Developer: Nacon Studio Ghent
Publisher: NACON
Platform: PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S
Tested on: PC
Hunting Simulator 3 – Review
Before the release of Hunting Simulator 3, this reviewer wasn’t even aware that NACON had opened a development studio in Ghent. For most of the international audience that the game is aimed at, that’s barely going to be relevant, though it’s probably worth mentioning that Ghent is also the hometown of Larian, who famously made Baldur’s Gate 3. Our home country of Belgium really is making its mark on the video game world. With that out of the way, let’s shove aside the chauvinism and take an honest, in-depth look at Nacon Studio Ghent’s debut title, Hunting Simulator 3!
Story
Just like NACON’s other sports sims, Hunting Simulator 3 doesn’t feature a story. Rather than following a narrative arc, the game centers on mastering the lifestyle and patience of a real-world hunter. In this sense, the game functions as a simulation sandbox instead, letting you explore expansive regional wildlife reserves at your own pace. The closest thing that the game has to a story is that a local ranger teaches you the ropes via introductory tutorials. Once you’re past those, the game essentially becomes a sandbox, where you choose what to prioritise, whether that’s acquiring species-specific hunting licenses, managing equipment, utilising hunting lodges as home bases to display your taxidermy trophies, or simply preparing for future expeditions.
Graphics
Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Hunting Simulator 3 delivers realistic, natural environments. The game recreates distinct hunting reserves in Colorado and Texas, each spanning roughly 100 square kilometers. The two biomes are distinct, each characterized by dense vegetation and terrain deformation. Of note is the game’s realistic lighting and weather effects, which see crisp alpine mornings slowly transform into golden hour plains. Animal models are highly realistic, with believable muscle definition, fur response, and antler details. We’re not experts when it comes to real-life hunting equipment, but to us the highly detailed weapon models came across as believable and accurate too. Unsurprisingly, Hunting Simulator 3 is a very demanding game, and visual performance is going to be highly dependent on the hardware that you are running it on. We experienced minor graphical abnormalities when it came to foliage, such as floating grass, but were able to resolve this by tweaking the game’s default settings.
Sound
Given that Hunting Simulator 3’s focus is on being as realistic a simulation as possible, it’s hardly a surprise that the game’s soundscape prioritises environmental ambience. We recommend playing the game with a good pair of headphones, because the dense forest ambience is more than just atmosphere, but plays an important part when it comes to the gameplay as well. Animal calls are crisp and spatially accurate, assisting you with tracking your prey by ear. The organic sounds of foliage rustling in the wind or rain hitting wetland grass contribute to the immersion as well. Firearm audio completes the package, with bolt actions, safety clicks and distinct caliber tracks all having been recorded from real guns. Hunting is done alone and in silence, so music and voice acting are absent as you are exploring nature. In any other kind of game, this would’ve bothered us, but here this approach makes total sense. Full disclosure: there is some minor NPC voice work in the game, with the voices being AI-generated. While we’re not fans of this practice, it’s rare enough in-game that we’re willing to overlook it, though it does bear mentioning.
Gameplay
There are exceptions to the rule, of course, but a simulator game typically delivers exactly what it says on the tin. Hunting Simulator 3 is no different in this regard. The core loop sees you inspecting tracks and signs, and selecting the appropriate gear and licenses based on what you expect to find in the wild. You then quietly track your target, take a clean shot, and recover your harvest. You’ll earn money based on how well you did, which in turn lets you purchase better gear and new licenses. The game puts an unexpected amount of emphasis on being an ethical hunter. Not only must you purchase strict species-specific hunting tags, but if you select the wrong caliber and subsequently ruin a carcass, you’ll end up being penalized. In order to help you, you’re given plenty of feedback, including detailed X-ray post-kill shot evaluations.
The core loop of Hunting Simulator 3 is as straightforward as it gets, but the game treats this as a strength rather than a limitation. You’ll find a tremendous amount of depth within the game’s narrow scope, with an ecosystem simulation where individual animals age, reproduce, and react dynamically to weather as well as your presence. Hunting gear isn’t just based on real-life firearms from manufacturers like Winchester and Browning, adding to realism, but also feels varied and purposeful. Clothing options offer gameplay bonuses, for example, like noise reduction or scent masking. Eventually, you’ll also unlock off-road utility vehicles and fast travel via watch towers to help navigate the game’s massive maps, as well as hunting dogs that can help you track, scout, and retrieve small game. Not everything Hunting Simulator 3 implements is equal though. As satisfying as those long-range ballistics and bullet-drop mechanics are, they are overshadowed by the game’s clunky vehicle controls and restrictive environmental traversal limits. You can’t swim across a small stream, for example. There are limitations to the realism of any simulator, of course, and for the most part Hunting Simulator 3 delivers what you’d expect, but these hiccups took us out of the game more than once.
As a whole, though, we’d say that Hunting Simulator 3 surpassed our expectations. The game strikes a good balance between realism, depth, and accessibility, with three difficulty settings, allowing players of any skill level to get their hunt on. An open-ended sandbox simulator like this also has nigh-on unlimited replay value. There are a plethora of animals to hunt and then proudly display as trophies in your lodge, and with the dynamic ecosystem and wide variety of gear, no two hunts will play out the exact same way. At €39.99, the base game already offers an attractive package, though if the game has piqued your interest, then you’ll be happy to learn that an expanded ‘Apex Predator’ edition exists as well, adding more gear and decoration options. More excitingly, free updates in 2027 will add both a multiplayer mode and bow hunting. Looks like the hunt isn’t quite over just yet.
Conclusion
While Hunting Simulator 3 is our first experience with the Hunting Simulator series, we’ve played quite a few of NACON’s other simulator games. As such, we feel confident in saying that the publisher’s sim titles are typically hit or miss. It turned out that Nacon Studio Ghent was using a good scope to take aim with this one, as Hunting Simulator 3 is definitely a hit. While there are some things that irked us, like the clunky vehicle controls and the use of AI for minor NPC voice lines, as a whole, we really liked exploring the wilderness of Colorado and proving once and for all who the real apex predator was.
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