I really, sincerely wanted to give this game a positive review. But I can't, and I look forward to changing it to positive in the future.

I recommend this game only for people who haven't purchased WotH (1), (with hesitation)
If you already have the first game, you should simply wait.

As someone who played WotH1, going from that game to this game is not a night and day difference like I thought it would be. There are differences for sure, but I found myself asking repeatedly why they couldn't have just kept working on the original game instead of making this one (that looks almost identical) from the ground up? It seemed counter intuitive.

I have noticed maybe 4 improvements total. Which is not enough for me to confidently justify a $35 price point from the perspective of having already spent money on the first game (I got this one while it was on sale thankfully)
- Animals, particularly racks, look much more varied between the fauna.
- Animal behavior has been noticeably improved, deer will snort and wheeze, stop their hooves, will be more cautious, etc..
- Graphics look (marginally) better? Still not enough for me to think it was appropriate to make an entire new game.
- There's a dog but I literally don't use it. It's almost inconvenient to do so. Cool feature though.
- The new UI is good. I appreciate it greatly, just not the map UI, it's atrocious in comparison to the first one.

As far as general issues go, there were plenty of them.
- Animals spooked via gun shot and herd-panic do NOT run as far as they should when there is no cover. When an animal is in flight mode, its goal is to run until it doesn't feel vulnerable anymore and it feels relatively safe. Going 120 yards to the other side of the hill in a completely open area is not "safe", deer especially like brush and tree lines. It is hilarious I can miss a shot or kill a deer, walk like 15 seconds and then kill another, and rinse and repeat. It's not that much better on "hard" mode either, yes, they run further, good. They still run out into open areas though.
- Driving around an animal does not cause the animal to re-path in some instances. I've spooked fauna in my vehicle, driven around them, just for them to run straight into my vehicle like 5 seconds after the fact. It's like they lack the ability to re-path after being spooked in some ways.
- The "hunt rating" system is meaningless garbage. The practicality of my shot placement, the ethics of my kill, my tracking time, etc.. does not seem to effect the "hunt rating" at all? What is the point of a "hunt rating" if it does not RATE my HUNT? Why can I shoot a Grizzly bear 9 times with a 28 gauge shotgun and 2 times with a 308 and still get an "S+" hunt rating??? That makes absolutely zero sense.
- Animal foot step sounds are nearly incomprehensible, especially when compared to the CotW. The little pitter patter of steps are indistinguishable in volume or pattern, and don't seem to actually line up with the animals gait or speed in any meaningful capacity. If I have 2 dall sheep in front of me, and one is 10 yards away and the other is 40 yards away, you would think I would be able to distinguish their foot steps, but no, you can't. It's like a mono-tone audio track that only plays at the same volume level for each foot step.
- 100 yards is not 100 yards. 100 yards in game feels more like 100 feet for some reason. I'm not saying you have your proportions wrong mathematically, but something with the camera or whatever just makes the size perception with distance wildly off.
- I expected an improvement with the gun audio but was left relatively disappointed. It's not bad per-se but it's kind of lacking for a game that is based around firearms. The guns lack bass, range, and crispness. They sound dull and powerless.
- The level style locks on everything is boring and almost takes me out of the experience. I like the skill system, but levels needed for equipment? No. Leave the requirement to money, nothing else.
- The map UI is nothing but a step-back.
- "Normal" mode feels like easy mode and "Hard" mode feels like normal mode.
- Ballistics dont feel like too much of an improvement from the first game. Why is a soft tipped bullet that clips the spine and goes completely into the left lung a "non fatal" shot? Shots like that should result in the deer taking much longer to find, and require you to wait, but oddly this doesn't seem to be a mechanic, the deer just doesn't end up dying.


Don't get me started on the experimental build. Much much more problems going on with the multiplayer mode. Why does the LAST game have a multiplayer mode but this one hasn't even added it yet beyond beta? I get it's absolutely riddled with issues, and YES, this is an early access game, but that excuse sort of goes out the window when you have the foundation of a game that already exists, which was released only 4 years ago that looks and functions 98% the same.

I guess I expected, naively, that this game would have been a general improvement on Way of the Hunter 1 in its last state, even in early access. Don't get me wrong, I can TELL that there are attempts here for improvement, there are definitely improvements in the game, I just don't get why you would ask $35 from your fan base again for a game that functions like we're back at square one in 2022.

