That New England reserve is the most recent released for Call of the Wild, coming out this past December. They release a new one every six months like clockwork. Way of the Hunter is looking to at least keep pace, and has announced its new reserve, Aurora Shores (Alaska). Looks fantastic, and from the time I've spent hunting the Yukon reserve in Call of the Wild I suspect it will be a great addition to the game.




I assume this is included for those of us with the season pass? Wouldn't be the first time a season pass didn't net me the goods. But surely, as I've not gotten anything with the pass yet, this one will be.

Edit: The first two DLC reserves are included in the pass

Looks like you have to play it as a woman.

I mentioned above how I focus tightly on my shooting. I try to maintain as high a percentage as I can, looking to take good shots with a high chance of success. And not just hitting the target, but hitting the proper spots to ensure a clean harvest. Many times shots are presented that I pass over, wanting to improve my position, the angle or the range. I don't shoot at running animals, because these are more likely to miss, or at least miss the vitals, resulting in a wounded animal. Call of the Wild tracks this, while Way of the Hunter does not. Honestly I wish there were far more statistics tracked, especially with each individual weapon, and harvests broken down by type and weapon. Like how many whitetails have I taken with a .243? .308? 420-gr arrow? What it does track is fairly basic, but you can at least see your shooting percentages with each weapon category. Missing any shot bothers me and is only forgotten if I hit my next six or ten on the bounce.

Consistency seems like a worthy thing to strive for. How's this?






Having identical percentages for every weapon type, after that many shots is crazy. What are the chances? I've since hit three straight bow shots to bump the bow percentage and foul my consistency haha. I feel like I should be hitting 90% so I've got work to do. If it weren't for those "missed" shots from the Blue Trail mission described earlier, and a few others that inexplicably didn't find the target I would be on 90. A word of warning to any new players, shooting prone risks a blocked muzzle, even when you think it's clear. It's as if going prone lays the rifle on the ground, instead of supported several inches above it. The scope picture is clear, but there's a risk your shot hits terrain. This happened a few times when I took shots across a lake. I went prone on one shore, took the shot across, and nothing happened when it was a sure fire hit. I think the round must have hit the ground after leaving the muzzle, even though to look at it you would think there's no obstruction. So if you're going to take prone shots, make sure there's a ledge or drop off under your barrel, like atop a boulder. I take virtually every shot from a crouch as a result.

And yeah, the ATV scares a lot of animals

As mentioned, I consider myself a whitetail deer hunter in Call of the Wild. I still take them as they come, but whitetails have been my main focus. It's what I hunted growing up, and just kept on with it after getting in to these hunting games.

I got the achievement "Whitetail Hunter" for harvesting 50 whitetail deer. 3.2% of the player base have done so. I suspect this will be one of the most common of the achievements for harvesting 50 of a certain animal type.

I doubt any other type is close. If I had to guess I'd say I am probably closest with moose. They are easy to hunt, you can get close to them, they are slow and big targets. Great to hunt with the bow actually, using 600-gr arrows.

The most difficult animals to hunt for me have probably been the coyotes and foxes. Small, fast, elusive, highly alert. Their caution often has them clearing out before you get a spot.

And there are still quite a few I've yet to take. Have yet to take a quail, for instance, or a lion. Was in Africa last night to unlock more of the outposts and lookout towers and saw a number of lions, but all females. I want my first lion to be the King of the Jungle, err, savanna. And honestly they frighten me a little.

Each time I hop to a different reserve I like to spend the first bit unlocking another outpost. The more you've opened up, the more options you have to plan hunts. Zipping around on the ATV makes it a lot easier to do, but spooks everything within 500m. So I just bite the bullet, get it done, and then can settle down to hunt. Many outposts in both games are situated close to lakes, and other prime spots. Take a look at the wind, then pick an outpost to fast travel to. This has you arrive silently, and now you can proceed to hunt upwind. The more outposts you've unlocked, the more options and flexibility you have depending on the wind and which type of animals you're looking for. So I advise to explore early and often, get the maps opened up. I'll save a few for stalks, so I have worthwhile destinations while hunting on foot. The ATV though is gold.

