Howdy hunters,

It’s time for a status update and we’ve got a nice and fat one for you today. For one, it’s …

Halloween time in theHunter Classic!

And it’s Timbergold Trails that gets haunted and hunted again. For one week we’re turning our glorious reserve into the location of utter scare and goosebumps material. Eerie sounds, howling winds and roaming Werewolves looking for lonely hunters’ souls to feast on. (Alas, we haven’t managed to develop silver bullets in time for this Halloween, so your only way to deal with Werewolf is to RUN! But we are working hard on getting the most powerful alloy in place for the next year.) There is also a mysterious graveyard next to the Everfall Lodge – you might want to check it out, but tread carefully, you never know what those ancient graves are hiding.  To start the Halloween action, head to Missions, activate the first one and be prepared for anything. The special mission pack will be active until November 1st and the bravest and most tenacious hunters getting to the end of it will receive a unique Werewolf trophy and a piece of clothing to commemorate their journey. We’ve also prepared some daily sales throughout the whole event  – shop and hunt on!

Customize your trophy lodges!

When in the middle of the unsettling Halloween missions, you might long for something safe and familiar to calm your nerves a bit, and your good ol’ trophy lodge is the place to turn to. You’ve been asking us for customization opportunities since the day of the release, and today we are thrilled to finally bring it on – unique trophy lodge styles and gun racks! We are starting with six styles, three per trophy lodge layout, and one gun rack option per trophy Lodge layout. If the interest in this feature is big, we won’t be stopping here as we want you to have as much freedom as possible turning your trophy lodge into a unique extension of your hunting self and the place where you feel at home.

Before purchasing a style or a gun rack, make sure to carefully read the store description – both types of items are unlocks, which means that once purchased they can be implemented in as many trophy lodges of the particular layout, Classy or Rustic, as you own.  Also, customization items for a Classy trophy lodge can not be used in Rustic ones and vice versa. We’ve also put together three bundles for those of you who want to have everything at a good price – Classy one, Rustic one and the Ultimate customization pack, featuring all six styles and both gun racks (please note that the bundles might take a while to appear in the store). Now, get creative with your trophy lodges and make sure to share screenshots of your refurbished hideaways with us!

Backpack giveaway winners

In the five days since the release of our new hunting backpacks we sold over 700 pieces. As promised, we raffled some nice stuff among everyone who bought one, and here are the lucky hunters, congratulations!

• Timohasan gets a cool Fjällräven Greenland backpack (please send your address to our Community manager Graham to receive your prize)
• helio2 – gets $1000 em$
• JuanCarlos01 – gets $1000 em$
• BobbySolo – gets $1000 em$

Now, we are curious to hear what you think of this kind of giveaways and whether you would like to see more similar events with real life hunting clothes and gear.

Introducing Doc’s Shed

In almost 9 (!) years of its existence, theHunter Classic has been busy producing and accumulating a mind boggling amount of content – reserves, animals, weapons, gear, clothes and whatnot. Our game truly and proudly has the richest, most abundant and diverse content among hunting games out there, which is an incredible achievement in itself. But that does not make our Doc that thrilled. Every time he looks at our bursting to the seams store, we hear him grumbling: “So much for my small and cozy Doc’s Hunting Outfitters!” He has already started putting away special event items, such as Football Jamboree caps and T-shirts, Movember moustaches and more, but now he decided to take a more serious stab at it, to clean up the store and make it easier for players not to get lost in the sheer magnitude of the stuff. All items that are a part of a special event, or promotion, or simply aren’t as popular, will be removed from the store and put away into Doc’s Shed. Once in a blue moon, for a special occasion, if the stars align and Doc’s in a good mood after receiving a particularly sweet private message from some of you, we might persuade him to open up his shed and put some things up for sale again (for example, the Halloween scary pumpkin facepaint will be available to buy for the duration of this Halloween event), but we can never guarantee that this will happen. You will be able to recognize items from Doc’s Shed by the tag “Limited” – if you see it, that item will be disappearing from the store soon. As an example, the Trapper tent we released for Thanksgiving 2014 is going to Doc’s Shed tomorrow, so today would be a good time to grab it if you like that style – luckily, it’s also on sale right now.

