Greetings, Hunters!
As we close out another year, we want to take a moment to celebrate the journey we've shared together this year! Way of the Hunter isn’t just a game, it’s a shared experience built on your passion, insights, and support. Whether you’ve been with us since launch or joined this year, we’re grateful to have you along for the ride!
A Year to Remember
Together, we’ve navigated many updates, DLCs, and tweaks that have kept the game fresh and rewarding for all of you. The release of the Matariki Park DLC was a standout moment, allowing you to explore lush landscapes filled with Feral goat, Sambar deer, Himalayan tahr, and majestic Red deer (New Zealand). The addition of tripod stands brought an extra level of flexibility, making previously impossible shots viable.
We also expanded the game’s personalization options. New outfits give your favorite characters fresh looks. While some of you had mixed feelings about this DLC, we’ve loved seeing the incredible support through the many screenshots and videos you’ve shared featuring these new looks! For trophy hunters, adding over 400 new female taxidermy options meant your lodges could shine like never before. Archers found joy in the Bear Archery Pack DLC, featuring a new compound bow, crossbow, and our first-ever recurve bow, complete with new sounds to enhance the hunting experience even more.
Lintukoto Reserve DLC was another highlight, showcasing the charm of Scandinavia with its cold forests and new additions to the animal roster with the Arctic fox, the Northern lynx, and the Eurasian wolverine. We also saw the community step up to create a Brazilian Portuguese translation, making the game accessible to an even wider audience. Again, we want to thank HarpyEaglesBR for leading this awesome effort and helping us deliver for the Brazilian community. Last but not least, the overhaul of ammo mechanics was a game-changer. It was a long time coming, but we love what the ability to change ammo types brings to the game, and we hope that you do, too.
To cap the year off, we rolled out an update last week, bringing a new task to each map, a melanistic goat, and a whole bunch of fixes for Way of the Hunter. We’ve also rebalanced the hit energy of all firearms to make them feel their best in most situations, especially when shooting at long range. You can read the details here. As a small holiday gift from us to you, we’re excited to share the Way of the Hunter Original Soundtrack! It’s available for free in your Steam WOTH Library, and YouTube, so you can enjoy the music that’s become an integral part of the Way of the Hunter journey.
Community Spotlight
Your feedback continued to shape the game throughout the year. Due to popular demand, we decreased spawn rates for animals with rare fur, we improved framerate across all the maps, and we increased the range of animal analysis in Hunter sense while using binoculars. We also improved animal models, such as the Sika Deer and Northern Lynx, and we added several parking spots across Nez Perce Valley and Transylvania. We also added an option to change the intensity of the Hunter sense screen effect, an option to make the zoom on binoculars variable, and a bit of extra sauce to mechanical broadheads, as they now open in the bullet camera.
This is just to name a few things, and without mentioning all the bugs, big and small, that you helped us uncover and squash. Without your input, WOTH simply would not be the same game.
Your creativity and effort help make the game more enjoyable for everyone, and we appreciate that you choose to spend your precious time by sharing your experience and your love for the game. And if there is one thing we learned, it's that you love to keep us on our toes! From photoshopped trophy hunts to AI-generated images and songs from Bumblewoot, we've had *many* laughs in the office as we've shared your creations around. Keep 'em coming.
While we can’t share every piece of content, we encourage you to visit our official Discord server to check them out. If you’ve got your own content to share or you just want to hang out with fellow hunters, it's the perfect place to connect. Our moderators, content creators, developers from Nine Rocks Games, THQ Nordic, and HandyGames, as well as other players are all active in the conversations. With over 12,000 hunters on the server, it’s a thriving space where this community keeps growing. Click HERE and join us on Discord!
What’s Next?
We know many of you are eagerly anticipating news on what’s next for Way of the Hunter. We recognize that you’ve become accustomed to a certain cadence of roadmap announcements, but this time, we’re doing things a little differently. We’re getting ever closer to the day when we’ll be ready to talk specifics, and we truly look forward to it, but that day isn’t here quite yet.
While we’ve worked hard this year to bring you new features, maps, and updates, we also understand that some of our recent design decisions haven’t landed as well as we had hoped. We have certainly made mistakes, it's something we take seriously, and we strive to do better in the future. At the moment, we are making sure that we prioritize feedback and features that matter most to you, as we thoughtfully plan ahead.
To help us do this, we do have an important request for you, and what you can think of as a bit of a sneak peek. We’ve prepared a survey with a variety of questions, designed to help us understand how you play Way of the Hunter, and maybe most importantly, what you'd like to see moving forward - or to put it better, in what order.
We promise to take your feedback to heart as we keep working. Fill in the survey on via link.
We’ll have more to share on January 15th, when we’ll also share the most notable results of the survey. Thank you so much for your ongoing support - it’s because of you that we’re able to keep doing what we love, and we’re excited for what’s to come in the new year. Good things come to those who wait!
Way of the Hunter Mobile
In the meantime, we're eager to see Way of the Hunter expand to new platforms with the upcoming release of Way of the Hunter Mobile. While this port is being handled by our friends at HandyGames, we did get to take a peek, and boy are we excited. There is no release date yet, but it's for sure something to keep an eye on next year. You can learn more about it HERE.
What we've been up to
2024 was not only a fantastic year for WOTH, but also a remarkable one for us at Nine Rocks Games. We showcased our work and did talks at industry events including Gamescom, Game Access, GDS, and Game Days, and we got together with some regularity at team barbecues and small gatherings. We also supported local events, like game jams, hackathons, and local community gatherings, and we volunteered at a cynological center for dogs.
Thank you, Hunters, for a year to remember. We’re grateful for your support, passion, and feedback. Together, we’re building something special. Here’s to the next one!
Stay safe, stay sharp, and happy hunting!
On behalf of Nine Rocks Games,
Miriam, Community Manager
PS: Let us know your thoughts, and don’t forget to participate in the Player Survey. See you in January!
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