I think if you were playing the game in 2017, with only two reserves, spending all this effort to open them up was less of an issue. You'll get around the whole map sooner or later. But with 13, it's sort of a necessary thing.

Headed back to Hirschfelden last night. This is one of the two base game reserves. A nice mix of forests and fields. My favorite animals to hunt on all the maps are the deer-like ones. Between all of the reserves Call of the Wild has the following that I lump in to this category

Elk (Roosevelt and Rocky Mountain)
Moose
Caribou
Red Deer
Reindeer
Mule Deer
Whitetail Deer
Blacktail Deer
Fallow Deer
Roe Deer
Musk Deer
Sika Deer

That's a nice selection and doesn't include all the similar stuff like Ibex, Pronghorn, Springbok and Lesser Kudu which are goats, antelope and sheep rather than deer. But they all hunt rather the same.

In Hirschfelden I was having success with bison, hunting them with the new bow I had just unlocked. It's called the Hawk Edge 70, the top compound bow in the game. It was locked behind bow score, and it took quite a while to gain enough. About 1800 points, which I reckon was somewhere between 40 and 50 bow kills So that is quite the hill to climb. This bow has the highest peak draw, meaning it shoots faster arrows, flatter and has the best penetration. It can easily take down any thing in the game, with the right arrows. The Hawk Edge also costs 48,000 so not cheap even after doing so much to qualify for it.

Eventually I came to a large lake and ambled down quietly to the shore to have a look about. At the far (west) end of the lake I spotted this Red stag. I was sure I had found a top trophy. I mean, look at that rack! When you hit the key to 'spot' the animal, an outline appears, which can be seen here. I'm sure it can be turned off? But I keep it on. Helps now and then in the brush and tall grass. Not realistic, but yeah.



In the upper right you see the details the spot reveals. There are skills and perks you can take as you level up, and some of these provide additional information when spotting, or reading tracks. In this shot you see the animal's health at the top (75-100%). Below that is the animal class (6), which dictates which ammunition is proper. His state is 'nervous', either because he heard a shot I had recently taken, or he detected me through sight, sound or smell. His action is drinking, obviously. A weight range estimate, and in the bottom right a trophy range estimate. Mythical is a representation of how difficult the animal is to hunt.

Trophy score determines whether the harvest is bronze, silver, gold, diamond or Great One. The "harvest check" also factors in. In order to pass the harvest check you must meet four requirements. Proper ammunition, vital organ hit, two or fewer shots, and you must not hit the trophy organ, like the head on a deer (antlers).

I provided this super handy link earlier, and I'll post it again


Call of the Wild Class and Cartridge

At the bottom are tabs that drill down to specific information about each animal on every reserve, such as trophy thresholds and max weights. The upshot is that as you take those perks and reveal more information, you can be selective in which animals you harvest. In the case of Red Deer, Gold is above 182.2, and diamond is 251. the red deer in the image is estimated between 202-248. So, a gold, not a Great One as I hoped when I first saw him through the glass. I mean, look at that rack!

In this shot, the deer is about 330 yards away. I can hit at that distance, but here I quietly stalked forward until I had reduced the range to 223 yards and took the shot with the .308. You can see the green wind cone indicating the wind is out of the northwest, so favorable to me from this position, and not something I needed to worry about as I closed the range. Double lung shot and he dropped after a few steps. In the end, not the diamond or great one I had thought I had found (that rack!), but a very solid gold harvest and he is now displayed in my lodge. A really nice trophy.

Is there a release date for the WotH Alaska map? I can't find anything in the official announcement.

Yes, sir. DLC is scheduled to drop February 23

https://www.toomuchgaming.net/blog-news/way-of-the-hunter-aurora-shores-dlc-adds-14-new-species

That article title says "14 new species" but I bet that will prove a stretch. Depends on how you look at it, but it's difficult to think of a Roosevelt Elk as a new species compared to any other sort of elk, but I think that's the hair being split here. Regardless I'm very much looking forward to it. Caribou especially.

