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That being said, unlike the other newer campaigns this does not count as an "ending". Going to five pebbles may give you some interesting insight into a certain... dilemma... you are currently in. I'd recommend going to both, but chances are you don't have enough time to accomplish such a feat first time around.
Hunter is magnitudes harder than most of the new slugcats, just by merit of how difficult it can be to finish a run without a proper plan and efficient karma retention. If you haven't realized why yet, I'll leave it for you to discover.
I suppose this begs the question: what other campaigns have you completed thus far?
The fastest and most recommended route is Farm Arrays - Sky Islands (Echo) - Chimney Canopy - The Wall - 5P (eat neuron) - The Wall (Echo) - Chimney Canopy (Echo) - Industrial Complex - Garbage Wastes/Shaded Citadel (depend on how high your karma level is at this point) - Shoreline - Moon - Shaded Citadel - Industrial Complex - Outskirts - Drainage System - Filtration System.
The hardest part of this route is Sky Islands, right at the beginning, so if you mess things up, you can reset the run fairly quickly.
Once I was in Shoreline, everything was pretty much fine. Then I turned around after Moon, got all the way back to Shaded Citadel, saved a cycle, and then passed the Crypts and got into the Leg. I am now down to 6 cycles. I know I can make it up the Leg using 1-3 cycles depending on whether I starve myself or speedrun for the wall above the cloudline, but I mean, once you've gotten yourself to the overhang the Cycle count essentially pauses (since you have no rain to worry about and you can risk going a long time without saving).
Just Survivor.
I'm not new to RW, I've been playing it on and off for years, I just never got into Hunter and I don't care about playing Monk (although I may at some point for the sake of completion). I've finished Survivor a couple of times actually, and after that I just started modding the game for new regions. That was a year or so back, and I'm returning to it now after DP.
I understand why a lot of people tend to skip out on Moon, but I think it's important to experiment when you're given a new character. I think 5P and Moon are equally viable candidates for a first destination, since a lot of campaigns happen at different times under different circumstances with different goals.
Also, if you get into the DP slugcats, I cannot emphasize enough that it is worth trying to go through the Leg every time you try a new slugcat. It's inefficient compared to climbing the wall, sure, but I've seen so many people skip this part and end up missing contextual clues about the timeline. Hunter will have a very hard time in the Leg, but some of the changes you see are telling about where he is in time. (Definitely do not miss out on this with the last 3 unlockable DLC slugcats, they are the most extreme in this regard.)
While there's definitely clear optimal routes to take as Hunter, I think learning how the map has changed and where to go/avoid by experience is half of the game. Don't forget that you're on a time limit still, but don't let it dictate what factors you're willing to experiment with.
It sounds like 4 areas, but upper Shaded Citadel is super free. With Hunter, I can just run from Moon to the 1st shelter in Industrial Complex through Citadel in just 1 cycle.
Same mindset, Drainage System is also very free. Even as Survivor, running from Outskirts gate to Filtration System gate is very fast and consistent in just 1 cycle.
So the real struggle is just Industrial Complex and Outskirts.
Edit: I could have sworn starving in a shelter would not let the cycle clock tick down, but it is. I woke up on cycle 6, hibernated without enough food, and then it said cycle 5. Has it always done that or is this a change with the update?
Well, I should have mentioned it in my OP but I forgot. I played Hunter a tiny bit back in 2017 when I got the game and then didn't touch it.
This week when I restarted it, I kept trying to go from Farm Arrays to Outskirts and Drainage. It's a long path with so many potential obstacles (and scav tolls) that I decided to try going another way, and found that going into Sky Islands was fairly clearly the way you're "supposed to go" as Hunter. The gate is much closer, there are far fewer enemies between you and it, you have exactly the karma you need to get through it, and SI's shelter isn't terribly far away from the start of Hunter's campaign.
So it became clear which way the game wanted me to go, I was just asking if anyone had a relative impression about how much easier the "intended" path was than the one I took.
