Expansive Worlds released theHunter: Call of the Wild on 16 February 2017 through Avalanche Studios, and it is still receiving reserves nine years later, with the Peru map arriving on 16 June 2026 as the nineteenth destination. Every animal sits in a class from 1 to 9, every cartridge is rated for a class range, and the game checks your ammunition, your shot placement and your shot count before it awards a medal. Around 128 huntable species are spread across reserves that run from the Pacific Northwest to Nepal.
This guide covers everything you need: core mechanics, the best builds, equipment worth investing in, location progression, and the tips that actually make a difference.
Core Mechanics
Need Zones
Every species uses three kinds of zone on each reserve: Feeding, Drinking and Resting, each active during its own window on the in-game clock. You reveal them by spotting animals inside them or by investigating tracks, and a zone can vanish outright if the animals that used it are killed or driven off.
Wind and scent
The compass rose shows a green cone for wind direction, and animals downwind of you will smell you before they ever see you. The Scent Eliminator costs 3,000 credits and gives 10 uses of roughly 120 in-game minutes each, but it reduces your scent signature rather than removing it.
Hunting Pressure
Shooting an animal that then dies generates pressure centred on the spot where your first round hit, not where the animal fell. Animals avoid pressured ground and enough pressure deletes Need Zones entirely, so a reserve you have hammered all week will feel empty until you hunt elsewhere and push the oldest pressure out.
The Harvest Check
To score full value you need ammunition rated for the animal's class, a hit on the heart, lungs, liver or cervical spine, a kill inside two shots, and an undamaged trophy organ. Failing any one of those drops the medal a full tier and cuts both the cash and the experience payout.
Trophy Rating and medal bands
Score comes from a species-specific trophy type, whether that is weight, skull, antlers, horns or tusks, and the medal is a percentage of that species' own maximum. Under 20 percent is Bronze, 20 to 60 is Silver, 60 to 90 is Gold and 90 to 100 is Diamond, so an Iberian Wolf reaches Diamond around 40 points while a Fallow Deer needs roughly 252.
For a deeper dive into how these systems interact, see our theHunter: Call of the Wild combat guide.
Builds Overview
| Build | Tier | Playstyle | Key Stats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stalker skill tree | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Ambusher skill tree | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Rifle perks | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Shotgun perks | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
| Archery perks | A | Versatile approach | Balanced stats |
For full build breakdowns with gear and stat priorities, see our theHunter: Call of the Wild builds guide. For rankings, check the tier list.
Equipment Guide
| Equipment | Why It Matters | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Ranger .243 | The bolt-action rifle you start with, and one that stays useful far longer than most players expect. | Everything from coyote to wild boar on your first hundred hours |
| .270 Huntsman | A step up in cartridge rather than in mechanism, with the . | Players who want one rifle that covers most of a mixed reserve |
| .300 Canning Magnum | A magnum bolt-action added alongside Yukon Valley and rated for classes 7 to 9. | Grizzly bear, moose and plains bison where lighter calibres fail the Harvest Check |
| Miller Model 1981 | The hardest-hitting shotgun in the game, and the reason shotguns are not just a bird weapon. | Mixed bird and mid-class hunting where you cannot carry two long guns |
| Hawk Edge CB-70 | The most powerful compound bow available at 70 pounds of peak draw. | Silent kills that generate less hunting pressure than a rifle shot |
Ranger .243: The bolt-action rifle you start with, and one that stays useful far longer than most players expect. The .243 cartridge is rated for classes 2 through 5, which covers fox, roe deer, whitetail, blacktail, mouflon and wild boar without any purchase at all.
.270 Huntsman: A step up in cartridge rather than in mechanism, with the .270 rated from class 4 up to class 8. It is the single most versatile calibre in the game because one rifle legally covers whitetail, red deer, elk, black bear and moose.