Not a big fan of crossbows if I'm honest. I mean, they are cool and all, but not really what I want to hunt with. A compound bow would be more my style. But I'm sure I'll give them a run out. I wonder if there are any new firearms? I'm hoping for more lever-actions.

One thing to note is the size of the reserve quoted in this article. It says 64 square km / 24.7 square miles. That would be half the size of Nez Perce or Transylvania, and make it the same size as Call of the Wild reserves.

This from Nine Rocks says the price will be $9.99

https://ninerocksgames.com/posts/announcing-aurora-shores-dlc

Funny story. I noticed I got the new .50 modern muzzleloader in Call of the Wild. Must have come with the New England reserve?

Anyway, I took it out last night to complete a mission that required it (take a turkey with a bow and a moose with the muzzleloader). I was slowly stalking near a lake and spotted a black bear not far off. She sensed me and rose on her hind legs like they do but I wasn't prepared to shoot and I stopped to see what she did. She lost me as I had stopped moving and began walking, straight toward my position. Straight on with her head low I could not get a good shot at the vitals. Finally, she was too close, just 15 yards and I tried to shoot past her head and hit the chest. But whatever I hit didn't take her down and she came for me.

I went to shoot again, but saw I had no round loaded. Hit reload and well, it's a freakin' muzzleloader! Doh! She hit me at a full run and took a nice wedge out of my health bar. The lesson is, always make the first shot count with a muzzleloader!

Waiting for a sale doesn't work if you just buy the stuff before the sale arrives.

Picked up the Cuatro Colinas reserve (Spain) and the Assorted Sidearms Pack. I've been carrying handguns more, and I wanted the 10mm Glock. I've been carrying the .454 handcannon in reserves with class 9 dangerous animals (cape buffalo, bison, lions) and a .45 revolver in the others. The .45 is class 2-5, and the 10mm is 2-6. I don't intend to use it for class 6, like Red deer, as it is pushing the limit and even though the integrity is maintained, I can imagine some long tracks. But it does mean that it will hit harder in class 2-5 than the .45 and make it a good wolves defense weapon.

A word about wolves.... In Way of the Hunter, wolves are handled smartly. Wolves are predators, and as such they have fantastic senses. They are especially wary of other predators. Like you, the hunter. When they detect you they leave. Elusive and canny. In Call of the Wild, they've made the wolves hyper-aggressive, and if they are within range they will attack. In a circling pack, and you had better be prepared. In an effort to make the game feel dangerous, the devs ignored natural behavior and frankly I don't like it. When I hunted I encountered wolves, coyotes and bears, and none of them were interested in sticking around. Not to mention attacking.

I dislike it so much that I don't spend as much time as I might on the maps that have them, Yukon, Medved Taiga and now Cuatro Colinas, although these are Iberian wolves and not gray so maybe they behave differently, but I suspect it's just a reskin and otherwise the same. I'll see if the wolves in Spain are more naturally wary, and so far they've kept to themselves. But I'll have that 10mm JC Denton special now if they decide otherwise.

I wish there was a little aggressiveness from wolves in WotH, but it should be more realistic and not as overdone like in CotW. For example only when you track an injured wolf. Or when it takes too long to find a killed deer, the carcass might be claimed by wolves or a bear, that need to be scared away.

Where I life the rare cases of aggressive behaviour by wolves happened when people were accompanied by dogs. If we ever get dogs in WotH I would like to see something similar.

Right, that sort of behavior should only occur, in my view, if the animal is wounded or cornered. Yesterday on the Cuatro Colinas map I was attacked by a pack, and it was bad in about every way possible.

It was nearly dark, and I was in a field with high grass, making the circling and darting wolves hard to spot. I did have my new Glock, which holds 15 rounds, and I was popping them off at the fleeting targets. Finally they ran off. But two bronze harvests resulted since I hit one more than twice (bronze is the worst), and the other outside the vitals. I hit a third evidently, because I lost my consecutive harvest bonus, so a third wolf must have died but I didn't find him. Two shots missed, dropping my shooting percentage, dammit. And one of the wolves got a strike in, taking a chunk out of my health. The only positive is some handgun score.


