Hey all you happy campers,

In this status update we’re closing the Valentine’s event and giving you a sneak peek on the new species. Let’s go.

We really enjoyed following your heart$ fights in the Valentine’s event last week and it was a great success, especially the new “Share the love” feature. With people generously offering their heart$ to “those in need”, it’s become an amazing celebration of community spirit and one more time revealed what an awesome community we have at theHunter. It was very touching to watch the whole community put their hearts (both game points and real ones) together to raise the player Rcnitrodad to the top of the leaderboard. For those of you who don’t know this story, Rcnitrodad is a single dad taking care of his son James, who is 14 and who is fighting his second cancer battle. theHunter is one of the few things that can put a smile on the boy’s face these days and his dad plays it for him while James is watching and giving directions. We’re sending our best wishes to Rcnitrodad and his son. We hope you’ll get better soon James and can start bagging those trophy bucks by yourself! The thoughts of the whole theHunter community are with you, as the Valentine’s Event has shown so beautifully.

Here’s the Valentine’s event leaderboard for top 10 places, congratulations to all the winners:

Rcnitrodad – 17180 heart$
Pittie – 14485 heart$
M4G1E – 11675 heart$
windy2 – 9695 heart$
domdom92 – 8225 heart$
Manfred3175 – 8140 heart$
Musodacan – 5930 heart$
HooCairs – 5700 heart$
Taugor – 4840 heart$
XINTIMID88ORX – 4820 heart$

Apart from the top 10 winners, another 509 hunters received the plaster trophy and we also established a special prize for most generous hunters who have shared their heart$ with the largest amount of people. These three players received this unique “Most loving hunter” trophy:

RiffRaff24 – shared his heart$ with 18 different hunters
Mysen – shared heart$ with 15 different hunters
Swampfox – shared heart$ with 13 different hunters

Once again, thanks for the great community event everyone. Let’s do more of this.

And now to the new reserve news. We are still going through your suggestions trying to pick a suitable name for it (that’s a tough one), so we’ll let you know what we decide later on. There have been lots and lots of speculations, suggestions and general ramblings about the species present in the new reserve, so here you go: apart from your old acquaintances Feral Hog, Red Fox and European Rabbit we could not not put this cool guy in the Australian reserve –

the Red Kangaroo!

Here is a small sneak peek of the kangaroo’s model and animations from Simone and José, enjoy! The video and screenshot below are still work in progress and the things will be changed and tweaked.

Red kangaroos in theHunter, as in real life, will move extremely fast, so taking a shot will be extra challenging.

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Howdy hunters,

In this status update we’re finally spilling the beans about our upcoming reserve, so read on!

Last time I mentioned “a couple of lovely non-mammal creatures populating this new area”, and many people assumed that they would be huntable. That was a bit of a sneaky hint, I admit, as those by all means lovely creatures are spiders and scorpions (they would be similar to rats in other reserves, actually, you can still shoot them if you want) and the new reserve we’re working on is

*drum roll*

the Australian Outback!

Since the new EHR location is inspired by the outback in western Australia, it will be our first “dry” reserve which will feature a completely new color scheme in the general vegetation. There will be many semi-open fields, some interesting rocky hills, collections of low Acacia trees, mainly around the old river areas, and many bushes, to mention some. We are aiming for a slightly hostile feeling but with many warm earth tones. Our art wizards have also added some small features typical for western Australian outback for you to discover, both in vegetation and in the soundscape.

Now I’ll shut up and let you savour these early preview screenshots (still work in progress, so things might change down the line).

By tradition, we’d like to ask for your input in choosing an appropriate name for this dazzling beauty. Think of something that would capture the essence and feeling of the new Australian reserve AND will align nicely with our other reserves’ names. This is the thread for your suggestions.

No wonder that the Aussie theme has been dominant here in the office lately; a stuffed kangaroo head mount has almost found its place between Hoggy and Roey and our artist Marcus has created a wicked Outback outfit which should set you in the right mood for the upcoming reserve and probably remind you of some mate who is known for being flat out like lizard drinkin’ and carrying around a real cool knife. The new set has it all – beyond awesome shoes, hat with gator teeth and great camo combination! Go check it out.