It's not necessarily a "broken" game, and many of the issues I listed are negligible throughout the general gameplay, they're more so inconveniences than constant annoyances. The developers are working on fixes, and this game, unlike Way of the Hunter 1, is actually receiving continued support. So, if you already own WOTH1, DON'T get this and WAIT. If you're in the market for a hunting sim and you have money to burn, you may as well get this.

only look at this honest review

this game is better than call of the wild it offers more without buying dlc but the bad about it it's early access somethings like multiplayer aren't in yet but i can assure you the calls the way the animals respond and the guns sound and feel to me as a hunter way better.

the only issues right now are animal ai they need to make them more realistic and lag is a issue on some types of rigs but overall this is the best hunting game i think on the market once it gets a couple things fleshed out it will be the top dog for hunting the sky is the limit with this game and they can really make something scp here. if you perfer realism over cartoonish hunts like call of the wild like i do this game is for you

i give this game a 8/10 once it's polished it will get a 10/10 from me

I really want to like this game, but the spooking/suspicious noise heard mechanics are too sensitive. I'm doing a mission where I have to harvest an elk, but as I am lying prone trying to get to them I keep bugging out on rocks making me get up and fall down a bunch of times, which in turn spooks the elk. I don't think I will continue to play until the game is fully released. Not only that but I feel like harvest rewards aren't enough either. I do not recommend this game in its current state. All though I do like that they have suppressors and decent thermal scopes unlike a lot of hunting games and they have unique species on the Africa reserve that not a lot of hunting games add, such as ostriches, hippos, and Nile crocs. That being said I would still Wait until full release and then check back and see if they have made any significant changes, until then I do not recommend.

This game needs optimized extremely bad. I have a decent PC and noticed some absurd amounts of memory and cpu it is using. Well even switching to a monster 50 series r9 it seems the game still wants to hog as much resource as possible. Don't get me wrong, it's not like it's lagging or running bad at all. It runs great, but it absolutely doesn't need to use the amount of resource it does. There are for sure LOD issues etc that need major optimization and I think the dev needs to focus on that first before adding anything else to the game. I'll change my review back to recommended after I see an improvement in the next couple updates.

As soon as way of the hunter came out, and I saw that slow walk when using a caller was a thing, I promptly provided feedback stating that they should change it to a normal pace. Why make us walk so slow when using a caller? Feels weird. I can easily walk at a normal pace and use a caller. So who tf said we should make them walk slow when they use a call, and who in tf said hehe oh yeah perfect that’s realistic.

Well, you’re not going to believe this, take a seat if you have to, in way of the hunter 2, YOU STOP COMPLETELY. Are you out of your mind? Is this a prank? A gosh dang dream? Nope.

0/10 never gna stop to call again.

tripod keeps disappearing, missions bugged, poor performance

I will update review and change into positive if games will improve with future updates
But for current moment game looks not ready for play, but i really have a big hope on developers because some things in this game like idea of herding, really great graphics of nature and animals, sounds, the map enviroiment are good
But most problems for today are: behavior of animals feels not realistic (they can run into you or do a circle or go into water and be slowed right in front of you), overall many gameplay things still feel buggy (character movement, shooting, interactions with things), shooting as well feels no realistic from how bullet goes, shoot sound, ballistic all of that should improve
The dog behavior need improvement too, i like to see dog running near me during my hunt and just joy of walking in a world but i barely use a dog since he is not helping well, when you ask dog for his main purpose to track animal bleed he can go somewhere in oposite side of animal and spend way more time than i just follow blood track by myself. So dog feels really like a toy near but not a real helper. It definetely should improve and be more useful
My fps with everything ultra 2k resolution, dlss qualty with my 9800 x3d and 4090 were in a range of 80-120, it was not bad and graphics looks pretty realistic but not too crazy to have that fps, it's not like i have render for miles and everything looks crazy detailed, it just well look ofm what can be with UE5 but i would like have better optimized fps and have more stable fps without drops. Some nature looks in forest with a sun rays through trees and green look wonderfull but overall views no so crazy to have that fps numbers
So overall game loot not very bad and you can get a nice hunting experience here, but compare to Woth 1 or Cotw this game not even close to be ready for release at current moment unless developers will hard work and change most of problems i and other people in reviews described

Deer took 5 12 gauge buck shot rounds at point blank range in the lungs while stuck it walked 100 yards fell down and layed there for two min still bleeding out. I put one more round in the lungs to put it down fully and it just got up ran away not bleeding any more. You play as a mentally ill person that took a job to help this high end hunting ranch to help solve its problems. In turn they pay you bottom dollar for your kills all while expecting you to spend your pay check to fix up their hunting land. Yes you pay to fix their bridges, clean up pollution on their land, set up new hunting stands, and even paying to remove invasive species all so they can make more money of your pay check. Now don't for get they will penalize you for using to big a caliber all while telling you pick ammunition by tier also never telling what tier any of it is in. It feel like Ai was used to place locations of feed zones. I have been finding them on basiclly a cliff face. Some areas are so spammed with zones while others are nearly empty. in one zone it said there was five species to hunt I got nothing but boar and a bison spawn nothing else at all.

As per now (15.08.2026) I wouldn't recommend to buy this game in early access unless you're a hunting sims enthusiast. The game is too raw, unfinished, clunky and buggy. It's painfully work-in-progress. If you want a cleaner experience, try Way of the Hunter. In this early stage you will encounter all kinds of bugs, glitches, inconveniences and poor QoL. Proceed with caution. I wish the game all the best but to be honest, I doubt they'll be able to polish the game before the release date (late September).

pretty cool except for when the mission that makes you use a bow and crossbow like some homosexual hipster