New longest shot. 443 yards. The aim point was just below the spine so you can see the drop over a quarter mile. Would have been a heart shot I think, but hit the leg bone and didn't penetrate enough.

I had been sinking all my time in to Call of the Wild. I prefer the hunting in Way of the Hunter, but the diversity in Call of the Wild keeps pulling me in that direction.

But I fired up Way of the Hunter to have a bash about, and get back in the groove in anticipation of the new reserve coming out next week. Within a half hour I was on the trail of a five-star mule deer in the river valley south of Bear Den Ranch. I found a herd in a thicket close by the river, on the western bank. The dense spruce trees and tall grass prevented a proper look, but my binoculars and hunter sense showed there was a five-star in among them. I could see just glimpses of brown fur through the gaps, and it was not possible to pick out which glimpse was of the five star.

I attempted to angle off to the river bank, hoping that would change my line of sight and give me a spot, but as I got within about 70 yards I spooked them, and they bounded away, crossed the river, and through the fields, disappearing up the mountainside in to the forest. Dammit. Since I hadn't fired I wondered if I were patient, if the herd would eventually return. I crossed the river behind them, and climbed a tower to give me an elevated view of the surrounding area, while keeping watch in the direction the mulies had gone. About 30 minutes later I heard a mule deer calling in that direction. Hoping it was the group with the five star I glassed in that direction and caught a glimpse of a doe slowly picking her way down the hill among the trees. Then another, and then the rest, including this magnificent buck. They were on track to pass directly below my stand.

But they were so bunched up that the deer in front of the five star masked my shot in the vitals of my target. Patiently I waited, worried that every step closer increased the odds I would be sensed or seen. At about 150 yards the big buck bumped in to the deer in front, which caused him to veer slightly, unmasking his chest and I took the shot with the .308. My zero had been slightly too long, and as the recoil subsided I thought about how I failed to hold under. But surely that was a a kill shot. The deer reacted to the shot, and bounded off to the left, behind a big spruce. I climbed down from the stand and walked around that spruce to harvest my deer. And he was gone!

Dammit! Found the blood spot where the impact was and the analysis said "animal survived". Dammit. This was a done deal, yet it wasn't. Game on, big mulie buck!

In Call of the Wild, spooking deer and making them run away is recoverable. I can either follow them, and I'll usually find them. Or if I just wait quietly, most of the time they'll come back to resume whatever activity they were involved in when I so rudely interrupted. But in Way of the Hunter it's much harder. The spooked animals clear out and rarely come back. Of course they just had, but I hadn't taken a shot yet. Now I had fired my weapon and I knew they wouldn't be back. So I decided to see if I could stalk them down. All I had was a direction and a massive reserve, in which they could now be anywhere.

The terrain and wind were not in my favor. The trees were thick, and the terrain rugged enough that sight lines were short. Advantage, deer. But I kept slowly making my way in the direction I hoped they would be. After about ten minutes I caught a mule deer call a couple hundred yards further on. It could be my herd, or any other too. As I closed to within about 90 yards of where I thought they were, they spooked again and split. Dammit. Back to stalking, I again got a call, and closed, spooking them yet again. They're highly alert, even more so than usual due to being shot at and chased, but I was in it now.

Again I slowly kept stalking in their direction and this time the call came from upwind, as I had worked around the flank a little bit. But the heavy terrain prevented any look. I kept working around the hill and as it fell away out of sight I saw them. 90 yards away and with the five star standing broadside. I was so excited and happy to have tracked them down that I didn't even risk a screenshot (though perfect it would have been) as maybe this magnificent buck would move in the instant it would take to hit the key. I took the shot from 90 yards and down he went.

The harvest screen revealed the problem with shot number 1. Because of the high down-angle of the shot from the stand, and the failure to properly hold under at that range, the first bullet had entered the deer's neck just below the jaw, forcing it to travel though a couple feet of flesh before hitting the lung. That took all the energy out and it only penetrated the lung a couple of inches. Not enough for a kill I guess. Second shot though from the flank was lethal. But I really wish I had taken that screenshot! What a perfect presentation.