.300 Canning Magnum: A magnum bolt-action added alongside Yukon Valley and rated for classes 7 to 9. It is the standard answer for grizzly, moose and bison, and the Frontier variant is a cosmetic change rather than a performance one.
Miller Model 1981: The hardest-hitting shotgun in the game, and the reason shotguns are not just a bird weapon. Loaded with slugs it reaches into the mid classes, and loaded with birdshot it is still legal on class 1 waterfowl.
Hawk Edge CB-70: The most powerful compound bow available at 70 pounds of peak draw. Legal class depends on arrow grain rather than the bow, so heavy broadheads take it up to class 8, but arrow drop means you need to range the animal rather than guess.
Full breakdowns in our theHunter: Call of the Wild weapons guide.
Location Progression
| Location | Level Range | Key Rewards |
|---|---|---|
| Layton Lake District | Level 1 and up, base game | Moose, Roosevelt Elk, Black Bear, Whitetail and Blacktail Deer |
| Hirschfelden Hunting Reserve | Level 1 and up, base game | European Bison, Red Deer, Wild Boar, Roe Deer, Fallow Deer |
| Medved-Taiga National Park | Mid game, class 6 and up cartridges required | Brown Bear, Moose, Gray Wolf, Eurasian Lynx, Siberian Musk Deer |
| Vurhonga Savanna | Late game, class 9 cartridges required for the headline animals | Lion, Cape Buffalo, Gemsbok, Blue Wildebeest, Springbok |
| Te Awaroa National Park | Mid game, class 3 to 6 cartridges | Red Deer, Himalayan Tahr, Chamois, Sika Deer, Feral Pig |
Layton Lake District: The Pacific Northwest base reserve, with marshland, lakes and coniferous slopes. Nine species from mallard at class 1 up to moose at class 8, which makes it the reserve where the class system teaches itself.
Hirschfelden Hunting Reserve: The second base reserve, set in central European farmland and beech forest. It carries nine species including the European Bison at class 9, which is the single largest animal available without buying a reserve.
Medved-Taiga National Park: Siberian taiga, released 17 October 2017, and the most punishing early reserve because of its dense cover and eight species that skew toward predators. Brown Bear at class 7, Gray Wolf at class 6 and Moose at class 8 all demand serious calibres.
Vurhonga Savanna: The first African reserve, released 30 August 2018, with ten species and long sightlines that flip the game from stalking to ranging. Cape Buffalo and Lion both sit at class 9, so this is a reserve you visit with a .470 or a .338 rather than a starter rifle.
Te Awaroa National Park: New Zealand's South Island, released 10 December 2020, with ten species and steep alpine terrain that makes glassing from height the main tactic. Chamois and Himalayan Tahr live high and move fast, and Red Deer at class 6 is the largest animal here.
See our maps & locations guide for detailed area breakdowns and our walkthrough for the optimal progression path.
Tips That Actually Matter
- Read the class rating on the ammunition, not on the rifle. The Harvest Check tests the cartridge you fired, so a .243 round dropped into any rifle is still only legal on classes 2 through 5, and shooting a class 7 bear with it downgrades the medal no matter how perfect the shot was.
- Two shots is the hard limit for a clean harvest. A third round on the same animal fails the check even if every hit was in the vitals, which is why players carry a bigger calibre than they think they need rather than planning on a follow-up.
- Hunting Pressure is created where your first shot lands, not where the animal dies. If you shoot from a favourite ridge every session, that ridge accumulates pressure and the Need Zones below it eventually disappear, so rotate between two or three areas on the same reserve.
- The green cone on the compass is wind direction and it decides most hunts. Approach so the cone points from the animal toward you, and treat the 3,000 credit Scent Eliminator as a way to buy a few more metres rather than as an invisibility cloak.
- Medals are percentages of a species maximum, not points on a shared scale. An Iberian Wolf reaching Diamond around 40 points and a Fallow Deer needing about 252 are the same achievement, so stop comparing raw numbers between species.
