Way Of The Hunter Beginner’s Guide – All To Know

After five years, we have a successor to the beloved Hunter: Call of the Wild that just does pretty much about everything that makes the hunting simulation genre so fun. The game features a massive world and a plethora of mechanics you might want to know about, whether you are familiar with the genre or not. In our today’s beginner guide, we will discuss all you need to know about the Way of the Hunter.

Utilizing these mechanics correctly and becoming one with the jungle is the true charm of Way of the Hunter.

Keybinds

The first thing you need to know before you start pretty much any game is its key binds. Some people go through what the key binds are from the options menu, but most people don’t. Well, whatever the case, key binds are very important to know, for or not only Way of the Hunter, but for any game you are about to start.

Another important key point is that you can’t change your key binds in the Way of the Hunter, which is a bummer but anyway, below are some important key binds of Way of the Hunter:

• Crouch (C)
• Prone (Hold C)
• Movement (WASD)
• Run (Shift + W)
• Auto-run (F)
• Creep (CTRL)
• Slow creep (C+CTRL)
• Headlamp (H)
• Jump (Space bar)
• Hold Breath (Shift)
• Reload (R)
• Interaction (E)
• Equipment (1-9)

There are other keybindings as well, but they will be discussed in more detail below in our beginner’s guide of Way of the Hunter. Furthermore, there is an indicator at the bottom right that shows what position you are in. It’s a nice touch in case you forget what position you are in, which is normal in first-person shooters.

Hunter Senses

If you are familiar with the survival/stealth genre, you pretty much know what Hunter Senses is. Usually, the way these senses work in video games is that you press a button, and all the resources, animals, or enemies around you become visible.

Hunter Senses work a little differently in The Way of the Hunter. In The Way of the Hunter, you can keep your Hunter Senses turned on at all times. Press ‘Q’ to turn on Hunter Senses, and you’ll notice the edges of the screen becoming darker now.

Hunter Sense highlights all the vital information in the area and makes finding items or animals easier for you.

Waypoints

Another very important feature, which again you might be familiar with, is Waypoints. Waypoints are generally used to put a marker at any place which you want to reach. After the waypoints are set, an in-game indicator will guide you to that location, and you won’t have to open the map every minute.

There are two ways you can set waypoints. One is through your binoculars. Press ‘X’ while using binoculars anywhere to put a marker at a point. The second method is by marking on the map. Open the map and press ‘C’ to place a waypoint marker.

You can set as many Waypoints as you like. Afterward, you will see in-game markers or indicators of all the Waypoints you marked on your map, helping you in reaching your desired locations.

Needzones

Needzones is another mechanic in The Way of the Hunter that helps you in tracking animals. The way this works is simple. At various points, you’ll find locations like the one shown in the image below.

These are called Needzones. After you analyze the Needzones, animals will appear on the map. Press ‘space bar’ while having the pointer on the animal on the animal, and the game will reveal their resting zones. Press ‘F’ on the resting zones to place an exploration marker on their resting zones.

Missions

There is no better way of understanding a game than doing its missions, making it one of the most important points in our Way of the Hunter Beginner’s guide. Furthermore, completing missions is also a really great way of earning in-game cash as well.

You need hunting passes to hunt in an area, and without hunting passes, you won’t be allowed to track and prey on any animals. Hunting passes are expensive, so complete missions and get those ASAP.

You can harvest skins for missions through the method explained in the following video: 

Shop

Obviously, you wouldn’t have expected a game about hunting without weapons. Way of the Hunter is filled with different types of rifles and shotguns. To access the weaponry, interact with the computer and press the Shop tab.

Another alternative way of accessing the weapons is by interacting with the storage and then clicking on the shop tab. You will start the game with “Grandpa’s Old Rifle,” and as you play the game, earn more money; naturally, you will be able to buy more weapons as well.

Additionally, in the Shops tab, you can purchase a variety of gears like binoculars and callers as well as various attachments, which you can put on different weapons to enhance them.

Lastly, there is a tab for private passes in the shop, which can also be obtained by doing missions. So we would recommend getting these through missions since they are quite expensive.

Changing Time

In the Way of the Hunter, you can change the time of the day by resting. You can rest in your cabin/shop by interacting with the bed and choosing how long you want to sleep.