This is my second five star mule deer. And it's the first harvest of a five star where I think it's probable that it is the result of my herd management. This river valley is where i do most of that work, and especially on mule deer. It's close to the main base, so it gets the most attention. Whether it actually is the result of my work is impossible to say. Just speculation, but it's good to think the effort may be paying off.

I failed to get the shot of the shot, but here he is above the fireplace.




Back to Call of the Wild.... I've been talking about wolves throughout this thread, how they give me a hard time. Yesterday I got my revenge. I was hunting the Siberia map, called Medved Taiga. At a frozen lake I tracked a nice reindeer buck, taking him down with the .308 on the ice. After the shot a pack of wolves seemed to decide they would relieve me of my burden. But out here on the ice I had clear fields of fire, a rifle and a scope.

Hunted the Yukon reserve last night, and had great success. Bison, wolves, caribou, moose and red foxes. There are a few amazing spots to hunt, with fantastic sight lines, and full of game. There is the outpost in the northwest, in the burnt-out Teekon forest area. No undergrowth, no leaves or needles on the trees. All those trees make it feel a little surreal, and long range shots will have to be threaded between them. But if you're looking for a good spot to get a lot of shooting in, this is it. It is particularly dangerous, the animals here are not fooling around. You need a good big-game weapon, like the .300 or .338. But the clear views mean you can get the drop if you're attentive and observant.

Here, a pack of wolves takes a break before the next round.



Leaving there after putting pressure all over the area, I headed southeast, toward the center of the map, to unlock a lookout tower and an outpost. Along the way I just had to hop off the quad to snap this shot. Beautiful!





Again, amazing sightlines and views across this vast expanse of heathlands, or plains or whatever it might be called. Only spoiled by the 500m limit to render animals.

Back to Way of the Hunter. Alaska coming Thursday!

I told the story of the five-star mulie a couple posts back. I've another tale to tell.

Fired Way of the Hunter back up and went on a stalk. I carried the Steyr Monobloc .308 and the Steyr SM12 .300 Mag. This covers class 5 and 6. Fast traveled to Rivermouth outpost, as the wind was out of the north, and then I can stalk upwind back toward Bear Den between the river and the railroad. This has been my favorite hunt. The Rivermouth camp sits a couple miles south of the Bear Den Ranch It's mostly open, gently rolling fields with waist-high grass, with some pine forests to the east along the tracks. Good deer country, but also good for pheasant and fox. I took my five-star Bighorn here, right on the railroad tracks. Those are very rare in this area, but there he was.

After reaching the camp I headed west toward the river, and turned north as I got close to it. Went about a half mile, slowly in a crouch, stopping every few yards to listen and glass the surrounding terrain, finding a few pheasant and hearing a fox in the distance. I wasn't armed for this class of game, so I pushed on to the north. After another couple hundred yards I heard a mule deer call about 250 yards north of my position. I arrowed in on the azimuth. The herd of mulies were eating, in the field, just on the edge of a forest. A mixed stand of evergreens and deciduous. The terrain was unfavorable, as the ground fell away gently all the way to the edge of the forest. So as you move forward you never quite reveal more of the deer, they always seem just out of view. I could see their heads, and a few were bucks. I kept closing, slowly, and as quietly, as I could.

Finally I found a small rise that gave me a better view and I was glassing them, trying to decide on which one to target. There was a two-star mature buck and I settled on him. All of them had their butts toward me, and that's not a good shot. So I waited patiently for them to move, and hopefully give me a better shot at the broadside.Patience, of course, is a requirement in these games, if you want to be successful. While I was waiting for a better shot, and glassing the herd, I heard a whitetail call from beyond the mule deer, farther in to the forest.

