Way of the Hunter — Steam gift

Way of the Hunter — honest open-world hunting

Way of the Hunter isn't an arcade shooting gallery — it's a calm, deliberate hunting simulator by Nine Rocks Games, published by THQ Nordic. Released on August 16, 2022, it quickly found its audience among players who love realism: tracking animals by their trail, reading the wind, earning the shot. There are no endless firefights here — there's patience, observation and respect for nature. With us you get it as a Steam gift: the bot adds you as a friend, sends the game and leaves on its own.

What the game is and why people love it

You hunt across two huge open regions — Nez Perce in the Pacific Northwest of the USA and Transylvania in Europe. Every animal lives by its own rules: deer, boar, bears and dozens of other species react to scent, sound and time of day. A full day/night cycle, shifting weather and changing wind direction turn every outing into a small tactical puzzle. The Hunter Sense system highlights important details — tracks, resting spots, the blood of a wounded animal — but finishing the hunt still takes your head, not a minimap.

A particular point of pride is the ballistics and anatomy. The bullet follows a real trajectory, passes through tissue, and where you hit decides how clean the shot is. The game openly rewards ethical hunting: one precise shot counts for more than a dozen random ones. That's why Way of the Hunter clicks even for people who've never held a rifle — it's a meditative escape where rushing only gets in the way.

Standard or Elite Edition — which to pick

Both versions in our catalogue are the full game — there's no separate base to buy. The difference is the contents:

• Standard (Way of the Hunter) — the base game together with a set of maps and gear packs: extra maps, weapon packs (Steyr Arms, Remington, Christensen Arms, Strasser), Bear Archery for bow fans, the Kawasaki UTV for getting around, and themed sets like Night Hunting and Hunter's Advantage.
• Elite Edition — the same base plus the Season Pass: two new regions, Aurora Shores and Tikamoon Plains, each 64 km², with their own animals, weapons and skins. It's the maximum edition for those who want the full scale of the map and more ground to roam right away.

In short: just trying the genre — Standard is enough. Want everything and more territory from the start — the Elite Edition is your pick.

How the Steam gift delivery works

No keys to enter — you receive the game as an actual Steam gift. The flow is simple: you leave a friend invite link and your account region, our bot adds itself as your friend, sends Way of the Hunter and automatically removes itself from your friend list after delivery. You don't need to accept the friend request — the bot handles everything. Steam Guard is not required, and delivery usually takes a couple of minutes from checkout.

Important: your account region

The key condition for a smooth delivery: your Steam account region must match the gift region, otherwise Steam simply won't let you accept it. And another detail that causes the most questions: the game must not already be in your library — Steam won't allow a gift for a game you already own. So enter your region precisely and make sure you haven't bought Way of the Hunter yet. Your profile settings should also allow friend requests.

System and platform

This is the Steam PC version for Windows. The game isn't the lightest on graphics — open spaces with detailed foliage love a good GPU — but it doesn't demand top-tier hardware either. Once you accept the gift it installs into your library like any other game: updates, cloud saves and achievements all work normally through Steam.

If you enjoy games like this

Way of the Hunter is about calm, realism and being one with nature. In the same mood, take a look at theHunter: Call of the Wild — another large hunting sim with sprawling reserves. And if you're drawn to laid-back simulators in general, check out Farming Simulator 22 with its farming routine and Euro Truck Simulator 2 with long hauls across Europe. All three are about the process, not the race.

The short version of buying

Pick an edition, leave your invite link and region, pay — the bot does the rest. In a couple of minutes the game is usually already in your Steam library, ready for your first hunt at dawn.

🎮 Other games in the series

On the same topic we also have: Way of the Hunter 2.