHunter'' that would feature dinosaurs. The game was made available through Steam Early Access on 15 December 2014, and was fully released on 31 March 2015. The game was developed and published collaboratively by Expansive Worlds and Avalanche Studios.

''theHunter: Call of the Wild''

A sequel to both games, titled ''theHunter: Call of the Wild'', was announced on 28 November 2016. This time developed by Expansive Worlds and only published by Avalanche Studios, the game was released on 16 February 2017. Expansive Worlds confirmed on 27 March 2017 that the game would also receive

ports Ports collections (or ports trees, or just ports) are the sets of makefiles and Patch (Unix), patches provided by the BSD-based operating systems, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD, as a simple method of installing software or creating binary packages. T ...

for

PlayStation 4 The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Announced as the successor to the PlayStation 3 in February 2013, it was launched on November 15, 2013, in North America, November 29, 2013, in ...

and

Xbox One The Xbox One is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. Announced in May 2013, it is the successor to Xbox 360 and the third console in the Xbox#Consoles, Xbox series. It was first released in North America, parts of Europe, Austra ...

. These were released on 2 October 2017. The game continued to receive development throughout 2019 with the introduction of TruRacs, an implementation of random rack design being applied to animals with racks that provides more diversity in the look of certain animals. Expansive Worlds announced that they aim to include TruRacs for all species that have horn/antler variations within the game. To date, Expansive Worlds has released seventeen hunting reserves for ''theHunter: Call of the Wild'': Africa * Vurhonga Savannah (2018),

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

Asia * Medved-Taiga National Park (2017),

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

, Russia * Sundarpatan Hunting Reserve (2024),

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

Europe * Hirschfelden Hunting Reserve (2017),

Central Europe Central Europe is a geographical region of Europe between Eastern Europe, Eastern, Southern Europe, Southern, Western Europe, Western and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Central Europe is known for its cultural diversity; however, countries in ...

* Cuatro Colinas Game Reserve (2019),

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

* Revontuli Coast (2022),

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

* Salzwiesen Park (2024),

Schleswig-Holstein Schleswig-Holstein (; ; ; ; ; occasionally in English ''Sleswick-Holsatia'') is the Northern Germany, northernmost of the 16 states of Germany, comprising most of the historical Duchy of Holstein and the southern part of the former Duchy of S ...

, Germany Oceania * Te Awaroa National Park (2020),

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

* Emerald Coast Australia (2023),

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

North America * Layton Lake District (2017),

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

* Yukon Valley (2019), Yukon River Basin, Alaska * Silver Ridge Peaks (2020),

Colorado Colorado is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

* Mississippi Acres Preserve (2021),

Mississippi Mississippi ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Alabama to the east, the Gulf of Mexico to the south, Louisiana to the s ...

* Rancho del Arroyo (2021),

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is divided into Municipalities of Sonora, 72 ...

, Mexico * New England Mountains (2022),

New Hampshire New Hampshire ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Gulf of Maine to the east, and the Canadian province of Quebec t ...

* Askiy Ridge Hunting Reserve (2025),

Alberta Alberta is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Canada. It is a part of Western Canada and is one of the three Canadian Prairies, prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to its west, Saskatchewan to its east, t ...

, Canada South America * Parque Fernando (2018), Patagonia, Argentina In January 2020, Expansive Worlds announced a beta which would look at changes to weapons and scoring of the animal system in the game to make the game more in line with simulation play and provide a better overall experience. With feedback provided the Expansive Worlds team launched a second round of their beta in late January to further get feedback on the proposed Scoring 2.0 system. The Animal Scoring System 2.0 went live on 18 February 2020.

References

External links

theHunter Classic

theHunter Call of the Wild
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunter Avalanche Studios games First-person shooters Free-to-play video games Hunting video games Open-world video games PlayStation 4 games Video game franchises introduced in 2009 Video game franchises Video games developed in Sweden Video games set in Alaska Video games set in Argentina Video games set in Canada Video games set in Europe Video games set in Finland Video games set in Germany Video games set in Mexico Video games set in Mississippi Video games set in New Hampshire Video games set in New Zealand Video games set in Siberia Video games set in South Africa Video games set in Spain Video games set in the United States Windows games Windows-only games Xbox Cloud Gaming games