Introduction

If you've ever wanted to trade in your sweaty online shooter habits for the refined thrill of sneaking up on an elk while thinking deeply about wind direction, theHunter: Call of the Wild on PS4 is your strangely soothing ticket. Developed by Expansive Worlds and published by Avalanche Studios, Call of the Wild takes hunting sims out of the realm of spreadsheets and into cinematic, painfully photogenic fields where every rustle could be dinner or a very judgmental squirrel. Released on consoles in October 2017 after a February launch on PC, this sequel builds on a long-running series that started with theHunter: Classic and even took a delightful detour into dinosaur buddy horror with theHunter: Primal. The result is a game that treats animal behaviour like a puzzle, the environment like a mood ring, and the player like someone who brought a camera to a gunfight - sometimes literally, because there is a camera you can use if you prefer to Instagram your prey rather than harvest it.

Gameplay

Call of the Wild plays in first-person as a hunting simulation that leans hard into realism without being so serious it forgets to be fun. The core loop is gloriously simple and also strangely meditative: pick a reserve, pick a weapon (or a camera, if you're suddenly feeling vegan), stalk, track, listen, account for the wind, and then make a choice that could either end in a clean ethical harvest or a terrible YouTube montage of missed opportunities. The game gives you a Huntermate device - basically a GPS/forensics kit for wildlife - that highlights tracks, scat, bedding, blood trails and animal calls. It feels like being 90% detective and 10% nature documentary narrator. Missions are available and tied to progression via in-game currency (gm$), and completing early whitetail deer missions unlocks more varied animal hunts so you don't spend forever staring at antlers. What makes the hunting actually tense is the animal AI and the attention to senses. Different species react to stimuli differently, and scent detection for quadrupeds is crucial: if you don't watch the wind, your carefully executed approach becomes the most disappointing magic trick in video games as the deer bolts without looking back. Sound matters too - the game rewards you for listening to the environment. You'll be relying on ambient audio cues and subtle movement more than bright objective markers, which is excellent when you want immersion and mildly inconvenient if you prefer being spoon-fed waypoints. Weapons are part of the simulation's moral code: bows are considered ethical for most species, while rifles, handguns and shotguns come in different calibres and are best matched to appropriate prey. Use the wrong gun and the game penalises your trophy rating - which is a gentle way of saying the game cares about your hunting etiquette more than half your high school did. You can also take pictures with the provided digital camera; these are stored on your computer if you want to be an animal paparazzo instead of a predator. This option is genuinely welcome in a game that otherwise lets you do proper hunts - not everyone wants to shoot things, and the camera is a fun non-violent way to enjoy the reserves. The reserves are the real stars. Since Call of the Wild launched, Expansive Worlds has added a huge variety of hunting areas, from Layton Lake's Pacific Northwest vibes to Vurhonga Savannah in Southern Africa, to arctic Whiterime Ridge and Aussie-inspired Bushranger's Run. You can choose to start anywhere within a reserve if you have a tent, and most reserves let you select time of day between dawn and early evening. Over time the developers expanded the roster to seventeen reserves spanning continents, complete with temperamental weather and biomes that make tracking feel like an expedition in a nature documentary series you made for yourself. The game continued to evolve post-launch, with features like TruRacs introducing random rack designs so antlers don't all look like they were produced on the same factory line, and an Animal Scoring System 2.0 launched in February 2020 to refine weapons and scoring to favor simulation-minded play. The constant updates give the sense that the world is still breathing and that the team cares about making the hunting experience more varied and fair - which is comforting for a game that hinges on patience and nuance rather than reflexes.

Graphics

Graphically, Call of the Wild is often breathtaking and sometimes aggressively photogenic. The game loves long vistas, golden-hour light, and cinematic fog that makes you feel like a nature photographer with a very good contract. Each reserve has its own palette - snow-slicked tundra, misty forests, sun-baked savannah - and the environmental detail is the kind of thing that will pause players mid-hunt to look at a tree for five minutes. Animal models are well-animated, and the TruRacs system helps prevent deer from looking like they all shopped at the same antler boutique. On PS4, the experience is polished: frame rates are stable enough for smooth stalking, and textures hold up at the kinds of distances this game asks you to admire. There are occasional hiccups and the occasional pop-in, but those feel forgivable when you're watching a buck trot off into a sunset that honestly looks like it should have its own Instagram filter. The sound design complements the visuals nicely - wind direction and subtle rustles are not just pretty wallpaper, they're essential gameplay cues. All together, the sensory package makes the world convincing enough that you'll be suspiciously invested in whether a raccoon you never knew existed decides to photobomb your hunt.

Conclusion

theHunter: Call of the Wild on PS4 is the gaming equivalent of putting on a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, stepping into a wide-open meadow, and whispering 'I will not sprint at everything.' It rewards patience, observation, and the kind of slow-burn decision-making that most shooters left behind in 2008. If you like games that make you think about wind instead of walls, if you appreciate massive, lovingly crafted environments, and if you want a hunting sim that treats wildlife like living things rather than moving targets, Call of the Wild delivers with style and continued developmental love from Expansive Worlds. It's not perfect - the mission economy and the initial onboarding via the game's website can feel slightly old-school, and there are moments where UI clunkiness peeks through - but those are small quibbles against a game that builds a surprisingly calming loop out of tracking, stealth, and the occasional triumphant snapshot of a clean harvest. Score-wise this is an 8 out of 10: excellent for anyone willing to trade twitch reflexes for thoughtful planning and an appreciation of how wind direction can ruin your life. Whether you want realism, a stunning open-world to lose an afternoon in, or just somewhere to practice saying 'steady... steady...' in a very theatrical whisper, Call of the Wild on PS4 will happily oblige.

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