Say hello to Ahmed

As you might have seen in the forum, our support champion Adam is taking a farewell from Expansive Worlds. Thank you for all your hard work Adam, you’ve been a good hunter and we shall miss you! Replacing Adam in the noble craft of deleting your duplicate items and investigating any other game problems you might have, is Ahmed, our new Customer Support Manager. Check out his intro below and say hello in the forum!

Hello everyone.

My name is Ahmed Sabri. I will be taking over from Adam as Customer Support Manager. It has been an amazing start working with him, but now his watch has ended (Game of Thrones pun intended.)

I was born and raised in Egypt until I was seventeen, then started travelling 8 years ago mainly all around Asia, until I landed and settled with the amazing teams of Expansive Worlds and Avalanche Studios.

I have been working in Customer Support since 2015, although I studied Chemical Engineering. Well, both fields despite their vast differences, aim to find the best solutions for everyone using technical knowledge. For me, assisting people and solving problems bring unique sense of achievement (a feeling I also found when I harvested my first kill in theHunter!)

In my free time I could be travelling abroad, hiking or running a Netflix marathon. I enjoy the contrasts of life from lying down in a park watching the clouds in peace; to bungee jumping from a 60-meter stand. You could say I’m mainly interested in everything that is thrilling and adrenaline-rushing (MASSIVE FORMULA ONE FAN). For that reason, I’m very excited to be here and to work on such an amazing game.

That’s it from us for today.

Happy haunting!

Discussion

Howdy hunters,

With Graham travelling, I will be taking over the status updates for a while and without further ado, let’s dive into it, shall we?

Backpack Bonanza

Today we released three new backpacks for your avatars, in some of the most requested camo varieties: Arctic Winter, Winter Forest and Summer Swamp. Not only cool and stylish, but also adding to your concealment. What more could you wish for, eh?

We’re also celebrating the release of these bad boys with a cool giveaway. Everyone who buys a camo character backpack (not the basic one) before the end of this week, October 22nd, will be enrolled in a special raffle in which one lucky winner will take home this real life backpack. Made to the highest standards by Swedish company Fjällraven, it’s suitable for all outdoor adventures. We will also raffle three 1000 em$ gift codes amongst the rest of the entrants. The winners of the raffle will be announced in the next status update. Time to go shopping!

Spooky times
It’s starting to smell like Halloween and you know what that means 😉 The team has been busy preparing a new event for you and we think, well we’re pretty sure, that it’ll be scarier and spookier than anything you’ve seen in theHunter Classic so far. We’ve done everything from beast bunnies to plagued elk, but this time the EHR will be properly haunted by a very special creature. Maybe more than one!? You will see (and feel) it all yourself as all hell breaks loose next Thursday, October 26th. Be there to get your special mission assignment from Doc’s friend Gilles Garnier, a very curious character.

Level up twice as fast
And while we are on the topic of events, make sure to clear your calendar this weekend. We will be running a double XP event, during which your spotting, tracking and shooting skills will be increasing twice as fast – whoa!

And, finally…
…we dropped some raven feather collectables in Whiterime Ridge today – enjoy the new treasure!

Happy hunting!

Discussion

Hi all!

Welcome to another weekly status update!  This time we haven’t quite so many goodies to talk about, but it doesn’t take a detective to work out that a little quiet period means we could be working towards something special.  Apparently Halloween is just around the corner? 😉

Let’s start with a new addition to the team!

Hello! My name is Caroline Kullman and I’m new here to Expansive Worlds. I’m a part of Marketing, and will be working with video editing and 2D graphics which includes everything from video sequences and trailers to print and web material. I have previously worked as a packaging designer, freelancer and as an in-house designer. I’ve also worked as a photographer and more recently as an editing apprentice. In my spare time I like oil and watercolor painting, traveling and playing adventure/first-person shooter video games. I also probably have the world’s fluffiest cat named Gizmo which is the kindest and most gorgeous creature in existence. Looking forward to making some awesome content for you!

Bundles of bundles!