That’s it from us for today, time to stop reading and go hunting!

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Howdy hunters,

It’s time for a small status update from us.

Non-typicals and your response to them

It’s been amazing to see your feedback to our newly released Non-Typical antlers, some people even said that this was their most favourite update ever, sweet! Despite their rarity, a lot of nice non-typicals have already been bagged, here are some of the trophies we find exceptionally cool:

By LiquidOnyx

By Tim020

By winzu52

New reserve

The work on the new reserve is coming along, with all the rocks, trees, grass and other pockets of beauty slowly starting to look as they should. We’ve just started testing it and the look and feel is fantastic and truly unique, although there is still plenty of work to be done. You can expect more new on this pretty soon, for now we can tell you that there will be a couple of lovely non-mammal creatures populating this new area. Can you guess who those might be and what reserve are we working on?

Time for a heart game

Our popular Valentine’s event received a revamp this year and will come in a slightly new form. There will, of course, be Cupid Arrows and heartshots, which have already become classic, but also some absolutely new things for some extra injection of affection in the community. We’re kicking off this hearts fest on Monday 9th and will be going on for the rest of the week, until February 15th. Check back on Monday to learn more and take a direct plunge into the party.

Free species hunt

The last tidbit from us is a free species event – from today until the end of Sunday, February 8th, Mallard Ducks and Roosevelt Elk are free to hunt for all guests. Make sure to enroll into our special Mallard & Elk competition to make the best out of this event.

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Hi there and welcome to our weekly status update hunters!

We’re starting with a cool piece of news…

Something non-typical has been spotted in Rougarou Bayou

Last week we mentioned that Peter had been working on a long-time community request and now we are ready to tell you what it is – the creme de la creme of antlers. Non-typical antlers! They are already made and released for Whitetail Deer, and if we see an interest, more might follow. Here’s a tidbit from Peter who has mostly been behind this beauty:

Non-Typical Antlers

This is a feature that has been on the wishlist for a looong time now! Perhaps it’s something that will also be more appreciated by our long-time players and more experienced irl hunters. The antler system is one of the most complicated features in theHunter, and also one that pretty much every player has strong opinions about. And perhaps rightly so, as the antlers is a part of the very heart of the game. In order to improve the production value (how much time and money something costs to implement), we’ve made an effort to slightly simplify the system that we use for handling non-typical antlers and have come up with a solution that made all this possible. Future additions to the range of non-typical antlers should not be as complicated and time consuming to add and modify as the typical antlers. Non-typical antlers in theHunter will not be as common as the typical ones (as they are not in reality). But they will not be nearly as rare as some of our albino and melanistic animal variations. All players should have a chance to enjoy an occasional non-typical trophy!

To begin with, we have added non-typical antlers to the Whitetail Deer, and if things go as planned and this feature turns out to be appreciated we definitely intend to add more of them for other species like the Mule Deer and Blacktail, and quite possibly to any other animal for whom it makes sense. Like in real life hunting, the non-typical antlers will feature separate leaderboards, to avoid making a mess of your record trophies, and they utilize realistic scoring (Boone & Crockett), like the rest of them.

Go find some non-typical Whitetails and share your trophy shots and screenshots in this thread.

Apart from non-typical antlers, today we released a pack of 10 new missions featuring the latest addition to EHR – European Rabbit. Have fun with those!

Say hello to Pranav

Today we’re also introducing a new member of our team – Pranav, who has recently joined our client programmer squad.

Hi everyone!

I’m Pranav Tekchand and am excited to be part of the Expansive Worlds team. I’m a developer from India and have been working in the games industry there since I graduated eight years ago. I got into simple programming as a preteen when I scored an obsolete computer (a TRS-80 at a time when 286 PCs were new) at a repair shop that didn’t know what to do with it. On my next “non-obsolete” (386) machine I played a lot of games and soon got to a point where I started wondering how interesting it would be to make them. Getting internet access and seeing the first 3D games really got me focused as I got access to resources about programming games and graphics. I enjoy solving puzzles, coming up with solutions and relish the enjoyment people feel by games or tools I’ve helped with.