Additionally, you can also rest and change the time of the day by resting at campsites as well. Another thing to note is that you only change the hours and not the minutes.

Vehicle

Every open-world game has a means of transportation that helps you in traveling from one place to another, and naturally, Way of the Hunter has one too.

Interact with the laptop and then click the vehicles tab. Select your desired vehicle, and it will be there right outside your location. If you are playing in co-op, make you and your partner can travel in the jeep together too.

Zeroing & Bullet Camera

While shooting, Zeroing can be adjusted by pressing up and down keys. With attachments and scopes, you can zero up to 1 km. After you take down any creature, a beam of light shows you where the creature you shot is. This makes finding the creatures a lot easier.

After interacting with the shot creature, the game will display all the miscellaneous information about your shot. The bullet cam tab shows your organs have been penetrated, the firearm used short distance, and more.

Then you can go to the overview tab while you are at it to see things like hunter rating, difficulty, trophy rating, animal info, kill shot, and more.

Then there is the Hunt tab which shows the tracking info and the “meat” info of the animal. This information is very useful, especially for future hunts. Using an incorrect weapon decreases the quality of the meat, and the quality of the meat decides what price the animal will sell.

Perks

In simple words, perks basically enhance your in-game ability and skills, such as rifle, shotgun, and hunting skills. Perks can be accessed by pressing ‘tab’ and then clicking on the Character tab.

There you can see all the perks you can unlock for your character. If you neglect the perks, you will be seriously disadvantaged while doing your hunts. So there are a lot of great perks you should definitely keep your eye on, like gunslinger, quick on the draw, taming the kickback, steady hands, and many more.

Hunting Log & Taxidermy Assistant

While you are in the Character tab, you can also access the hunting log. This essentially tells all the information about your past kills, along with their ratings and the difficulty you were using.

Then there is a Taxidermy Assistant tab which basically tells you all the animals you have taxied along with their ratings, info, and the difficulty you used.

Loadout

Another very important point in our today’s Way of the Hunter Beginner’s guide is the loadout management. You can check your loadout or inventory from the Character tab. To change your inventory, interact with your car trunk, or visit any campsite or outpost.

Keep in mind that outposts need to be discovered and displayed on the map from the get-go. To load inventory, go to the Shop menu, and there you see a couple of slots in which you can load different weapons. There is a lot of ammo, primary weapon, secondary weapon, and gear.

Press on the slot you want to fill, and then select the gun you want to equip by pressing “Space bar”. Additionally, you can load attachments with the primary and secondary weapons here as well.

Before we move to the next heading, we want to give one final tip regarding loadout. Make sure always to have your jeep around. You never know what rifle and what scope you are going to need for an animal, and having the jeep around you helps you with quickly changing your loadout by interacting with the car truck.

Ammunition

In the Way of the Hunter, you might have to worry about a lot of things, but luckily ammo isn’t one. Ammunition in the Way of the Hunter is totally free and can be replenished an infinite number of times. However, you can run out of ammo during your hunts, which means you shouldn’t just run around like a lunatic and spray bullets everywhere.

To replenish your ammo, simply go back to your storage locker or interact with your car truck to refill your ammunition.

Sound Analysis

While you are exploring the wilds, you will see a tab called Sound Analysis from time to time. Sound Analysis basically helps you in understanding the type, gender, distance, and behavior of the animal you are tracking.

If you are too loud, the animals will be spooked and will disappear for a while. The only way to get them back into their Needzones is by resting. So make sure you aren’t too loud or if some by mishap you spook them, rest and then come back later.

If the animals don’t come back even after you have rested, this is due to “Hunting Pressure”.

Hunter Pressure

This abnormality arises when you have shot many animals in an area. Constantly hunting in the same area will permanently spook all animals in that zone, and they will stop coming there.

Animals visit their Needzones to drink, eat and rest. Some actions increase Hunting Pressure more than others. Shooting near the Needzone increases the Hunting pressure, but shooting inside the zones will raise the Hunting Pressure even more. If the Hunting Pressure is too high, animals will leave the Needzone and find another one.

So make sure you don’t overdo your hunting in an area and keep it diverse. In other words, keep tracking and hunting animals in different areas so you don’t permanently spook them.