I turned the binoculars in that direction and a five-star flashed through the glasses. As your optics pass over an animal, its info is displayed in the upper right of the screen, as long as you have Hunter Sense enabled. It shows the trophy rating, the animal's alert state and more. So of course upon seeing this I switched targets. I'm after trophies now. I've passed through the earlier stages. Way of the Hunter emphasizes those phases

To paraphrase

-- Shooting Stage. The hunter is happy to get out in the field and fire his weapon at targets.

-- Limit Stage. The hunter has the skills to successfully harvest game and proves it by taking his limit

-- Trophy Stage. The hunter is no longer satisfied with taking a full tag. Now he seeks the best examples.

-- Method Stage. Trophies alone are no longer enough, and the hunter seeks to challenge himself with the method. Bows, muzzleloaders and other skillful methods are attractive.

-- Sportsman Stage. The hunter is content. He has mastered his craft and has the trophies to prove it. Now he seeks to share what he knows with new hunters, and seeks to promote conservation and teach newcomers the proper ethics and methods of hunting.

Until we get bows, muzzleloaders and other skill options, I'm firmly in the Trophy Stage. Herd management mechanics mean I still harvest other types, primarily targeting one-star matures, but it's just a means to the end, producing, and harvesting, top-tier animals. And I sprinkle in some Sportsmen stage in this thread, but of course no one posts in this thread, so I concentrate on the trophies!

By switching over to the whitetail herd I had to be mindful of the mulies. How to get closer to the whitetails, without spooking the mule deer, and having them all run off. The whitetails were moving east to west, about twenty yard inside the forest. This meant narrow windows as they passed behind, and appeared from out of, a mix of bushes and trees. I got in a good position with an aperture of about four feet and waited for the big buck to appear. He did, but a doe walked beside him, between us. She masked the front of the buck, covering his vitals. They kept walking, and would soon pass out of view. It was now or never.

I took the shot from about 100 yards with the .308, just about flipping the tail of the doe as the bullet passed behind her and struck the big buck. I wanted to thread the shot in that tiny window to hit the rear of his lungs, but just missed by an inch and hit him in the belly. He took off and I tracked for a couple hundred yards, and found him. Sorry big buck, that was a poor shot. Not clean. But five-stars are rare, and I took the risk. It paid off with a harvest, but I always look to do so in the quickest, cleanest manner.

I made an interesting discovery when viewing the harvest screen. This was the second time I had shot this deer. I knew I had never shot a five-star whitetail that I failed to take down. So I had taken a shot at this deer when he was something less than five-star, and as fortune would have it, this allowed him to then grow to five-star status. The first shot was a head-on, which hit his lung, but not enough to take him down obviously. I wonder when that was, and how many stars he was when that shot was taken? Pretty cool.

This is that five-star whitetail, looking at the trophy screen, and you can see how the trophy score is calculated. This one is five points better than my first five-star whitetail buck.



And here he is in the lodge alongside the first one, with a mule deer in the back. I set a goal of fifty five-stars, and I now have nine.

2x Whitetail Deer
2x Mule Deer
2x Pheasant
Red Deer
Bighorn Sheep
Mountain Goat

Alaska reserve releases today.

I posted a chart earlier showing suitability for various cartridges and animals at different ranges, but it was out of date, not showing all of the weapons added after release.

Here's a newer one

https://codeaid.github.io/woth-toolbox/firearms?q=steyr-monoblock

Patch notes. A reasonably priced sportscar ATV, and they fixed the shotgun penetration which I think was needed. The crouch bobbing on sloped terrain not fixed yet, but they said they are working on it.