- The difficulty rating attached to a species measures its senses, not its trophy value. A Very Hard animal has sharper vision, hearing or smell, which affects how you approach it and has nothing to do with how much the harvest pays.
- Rare fur types are cosmetic. Albino, Melanistic, Piebald, Leucistic, Erythristic and Dilute animals score exactly the same as an ordinary one of identical size, and the rates differ per species and per reserve, so no single percentage applies.
- Great Ones exist for exactly 13 species: Black Bear, Fallow Deer, Gray Wolf, Jaguar, Moose, Mule Deer, Red Deer, Red Fox, Ring-Necked Pheasant, Roe Deer, Tahr, Whitetail Deer and Wild Boar. There is no Great One bison and no Great One sheep, so do not grind for one.
- You cannot buy every skill and perk. The level cap is 60 and it yields roughly 22 skill points and 22 perk points across two separate pools, with perks split by weapon category, so pick Stalker or Ambusher as a primary and respec with in-game cash when you change reserves.
- In co-op you are hunting the host's saved reserve. Up to eight players can join, your own harvests and experience follow your profile, but outpost and landmark discoveries only credit the host, so explore a new reserve in your own session first.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Firing a mid-calibre rifle at a class 8 or class 9 animal because the shot looked good. The Harvest Check fails on ammunition class alone and drops the medal a tier regardless of placement.
- Hunting one small area of a reserve for hours. Hunting Pressure builds where your shots land, animals leave, Need Zones vanish, and players conclude the reserve is broken when the mechanic is working as designed.
- Using a repeating rifle or heavy slug on class 1 birds and hares. Birdshot is the only ammunition rated for class 1, and anything else destroys the trophy even on a perfect hit.
- Assuming blood colour tells you where you hit the animal. Call of the Wild models bleeding rate rather than blood colour semantics, and the coloured track lines most players see are a user interface setting they chose themselves.
- Chasing a rare fur type expecting a higher score. Fur is purely cosmetic and a Diamond is decided by the species-specific trophy measurement, not by how unusual the animal looks.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many reserves are there?
Nineteen as of August 2026. Layton Lake District and Hirschfelden come with the base game and the other seventeen are separate reserve purchases, most recently the Peru reserve on 16 June 2026 and the Scotland reserve in December 2025.
What does animal class actually control?
It sets which ammunition is legal on that animal. Classes run 1 to 9, from hares and waterfowl up to bison, buffalo, lion and tiger, and firing a cartridge rated below the animal's class fails the Harvest Check and costs you a medal tier.
Why did my perfect shot only score Silver?
Medal tier and Harvest Check are separate things. The medal is a percentage of the species maximum for its trophy measurement, so a small animal shot perfectly is still a small animal. Under 20 percent is Bronze, 20 to 60 Silver, 60 to 90 Gold and 90 to 100 Diamond.
Is there player versus player?
No. The game is single-player and online co-op for up to eight players, with no competitive mode, no split-screen and no crossplay. Groups compete informally through host-set challenges such as first to a given number of harvests.
Is the game still supported?
Yes. Expansive Worlds shipped the Multi-Class Weapon Pack in April 2026, the Peru reserve in June 2026 and Hotfix 9.2.1 in July 2026. No sequel has been announced and no end-of-support notice has been published.
More theHunter: Call of the Wild Guides
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Best Builds
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Tier List
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Walkthrough
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Beginner's Guide
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Tips & Tricks
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Weapons Guide
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Combat Guide
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Boss Guide
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Maps & Locations
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Crafting Guide
- theHunter: Call of the Wild Classes & Characters
Similar Games
If you enjoy theHunter: Call of the Wild, check out these related guides:
- Stardew Valley Guide: simulation game with similar mechanics
- Satisfactory Guide: simulation game with similar mechanics
- The Sims 4 Guide: simulation game with similar mechanics