Before moving to Sweden, I lived in the beach town of Goa and used to swim many laps in my free time. I enjoy the outdoors and sports, and was on New Delhi’s state basketball team while in high school. These days I go rock climbing with many of my friends at Expansive Worlds and Avalanche Studios.

I look forward to have a part in many moments that’ll fill you with joy while playing our games!

Happy hunting!
Discussion

Howdy hunters,

It’s Thursday here and it’s time for another status update from the EW team.

The main news today is the release of the 21st animal of the EHR and the 6th resident of Val-des-Bois –

Mr. European Rabbit!

As we mentioned in the last status update, it’s a variation of our existing species, Cottontail Rabbit, and it’s free to hunt for all guests as well. Apart from new looks, it also got unique gameplay. Here is some information from our game designer Björn which should help you when hunting this coy cute little critter.

Burrow Gameplay

The European Rabbit shares many traits with its North American cousin but there is one major difference – Burrows. When a Cottontail spooks it tries to find thick vegetation to hide in but the European Rabbit has taken it a step further by digging elaborate burrow systems to which it can retreat when threatened.

In theHunter European Rabbits live in colonies tied to burrow systems, randomly generated throughout the fields of Val-des-Bois. It’s rare that a group of rabbits strays farther than 100 meters away from their burrows, which makes them easier to locate than other animals. The problem is though, that when spooked they retreat into a nearby hole and thus become unreachable by would-be hunters. But fear not, our rabbits have a notoriously short memory and they’ll eventually surface from a randomly selected hole in the burrow system. Patience and massive amounts of airborne pellets are the king when hunting… The Wabbit!

By tradition, with the release of the European Rabbit we also throw in a new weapon – the slick and beautiful 20 GA Semi-Automatic Shotgun “Carbon” and a special competition in which you’ll get to shoot them bunnies. Regular missions and competitions for the European Rabbit are already in the works too.

Apart from the European Rabbit, the backend and client programming teams have been working on bug fixes (check out the full list of them in today’s game update). The new reserve is slowly taking its shape and awesomeness in the crafty hands of our artists Tomas, Sandra, Oscar and the game designer Daniel. Peter has started working on another long time community request which we’ll hopefully be able to tell you more about soonish.

And last but not least, today and tomorrow we’re running a special campaign – you can get a Deployable Hunting Tower when buying a 3-month membership or a Wayfarer bundle.

That’s it from us for today, now go let yourself loose on those wabbits!

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Hey hunters,

Welcome to yet another week with the most realistic hunting game ever created. The EW team has come up to speed and work in the office is once again humming. Here are some nuggets of information on what we’ve been busy with:

• The programmers and backend guys have been digging into client and web-related bugs, glitches, issues and similar annoying stuff. On Tuesday we released a game update with a bunch of fixes, but the digging continues and we are hoping to be able to bake some more patches for you in the next month.

• We thought it’s about time to tell you about the next big thing we’ll be working on. The art team has taken a first stab at our new reserve! As usual, we won’t be revealing the location or giving any hints until the time is right. As you must know, a reserve takes months of work from the whole crew. Similarly, we can’t announce the release date yet, it will be ready when it’s ready.

• There is something else you can also start looking forward to. Another new animal! To be fair, it won’t be a completely new creature but a variation of an existing species we have in theHunter, but it will add a fresh touch to Val-des-Bois, where it will reside. The new animal is currently being tested and tweaked and we’re hoping to release it to the EHR quite soon(ish). Now, what might it be? 😉 Share your thoughts and guesses in the discussion thread.

• The last Ask Me Anything with our client programmers Andres and Danny took a while to close, sorry we kept you waiting for replies. The guys have been really busy these last months, plus they received a record number of questions – 91! Well, it’s better later than never, so here are their replies: on the engine, rain and all the discreet charm and challenges of being a client programmer. Check them out – cool stuff!

That’s it from us for today.

