Hunting Simulator 2 Review (Xbox Series S)

With your hunting dog by your side, explore the Texan desert and forests of Colorado and Europe as you track down 33 animal species. Choose your gear from over 160 official weapons, accessories, and clothing items.

Pros:

• Decent graphics.
• 14.6GB download size.
• 1000 Gamerscore.
• Tweak gameplay settings-animal calls, dead prey location, tracking assistance, hit markers, companion marker, companion states, head bobbing, metrics used, and compass.
• Invert axis and sensitivity sliders.
• Motion control support.
• DS4 touchpad support for camera control. (optional setting)
• Can rebind controls.
• Male/female avatars.
• Hunting gameplay.
• 3 views-first person/3rd person/far behind.
• Companion -you have a dog with you that can find and track animals for you.
• Kills-you bag your kill then you can either sell them or turn them into a trophy.
• 3 locations-Europe/Colorado/Texas.
• Hunting Lodge-here you can buy licenses, guns, ammo, look at trophies, read the wiki.
• Shop-licenses, weapons, optics, items, and companions.
• Four weapon types-rifles, shotguns, modern sporting rifles, and bows/crossbows.
• Items-range finders and binoculars, lures, caller, powders, etc.
• All locations have rules like don’t shoot females, all kills have to be bagged.
• Licenses play a key role as you can only hunt what you own a license for.
• Bed-can set the time slot between, morning/afternoon and evening.
• Customize your hunter with new clothing.
• Unlock a lodge extension to show off your trophies.
• Outside your hunting lodge is a set of events-shooting range, load-out tent, and skeet range.
• Shooting range tournament mode-3 difficulties-easy/medium/hard. Uses a local leaderboard against Ai names. You get to manually request a target to be pulled into action. All against a timer.
• Locations will show what animals reside there and you can check if you have the license and you get told what the weather is.
• Map-you can add waypoint and markers with specific stamps like animal types/tents/stands etc.
• Tents-find them and they act as fast travel points.
• You can level up your companion and they have 3 traits-expertise/drive/stamina and you earn EXP by praising them and using them often.
• Spotting-look down your sights to spot and the game will tell you if you have the right ammo to take it down and what animal and sex it is.
• Bagging a kill will show you-where you hit them, sex/age/region/district/weapon/distance. You claim the kill to get the animal stats like weight/size/time taken and score.
• Hit markers when shooting.
• Animal noises will pop on the screen and tell you what animal it is.
• Cabin- here you can claim your bagged kills, change loadout, refill ammo, change companion, and fast travel out or go back to the lodge.
• Arcade presentation.
• Full stats breakdown on the main menu.
• All locations are open from the get-go.
• Gorgeous locations.
• Clothing can make you more or less visible and is categorized by weather type.
• Bags- buy new ones to add more items and weapon slots.
• Buy powders to show wind direction and speed.
• Autosaves regularly.

Cons:

• Slow to aim down the sights.
• Pain in the ass to keep going back to the cabin to claim trophies.
• Fast travel is so important.
• Hard to track kills with your eyes as the blood is not that visible.
• You rely so heavily on your companion for all things tracking.
• Slow burner.
• Starter gun is rather pants.
• No dynamic weather or time changing.
• The lodge just means you have a lot of unnecessary walking to do in order to change options.
• Info on track points is not helpful, it doesn’t give any indication of direction, blood only says the color of it and not blood amount.
• Doesn’t have an over-arcing story.
• No help/clues on where other blinds, fast travel points may be.
• Limited room for items like lures, callers, and binoculars.
• No noise indicator for you and animals.
• Can’t see the stamina but it’s short.
• Constant juggling act with clothing and powders.
• No preface on profit from selling a trophy over keeping it, with no info given when you do sell a trophy.