- Added: 2 Crossbows
- Harpe WonderHit
- Apex Predator (available only in the Aurora Shores DLC story)
- Added: 2 Crossbow sights
- Overgaard Reliance Red Dot
- ZOOMXD TrueSight 1.5-5x32
- Added: 4 callers
- Primos The Great Big Can Doe Bleat
- Primos Big Bucks Rattling Bag
- Primos Ki-Yi Predator Call
- Primos The Original Wench Duck Call
- Added: 1 UTV - Vega Predator 1000 (9.999 credits)
- (MP) Tweaked: Client unable to claim a downed animal (partial fix)
- Tweaked: Increased the penetration of shotgun pellets
- Tweaked: Blood trails have an additional red glow in Hunter sense on the Explorer difficulty
- Tweaked: Vehicle radio playing in the vicinity of the vehicle
- Tweaked: Improved trophy value calculation
- Tweaked: Improved character animations
- Tweaked: Improved various effects in the Environment
- Tweaked: HUD notifications no longer overlap cutscenes
- Tweaked: Improved scene lighting in the Bullet camera screen
- Tweaked: Caller range increased to 250m/273y
- Tweaked: Animals are more likely to vocalize in response to callers
- Tweaked: Animal icons on the hunting map
- Fixed: Animals occasionally fast traveling with the player
- Fixed: Animals occasionally freezing in position
- Fixed: Camera shaking when moving in prone position
- Fixed: Blood track inspect occasionally not showing expiration
- Fixed: Player spawning with last saved stance after fast travel
- Fixed: Objective helper counter updating properly
- Fixed: Hold breath icon now showing when using shotgun
- Fixed: Rotation of taxidermy stands in the Nez Perce Valley lodge
- (MP) Fixed: April model animation fixes

I gave the new Alaska reserve a go in Way of the Hunter. It's not the wintry snowscape I might have been expecting. After all, hunting season in Alaska is August to October mostly, and this is what it looks like. It's half the size of the first two reserves, and the same size as the Call of the Wild reserves. It's pretty wide open. Lots of long sight lines and shooting opportunities. Some new species like bison, caribou and sitka seer. A few recycles, like new elk and moose variants. Gotta play as a woman. Story stuff I could do without. New reserve, arm up and go hunting is the way I want it to be. Nothing forces me to do the story, but it does give you money, and in this case a free crossbow at the end. So I soldier through, usually with my headphones on the desk so I don't have to listen to it. Just see what task came out of all the chatter at the end.

No new firearms, which weren't promised, but I was hoping for a new rifle or two. I'd like to see a bolt-action .270. A bolt-action 6.5 Creedmoor. A lever-action .243 and .45/70. It would be cool if Nine Rocks struck the same sort of deal with Browning as they did with Remington and Steyr. The shotguns are in a good spot with semi-auto 20 and 12ga. Pumps, side-by-sides and a 16ga over/under that goes with pheasant hunting like bacon goes with eggs. Matter of fact I think 16ga shell boxes almost always have a pheasant pictured on them

I have the pass and the DLC was already ready to go, a 9 gig download, and ran first time no issues. Smooth release.

I hope this gives the game a shot, because numbers were way down. Looked the other day and there were about 400 players on. There was a big spike today as you'd expect, but let's see if it drops off after a few days like after the initial release. It's a good hunting game and I think deserves better. I like both of these games, but prefer Way of the Hunter when the boots are one the ground. When it's just me, my rifle and a whitetail it's closer to what I want out of a hunting game. But it needs to connect with more players.

The 1.22 update brought a new UTV option, priced at a quarter of the cost of the first one. Much better, and I bought it. I could afford the expensive one, literally, technically, but I have to keep a taxidermy fund. So i wasn't prepared to blow all that cash on it if it meant my next five star couldn't be displayed

It's not all that different to the jeep really, maybe a little better in rough country, a little smaller to fit in certain places, but you could save the cash and not be missing much.

I finally picked up the .270 and have been using it in Alaska. I had been carrying the .308 for a while and wanted to mix it up. Don't care for pumps, but who cares, so I bought it. It's said the Remingtons are less accurate than the Steyrs. If so it's minor.

Accuracy aside, this cartridge outperforms that .308. Not by much, especially at short range. Over distance the .270 is better, a couple hundred joules at 250 yards. Both are perfectly suited to all the class 5 game. The .270 gives you a little more margin when crossing in to class 6. It should fly flatter too, but if so I can't tell. Both guns are more than accurate enough and any competent shooter is going to do just as well with either one.