We hinted about the upcoming bundle week in our last Status Update, well now it’s in full swing!  Be sure to check the store each day between now and 23:59 Monday to pick up some bargains!

Taking on the Pack!

We introduced a shiny new set of 10 Grey Wolf missions to the existing selection.  First-up you’ll need to assist Tala with culling some particularly aggressive wolves, we’ll let you discover how the missions unfold from there!

This Week’s Free Rotation

This week we have two particularly fearsome targets for you to go after, the Grey Wolf and the lethal Roe Deer!  But seriously…no joke…the Roe deer, according to our logs, has been the perpetrator in their fair share of Hunter attacks!

Join in the discussion about this week’s Status Update here.

Hi all!

It’s Friday!  How about we celebrate the beginning of the weekend (and hopefully lots of hunting), with a status update?  First-up, this week’s new addition to the store, the 30R O/U Break-Action Rifle! 

Double the Barrels, Twice the Fun!

The 30R O/U Break-Action Rifle is for the hunter that wants both serious stopping-power and the ability for a quick follow-up shot, all in the same package.  This rifle is right at home when used for all of the cervids, feral hogs, or even bears!  It’s also pretty darned beautiful to look at we think you’ll agree!

.30 R Double Barreled Rampage

As is tradition for all new store arrivals, we’ve cooked up a coinciding competition.  For this challenge you’ll be tasked with using your shiny new purchase across a spread of species.  Sticking with our “double” theme, the best two combined weights of the target animals will go towards scoring.

Em$ and a trophy are both up for grabs, get to it!

Bundles of Bargains!

A little bird tells me that as of Monday our store bundles will be getting some extra attention!  Who knows, we might even see some fan-made suggestions in there. 😉  We recommend checking the store throughout the week to see if you can fill in some gaps in your hunting toolkit!

A View To A Kill

To keep you occupied before next week’s bundle extravaganza kicks-off we have a selection of popular optics to complement your loadout with.  The 7x42mm Rangefinder Binoculars are a personal favourite, and sure to be of help to those with a particular passion for bowhunting.

Winners of Our Stylishly Snapped Shed Competition!

We had a whole array of entries to our recent antler-shed competition, you can see our three winners (along with a special mention) below:

3rd Place – AngelOne63

This entry from AngelOne63  grabbed our attention primarily for the excellent use of facial ornamentation combined with that stylish day-glo yellow shirt!  Congrats to you!

2nd Place – Tana95

This shot had it all, a monster elk, a furry faithful hunting partner, AND a huge shed antler!

1st Place – Hawkeye

I chose this winner just for the sheer innovation in thinking to use shadows as their preferred medium.  Big congratulations!

And speaking of shadows…although it missed the deadline, we couldn’t not give Hoocairs a mention for this one!

Weekly Game Update

We of course had a game update this week.  There were some tweaks and adjustments to both the new comeback caller and the duck-call lanyard.  I recommend taking a look to see the latest changes.

And finally…a sneak peek at something new…

We know that trophy lodges have been a popular feature, so we thought we’d give you a little more freedom to “make them yours”.  Upcoming trophy lodge customisation options will give you various options to truly personalise your own hunting haven.  For example, do you prefer a rugged stonewalled feeling?

Or do rough-cut timber walls and parquet floors hold a stronger appeal?

Of course this is all work in progress, but we can’t wait to share with you the finished product!

There’s been plenty to share this week, as always please do join in discussion about this week’s news here.

Have a great weekend!

Hello Hunters!

It’s that time of the week again, time for us to tell you about the goings-on with Hunter Classic for the past week!

Let’s begin with this week’s new content:

It’s Cool to Call, Ducks!

This week’s new additions to the game are all about ducks, getting more of them, and more conveniently.

First up we have the new Duck Comeback Caller.  

Are some ducks playing hard to get and simply refusing to come and hang-out with your carefully place decoy spread?  This caller is just what you need to tempt the more stubborn ducks out of their flock, and into your gunsights.  Best used in conjunction with the Mallard Long Range Caller, the effect also stacks with deployed decoys.

That covers the “getting more” part of our duck addition, next up, “more conveniently”.  We bring you, the Duck Caller Lanyard.