The most important thing for hunter are the two first echoes. You want to get both of them without losing cycles to the death, get the one in sky island and then the one at chimney canopy and you'll have a great start. Upon reaching the lower section of the wall, you are pretty much on "invencible" mode, you can die a thousand times, but it doesn't matter. Upon reaching Five Pebbles and the echo at the top of the wall, your karma will be maxed.
Next is a very important part. I've tried to follow advice from a youtuber in this part, but DO NOT go to the shoreline through the garbage wastes, playing as hunter this part is much harder, it will also make the shoreline entrance a pain in the ass because there's a white lizard that always seem to spaw right on the first vent.
Go through the shaded cidatel instead. This part of the map is surprisingly chill as hunter and there's plenty of mice you can eat. Entering the shoreline through the shaded citadel will also get you quite close to Moon's facility.
Ok, now to the MOST IMPORTANT PART, I also had to reset the run from scratch multiple times because the same youtube video recommended me a terrible route.
Do not, DO NOT make that dumbass route all the way back to outskirts and enter the drainage system. Not only it's hard as ♥♥♥♥, it will waste you too many cycles plus there are a lot of karma gates that can screw you up if you died too many times, the end of the drainage system also has some incredibly painful puzzle section that will also probably kill you.
The best way to reach the end of the game is to enter the subterranean through the shoreline. It is a somewhat difficult route with a bit of puzzles, but as long as you have the karma requirement, you are going to only need to pass through ONE gate and that's it.
Upon entering the subterranean and saving on the shelter, you have pretty much a straight route to the last part of the game with no gate requirements. You can die and even get zero karma, but as long as you have two cycles left, all you need to do is to travel to the next shelter in the dark area which will place you quite close to the temple, and that's it.
You've won the game as hunter.
It may vary from player to player, but I had a lot of ease taking the moon>subterranean>filtration instead of the other way, which costed me about 3 failed runs. The flooded part of the shoreline you need to travel can be a bit tricky, but there were no enemies in there. Once you sleep in that subterranean shelter, karma stops being important since there are no more gates, the path to filtration is pretty much a straight line from right to left and there are firecracker plants in there to scare the centipides.
Maybe I've lucked out since I also got the shelter to malfunction, so when I got out I had a bit of rain to scare the subterranean enemies, but compared to the advice I got to go all the way back to outskirts then enter drainage, this route was a breeze for me and I've got a win with 10 cycles left.
The puzzle that I mention in the drainage is that section with a bunch of water tubes with water going up and down, it's easy to get stuck in the small tubes linking then and run out of breath.
I took the shortest path to Moon first. This not only required long stretches of not getting killed in order to make it to shelters, it also meant you needed to carry a pearl in addition to the neuron in order to get past tolls (this would be easier if you simply stored them in your stomach, but I refused to because I wanted to deliver the green pearl to Moon), AND you do not come across any Echoes either.
Farm Arrays -> Outskirts -> Drainage System -> Garbage Wastes -> Shoreline -> Citadel -> Exterior (The Leg, Underhang, The Wall) -> 5P from the top of his can, then in reverse -> The Wall -> Chimney -> Sky Islands -> Farm Arrays -> Sub.
Outskirts, GW and Drainage were the worst of these. Outskirts is jam packed with lizards of all kinds, getting worse as you go. GW has vultures and centipedes galore, and trying to avoid the surface where these are is a worse idea (the rot exists down there now). Drainage isn't too bad but has a couple rooms that are awful, one of them full of leaplizards and dropwigs. Ascending the second half of the Leg was second worst, due to the long stretch of ascension awash in leaplizards and spitting spiders.
I've started a second run and got as far as 5P, following the "intended" route. In my view it's certainly less stressful and jaw-clenching as the route above. I would consider Moon route that I took "hard mode" for Hunter, which is already meant to be hard. Just to answer my own OP's question, yes, going Sky Islands and beyond is easier.
The karma gates along this route are all relatively low, which is good because you'll likely die a lot, but this is canceled out by the fact that by the time you get to 5P you'll already be fairly short on cycles, and you'll be desperately trying to beat the clock on the way back down to Sub.
Chimney isn't bad at all, the route is really short. You only enter it when traversing from The Wall to Farm Arrays, and depending on how things go you can clear clean through in less than 1/2 a cycle.