The .30-06 is a little more powerful inside 100 yards, but the .270 passes it beyond that range. The 7mm and .243 don't compete really. So yeah, the .270 is probably the best class 5 cartridge currently in the game in my view, especially at typical ranges of 150-250 yards.

Hopefully we will see another option or two introduced down the line chambered in .270. It's the cartridge I hunted deer with growing up, a Browning bolt-action, after I had paid my dues with the .30-.30 lever action. It's a perfect deer cartridge. My dad swore by the .270, and for those of a certain vintage, the well-known Outdoor Life writer Jack O'Connor did too.I can remember reading his shooting articles as a kid in the 1970s. He was always pictured with his Remington Model 70, with a sheep or big deer in some remote, exotic place -- to me at that time. The cartridge isn't as fashionable these days. I think a big part of why it was so popular is that it has excellent ballistics, shoots very flat with a high muzzle velocity compared to other competing cartridges. This makes a rifle more range resistant. The flatter the trajectory, the less error when the range is misjudged.

In today's hunting, rangefinders are mainstream and so a hunter can find that sort of accuracy with a lot more cartridges. But it's still a great choice for class 5 game in the game, and like i said gives a little more margin to take the class 6 game like elk, moose and bison. The fact that it's a pump has no real consequence other than perception. We don't work the bolt or lever or pump. And firing follow-up shots is something I don't do with rifles (shotguns are another matter), so how the rifle re-chambers doesn't matter. A Browning bolt-action however would feel right.

I was a little dismissive of the UTV a couple posts back, but I used it for a mission and it was really handy. A lot of distance had to be covered in this one, and the trails I followed were rather narrow and some of it on ledges near cliffsides. The jeep would have struggled on the same route, so the UTV utility went up in my view. Price for the Predator 1000 is 9,999 and that's palatable.

Got five-star number ten yesterday, a Wild Duck taken with the 12ga side-by-side Cinnamon Sky. Forty more to hit my target

Last night I thought, let's see if Call of the Wild DLC is finally on sale, and it is! I snapped up nearly everything I had yet to get. Bought the remaining reserves, tree stands and a couple weapon packs. All that for less than a twenty. Most of it is 60% off. Sale ends in a few hours, and as I can see from the participation in this thread, no one will care But it's a good time to get in to it with everything marked down so much.

New DLC coming for Call of the Wild on March 14.

Hunter Power Pack

Three new rifles.

.308 bolt-action. The .308 semi-auto is my most carried rifle as you can tell from this thread. But bolt-action rifles to me are the essence of what a hunting rifle should be. I would expect it to have a longer barrel and maybe be a little heavier, resulting in higher accuracy and less recoil. The .308 is one of the top cartridges in the 4-8 class, matched only by the .30-06 for expansion and penetration (the 7mm is 4-9 and a class of it's own, along with the much shorter ranged .45-70)

7mm bolt-action. Being class 4-9 makes this cartridge the most versatile in the game.I don't use the current one as it is single-shot break action, which I don't care for. A magazine-fed bolt-action option is very attractive, but I would rarely to never use it for class 9 game like cape buffalo. There are better options for that. Not sure I'll carry this one much, but it will have it's uses. It would be a good option to carry in the Hirschfelden reserve. Everything is class 6 or lower, except the class 9 bison. Good cartridge for this map.

.338 bolt action.. Same deal as with the 7mm. Only current option is a single-shot break-action. Another magazine-fed rifle in this very powerful cartridge is a nice option. This might bump the .300 from my lineup. There's some discussion in the community about whether they will model .338 Win Mag, or .338 Lapua, and those are very different cartridges. Either way, it's a nice new rifle for the biggest game.

I expect I'll be using all three. Of all the weapon pack DLC, I think this one is most well-suited to me, I like everything in it, and that's not usually the case.

Finally harvested my first lion last night. I've made it a point to make the first one a top trophy, and I passed up many shots on lions to get there. This one was Mythical. Found him resting at 350 yards, but had to wait a few hours for him to stand up. When he did he started moving and closed the range to 180 yards where I took the shot. One lousy point short of diamond rating, but a magnificent trophy for the lodge.