Developer: Huntin' Buddies Wildlife Management
Publisher: Huntin' Buddies Wildlife Management
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Huntin’ Buddies – Review
We feel like we’ve said this a lot lately: party games have been extremely popular since the release of titles like R.E.P.O.. It clearly seems that many developers are trying to cash in on the success by making their own similar-looking title. In comes Huntin’ Buddies, a title by solo developer Huntin’ Buddies Wildlife Management, which tries to earn a seat at the table with a slightly more original concept. This is one of the few games in the genre where you can actually battle the enemies. We put the game to the test with a few buddies, and while there were quite a few enjoyable elements, there is still some work to be done.
Story
You’ll be playing as a silly-looking hunter who travels to eerie locations to hunt scary-looking creatures. The game doesn’t give you any information whatsoever or any lore behind the monsters you’re hunting. We didn’t really mind the absence of a story here, but perhaps a fun introduction would have helped to set the mood here. Even so, it’s all about the gameplay in Huntin’ Buddies.
Graphics
Graphically, Huntin’ Buddies follows a similar aesthetic to many other recent popular party game titles, such as R.E.P.O., PEAK, and Murky Divers. On one hand, the game has a lot of spooky elements, often thanks to lighting, environmental assets, and creepy enemy models. On the other hand, there’s a lot of silliness involved too, thanks to the character models, their animations, and the overall silly antics you can pull in the game. We loved this mishmash of elements, and truly think Huntin’ Buddies nailed its fairly simple visuals. There are, of course, some visual glitches and clipping issues, but these also had their own ‘charm’.
Sound
All in all, the sound design of Huntin’ Buddies wasn’t too bad. You’ll mainly have to deal with atmospheric sound effects and the weird growls and other noises the strange creatures make. The SFX set the mood, and having to rely on proximity chat does make the game a lot creepier.
Gameplay
Huntin’ Buddies is a multiplayer-focused comedic horror title in the same vein as the aforementioned titles. It’s your job to hunt animals for contracts in a variety of different locations. These animals aren’t regular ones, however, and could be considered something straight out of a creature feature. The offset is simple: you’ll get a contract, you hunt the required creatures, and you progress to the next one. There are three different levels to play through with contracts of increasing difficulty, and that’s pretty much it. If you have some experience with games such as this, and you can communicate well with your team members, you’ll play through what the game has to offer in an evening or two.
During your play sessions, you’ll earn money by completing contracts, which allows you to buy upgrades and new gear. We honestly didn’t buy much of this during our sessions, except for the occasional stamina or health upgrade. We found the game very doable even without new gear, such as a compass or the upgraded flashlight. We would have perhaps loved to have a few weapons on offer, or even melee weapons for creatures that approach you quickly.
Even though Huntin’ Buddies has all the right components for an amazingly funny and entertaining party game, it did fall short due to uncountable bugs, connection issues, and the poorly implemented ‘stretching’ mechanic. The latter is pretty much in play when you have to drag back a creature to your truck to turn it in for a contract. More often than not, we were ‘overstretching’ a creature, even when standing still. We reckon this has to do with poorly optimized hit boxes and extreme clipping issues, where a lot of our kills were half stuck in the floor. This becomes extremely tedious in the later contracts, where certain enemies only spawn once every so many minutes, only to have the carcass explode multiple times after just grabbing hold of it. While we are not necessarily opposed to the system, it just doesn’t work right. Combine this with a lot of other bugs, like command prompts being stuck on your screen for the duration of your session, network issues, and creatures you almost cannot counter or run away from, and you have quite a few frustrating moments on your hands.
Conclusion
Huntin’ Buddies does have a lot of nice elements, and while we enjoyed most of the experience, we also encountered many frustrating issues due to bugs, the overstretching mechanic, and connection issues. That being said, the solo developer behind the game is actively listening to feedback and is implementing bug fixes as we speak. If you’re looking for a funny title in the same vein as many other popular party games right now, then we suggest keeping an eye on this one, as it gets further bug fixes and patches.
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