If you have been an avid reader of Half-Glass Gaming, you might’ve noticed that, for a bunch of pacifists, we sure have been singing the praise of hunting games lately. It’s no secret that, although I loathe the real-world practice, hunting was my go-to means of employment (via the Trader role) and entertainment in Red Dead Online. So I suppose it was only natural for that to spill over into a game like Open Country, which combined my love of survival games with my burgeoning enjoyment of hunting sims.
Unfortunately, Open Country left much to be desired, and even more unfortunate is that of the subsequent forays into the hunting sim game space, no other title has yet to offer even a passing attempt at incorporating survival mechanics into the gameplay. Half-Glass Gaming’s owner Josh recently wrote about the upcoming Way of the Hunter, and his hopes to see some survival aspects in that otherwise gorgeous-looking hunting sim, although this is most likely not going to be the case when that game launches this coming August.
I myself delved into Call of the Wild: theHunter not too long ago, (although the memory of playing it previously seems to have escaped me), and although there were some minor building aspects, those were mostly just gathering canned resources to fix up some rundown hunting blinds, with no real bushcraft or crafting mechanics to speak of beyond that simple mechanic. But a lack of survival gameplay aside, Call of the Wild: theHunter was a surprisingly calming and relaxing game. I mean, sure, the main focus was on thinning the local herds of wildlife for sport, but the game world was detailed and vast and felt pretty alive — at least before the bullets started flying.
So when I discovered the developer of Call of the Wild: theHunt, Expansive Worlds, has a fishing game coming out — Call of the Wild: The Angler — I was pretty intrigued. I don’t much care for fishing, much like I don’t have any interest in hunting IRL, but in video games, I do find it pretty relaxing and, depending on the specific minigame attached to it (of which there are innumerable takes in gaming), rewarding and challenging.
Much like theHunter before it, Call of the Wild: The Angler takes place in a vast wilderness, setting the player free with a simple goal: find the best fishing spots and reel them suckers in. Players will be able to traverse this open world on foot, in a boat, or even via an off-road vehicle, which suggests a sizeable chunk of real estate to explore.
And not only can you seemingly explore it all at your leisure from top to bottom, you can also do it via co-op with up to 11 of your mates. Whether or not you will be tethered to each other or free to roam away from the group isn’t clear, but it’s still a cool prospect.
But whether you play in a group or go solo, what I like the most about what I’ve seen so far from The Angler is that you don’t even have to engage in the fishing element — like, at all. You can simply play this game like a nature hike walking (or boating, or driving) sim. More so than theHunter, which always had your gun in view of the camera, which kind of killed the illusion that you were going for a peaceful walk in the wilderness. Since you presumably only break out your rod and reel once you’re ready to cast, this means your screen will be free of distracting gear if you, like me, want to take this approach to appropriating this game as a more Zen-like chance to be one with a digital version of nature.
Perhaps the best news of all is that Call of the Wild: The Angler is set to launch at the end of next month –August 31, 2022, to be precise — so we won’t have to wait all that long to get on our digital waders and catch some whoppers.
Call of the Wild: The Angler will be coming first to PC via Steam, the Microsoft Store, and the Epic Games Store, with plans to port the experience to consoles sometime downstream.
In the meantime, you can check out the Call of the Wild: The Angler trailer below to get lured in.