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Howdy Hunters,

We are back from our winter break and are now catching up on everything and anything that happened with and about theHunter during our absence. Here is a round-up for you:

• Many players have been reporting multiplayer issues when people were not able to join MP games. We implemented a fix yesterday and will continue monitoring this. If you’ve been experiencing the problem, please make sure to let us know, either in the forums or on our social media channels, whether the issue has been resolved for you.

• On December 19th, right after the team signed off for the vacations, a major bug occurred, which broke the functionality of scope reticles and HUD GUI elements (blinds, tents etc.) Our programmers fixed the issue on the next day, but the game was pretty much unplayable for about 24 hours. To reimburse you for this interruption, we’ll add 1 extra day to all memberships. We’re bummed about this unfortunate incident and especially its bad timing and we’ll try to prevent this from happening in the future.

• As per the special Primal deal, all the shotguns and extra memberships have now been added. If you still haven’t received your membership and have fulfilled all requirements, please contact our support and they’ll sort it out for you.

• We recently have become aware of a malicious phishing web-site: “playthehunter [dot] net”, which looked exactly like our official thehunter.com‘s first page. (Huge thanks to our community members who alerted us!) We’ve investigated this and it looks like the purpose was to lure our players into entering their theHunter usernames and passwords in order to steal/abuse them, so called phishing. There was also a link to a file hosted on a Google drive account, which most likely was ridden with malware and viruses.We’ve contacted both the hosting provider of the site and the domain registering company (the domain was registered with false information), and the site has now been taken offline.

  If you visited this site, or fear that you may have without realizing it, we suggest that you run a virus scan on your computer and update your account information with a new password.

  If you’ve become a victim of the culprits behind the website, please contact our support from the email address you used when registering at theHunter and we’ll help you to get your account back.

  only thehunter.com and Steampowered.com are official publishing platforms of theHunter. It is of course very important for us to protect our players and our own brand from evil doers, but we do not have control over and, thus, can not help about anything happening outside our official publishing platforms, even if it’s somehow related to theHunter.

• And last but not least… Meet Sandra – our latest addition to the art team who joined us yesterday. Read her intro below and say hi in the forums.

Hello!

My name is Sandra and I’m super happy to be joining the team at Expansive Worlds where I’ll be working as an environment artist. Previously I’ve worked at Guerrilla Games in Amsterdam but being back in my hometown Stockholm is a real treat!

I have a background in fine arts and graphical design but a few years ago I started to dabble in 3D and of course I got hooked. It’s just so much fun! I did my studies at Futuregames here in Stockholm from where I graduated in September last year.

When I’m not working I like to cook, and especially eat, food. Playing games, watching a movie or just having a cold one with my friends are also things you might find me doing on my spare time.

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Hello hunters,

Welcome to the last status update in 2014! Tomorrow our team is leaving for Christmas vacations to spend quality time with their families which means there will be no updates or newsletters for the next two and a half weeks. We’ll be back at the office on January 7th, ready to start another chapter in the theHunter history. Please note that our support hours will also be reduced during the holiday season.Thank you for your understanding!

Peter on the art in theHunter

Our art director Peter Johansson has recently made a long in-depth interview for a 3D art magazine 3D Art Direct. In it he is sharing how an artist designs 43 square miles of real-time 3D wilderness (to us known as EHR), and make it convincing enough for experienced real-life hunters to enjoy. If you want to get fundamental behind-the-scenes information on theHunter art, this is definitely a must for you to check out. You can read the interview by registering on the magazine’s website. You’ll receive an online version in your email inbox.

Looking back at 2014

It’s been a truly amazing, mind-blowing, flabbergasting year for all of us at theHunter and we want to thank you, our community, for spending it with us, playing the game, sharing your thoughts and stories in the forums and guiding us in the development. We hope that you’ll stay with us in the next year as well, we’ve already planned a bunch of stuff and we can’t wait to hear what you think of it.

We’ve looked back at 2014, at everything that has happened in theHunter and crunched some numbers to make an end-of-the-year wrap-up.