This quality-of-life item will conveniently put all of your favourite duck callers at your disposal via just one key-binding.  With no need to assign individual callers to inventory slots this item unlocks a new hotkey function which brings up a menu wheel to speedily select any duck caller held in your bags.  Handy!

You can see both of these new additions in action courtesy of “HooCairs” here:

Game Update

As well as the above goodies there were of course the usual updates and improvements to the game.  The ability for guest players to trigger e-callers on and off in multiplayer was a much requested fix, also bears are looking a little less “far out”. 😉

Read the full update here.

Hunting Antlers?  Make it Snappy!

At the time of writing this we have just over a day to go until the judging begins!  We’ve seen some excellent entries so far, from the beautiful, to the technical, to the just slightly crazy. 😉  Please do get those last entries in soon to avoid disappointment!

To give you a taster of some of the competition, here’s an entry from forum user “kevin2106”

Ducky Deals, and Free Birds.

To mark the launch of this week’s duck goodies we’ve added a new permanent Duck Caller Bundle.  Additionally, ducks have been added to the free rotation, there’s no better time to get out there and get some trophy birds! Also, please do pop by our store tomorrow, there might be some more duck related pleasant surprises for you there.

On the topic of birds…subject to request from the forum, the Turkey Decoy Full Spread Bundle is available once more.

Fall is here…

…and with it, the mark of the beginning of a new hunting season for a lot of countries.

Do you like to hunt in real life as well?  If so come join in the discussion here.

Our CEO Pim actually recently came back with some partridge as a sign of a day well spent!

Pim Holvfe, Avalanche Studios CEO, and some Swedish “rapphöna” (partridge).

Please feel free to discuss today’s Status Update here.

Hello Hunters!

Well, the bobcat fever is still going strong, our social media channels have been flooded with trophy shots of proud hunters with their kills!  So, we’ll begin with a little round-up of our bobcat launch and then dig into the rest of the week’s goings-on.

The Cat is Out of the Bag

Well, what’s to say to begin with but “wow!”, the whole team has been so happy to see the results of their hard work so happily received.  The excitement within the community has been palpable, and for that we thank you!

We’ve had excellent and informative videos from some of the usual suspects such as HooCairs and RonMctube, thread after thread of bobcat discussion on our forum, and lots of extremely creative trophy shots:

Credits to xOEDragonx for this beauty!

We don’t think we we’ll see the last of this furry critter, it seems to have become a real community favourite!  Oh, did I mention, we hunted a particularly rare bobcat on launch day?  The team quite liked this one!

Do you have thoughts or feedback regarding the bobcat and/or e-caller?  Join in the discussion here.

Antler Sheds Are Here!

So, after adding a new animal to our reserves, why not some more collectibles?  Many of you will know that it is common for deer to shed antlers every year, I in fact remember hunting for them as a kid back in England. 😉  Well, now you can try and spot them in theHunter too!

This has been a hotly requested feature for a long time, and we are very pleased to be able to get this feature out in the wild!  Any reserve deer can be found, you can count on there being antler sheds.  You can find single sheds, or even doubles, and each find is scored via our TruRacks system and logged in a leader-board for posterity. Eventually we even plan to add a full scoresheet!

Snap a Stylish Shed (No, Not the Wooden Kind!)

With a new feature for you to play with, it only made sense we should spice things up with some friendly competitiveness!

Over at our forum you can see the details of a new screenshot competition we’ve just started.  You have the chance to get your hands on some em$ by showing off your creative side with some antler shed shots.  We can’t wait to see your entries!

Wolves/Coyotes and Scoring

We just wanted to correct our previous communications about wolf/coyote scoring after the size adjustments. Scoring scales will in fact remain the same despite the size changes.

A Special Shout-Out to Xeygwyn!

During one of our streams a fan was talking about a snazzy app they’d made to help keep track of ethical ammunition for different species, it sounded pretty awesome so I suggested they share it with the community.  Well, it’s now available for you to use!

We are really impressed with the dedication our fans have, and the general awesome community atmosphere that comes with it.  Big thank you to Xeygwyn!

See you all for more news next week!  In the meantime feel free to join the discussion here