Animal Paths

Animal Paths are used by animals to move from one need zone to another. The paths can help you find the zone scattered in the wilderness. Animal paths can be found by observing the grass and spotting the wine and roots, well-trodden with footprints.

Now Animal Paths can vary according to their lifecycle. Only big herbivores leave visible paths in the grass.

Blood trails

Hunting is the core of Way of the Hunter and knowing about Blood trails is one of the most important aspects of the game, which we will be covering in our Beginner’s guide here. The color of the blood after the animal has been shot can tell you about the state it is in.

• Brain & Spine – red; it will die on the spot
• Hear, Lungs & Artery – pink with bubbles and a large amount of blood.
• Stomach and Intestines – red with green mixed in.
• Bone & Flesh – red and a small amount of blood

You can examine the blood trail by interacting with the blood splatter.

Taking Cover

You will fail your hunts more often than not if you are loud instead of being sneaky. In Way of the Hunter, if you can see an enemy, it more than likely can see you as well. So make sure you crouch and are prone while approaching the target.

Difficulty levels

If the animals get alerted too fast or if taking down an enemy is too easy, you can change the difficulty of the game at any time to balance the experience. Let us show you how to change the difficulty level of the Way of the Hunter in our Beginner’s guide.

In the main menu, go to the territory, and you’ll see a window with two territories, Nez Pearce Valley and Transylvania. You have to select the difficulty of both territories manually. You can change the difficulty by clicking on the territory whose difficulty level you want to change.

There are four tiers of difficulty in Way of the Hunter. 

• Explorer – This difficulty is suitable for inexperienced players. Animals have low senses, and the game’s overall challenge will be very low.
• Adventurer – Adventurer is our recommended difficulty level for Way of the Hunter. The overall experience is balanced, and animals will have medium senses.
• Hunter – This difficulty level is suitable for veteran players where you have to apply survival knowledge and tactics to get the best of the animals. Animal senses are high in this tier of difficulty.
• Ranger- This difficulty level is for those who want extreme realism. In Ranger, scope shooting information, binocular identification, and interactions highlighting animal signs identification are off. Animal senses are high, and all extra information will be hidden.

Photomode

For a game as beautiful as Way of the Hunter, it would’ve been a crime not to include a Photomode. Luckily the developers were aware of the beautiful wilderness and vistas filled with highly detailed animals they had created.

Photomode can be accessed by pressing ‘P’ on the keyboard, and then you go on and start taking beautiful shots. Experiment and play with photo mode and keep taking beautiful shots to flex on your social media apps! Another very big advantage of photo mode is that it allows you to stop the game and observe the environment.

So accurately seeing where the animals are along with their footprints using Photomode is much easier and faster as compared to manually visiting the areas and observing yourself. 

Encyclopedia

Encyclopedia in Way of The Hunter pretty much entails everything that is present and absent in our Beginner’s guide. Everything from the guns, player stances, vehicle handling, zeroing, aiming, and dynamic sights to ethical hunt, fast travel, markers, and jobs is present there.

It is very, very detailed, and if in case you forget something, just quickly go to the in-game encyclopedia for a quick reminder.

Multiplayer Co-Op

Way of the Hunter has a multiplayer co-op mode that is a lot of fun. You can jump in with a friend and go into crazy tactical hunts. Strategizing alone is fun and that fun is further enhanced when you do it with a friend who shares your passion for the hunt. 

Moreover, unlocking the co-op mode is also very easy. Like most co-op games you can jump into it very early on. All you have to do is complete the quest that is shown in the image above. It can be done almost as soon as you jump in and is fairly easy to do so. 

Once you have hunted the dear as the quest has asked you to, go ahead and harvest it. Harvesting the deer will instantly unlock the multiplayer mode in Way of the Hunter. It is that simple.

Once it is unlocked just host a lobby and invite your friend over. It works just like any other co-op mode and is very stable as well. When your friend has joined you can go ahead and explore the game’s huge map as much as you want. There is a lot to do and find in the game. 

TIP: If you want a private multiplayer experience with friends, simply join them through the steam friends list. After you join them, edit the server settings and set it to either “Friends only” or “Private” to enjoy a private hunting session.