Here is what has been achieved in 2014:

• New reserve – 1
• New species – 4
• New weapons – 15
• New pieces of equipment – 26
• New items of clothing – 39
• New special event items – 38
• New game features – 3
• New missions – 130
• New competitions – 114
• Bugs fixed – 150+
• Special events – 13
• Tutorials – 1
• Community created competitions and prize draws – 46
• New people joined the EW team – 10
• New people joined the community forums – 3 405
• Supports tickets resolved – 14 351
• Release on Steam nailed – 1
• Player surveys created and replied to – 2
• Questions answered by Devs in Ask Me Anything – 264
• Store Discounts / Sales – 57
• Free species hunts – 8

I’ve also asked the team and community members to share their personal highlights of 2014, and here are some of them. For more of team and community highlights of 2014 check your inbox for the theHunter newsletter, holiday edition.

Daniel Jansson, EW Game Designer: My favorite was the Summer Fiesta because it was really fun to make difficult missions and then seeing people on the forum helping each other out by posting tips and strategies.

JackRbbt, community member and Romanian translator: The new additions: Val-de-Bois, Alpine Ibex and, of course, new rifle for it: Stambecco. Also, but this is something quite personal, Romanian localization.

Andrés Hansson, EW Lead Client Programmer: The highlight of 2014 was when we released theHunter on Steam and got a lot of new players.

TundraPuppy, Community member and Forum moderator:

My favorite theHunter related thing was the release of the air rifle and rabbits in May. It was an excellent belated birthday present because it represented an interesting change for theHunter – not only did we see a move towards smaller prey (as opposed to deer) which also required more careful and precise aiming (as opposed to the more twitchy sky-filled-with-lead shooting of birds), but we also got a new weapon which isn’t a traditional gunpowder based weapon – it has excellent range, is very precise, and was tailor made for small prey which means we could see more small prey added with an existing valid weapon to use on them. It was an interesting shift for the game which helped add variety and options for people who were tired of the same-old same-old hunting options we previously had.

Jose Diaz, EW Animator:

Interaction animations between the Ibex made by Hampus. More of that!

Blind Mole, Community member

Official: new map Val-de-Bois
Non-official: caledonianblues’s competition “Gotta hunt them all”

Magnus Eckers, Frontend Developer

Pratze, Community member and Video creator:

That’s it from us for today and this year, happy holidays and see you in 2015!

Discussion

Hello hunters,

Here comes our weekly status update.

theHunter’s little brother revealed

Most of you have probably read our Monday announcement in which we introduced the new project of Expansive Worlds, called theHunter: Primal. The announcement has attracted a lot of attention across the globe, which makes us happy and humbled. We won’t reiterate on this further in this update, if you missed the post on Monday, make sure to read it. For more news on this project, please follow Primal on Facebook and Twitter.

Smells like reindeer…

December with all its festivities and special vibes is crawling closer and closer. Last year’s Holiday countdown event was a huge success, so we decided to keep the same format this year, with a bit of adjustments and unexpected treats (of course ;)). The main theme of this year’s event is going to be (surprise, surprise!) a reindeer, and we are kicking it off on Monday, December 1st, and will keep you busy every single day up until the Christmas day, December 25th. Expect more details on this on Monday.

Until then you still have a couple of days to join our Thanksgiving fest and shoot yourself some sneaky Turkey, fortunately, it’s free to hunt until the end of the week.

Here’s to Robin!

On a final note, we wanted to share with you something more serious and personal. Back in August a very sad incident occurred involving our client programmer Robin (you might remember him by his racoon avatar on the forum and his cheerful posts). In late August he suffered a stroke which came as a huge shock to all of us since Robin was only 23 and very fit and healthy at the time. The months since then have been extremely tough for him and his girlfriend, his family and the whole EW team. Robin is an amazing individual who is very much loved by everyone around him. Today, we are happy to tell you that  the worst is over, Robin has been making great success in what we expect to be a full recovery! He has been a true trooper and we’re incredibly proud of him. We visited Robin yesterday and he asked us to send his regards to the community. Robin can’t wait to get back to working on theHunter.

That’s it from us for today.

Happy hunting!

Discussion