Open Country is a new hunting simulator from 505 Games and Fun Labs. It is available on Playstation 4|5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, and PC, though this review was played on the Xbox Series X.

The player character works in a big city and desires to get away and answer the call of the wild, and you do just that. Just before you start, you can customise the look of the character in a small way, being that you can choose your gender and race. Other than that, there is not much to do with the look of the character.

The first stop on the trip is to a bar that is quiet due to it being the off-season for hunters and campers in the area. The bartender gives you the task of delivering some fresh bandages to a ranger, and this is where you get the first experience of exploring and learning the survival craft side of things – you need to make a shelter and campfire. Gathering resources is easy enough as they will have a yellow outline that is visible from a distance when you are looking at them.

I found it weird that you are given a hatchet but can’t cut down trees or fallen logs to get wood. The crafting is a good addition to the survival element that Open Country brings. Making a good little camp can take time but is rewarding. Keeping up on meals and freshwater is very necessary, and all crafting is shown in a book tab, showing you how much of each resource is needed to create your equipment.

The hunting side of the game plays a little sluggishly. The first thing you need to hunt is three rabbits, though you can go about hunting other animals like badgers, foxes, and deer, but be aware of the weight that you can carry. Don’t stock up on too many pelts and meat, or you will be slow walking for a while.

I encountered a few issues while hunting, with animals being bugged out, or their body sinking into the ground if they were downed on an incline. This made for very frustrating moments and delayed progress quite a bit. Travelling in Open Country can be done by foot or riding on a quad bike, which handles pretty well in comparison to other features in the game. The player’s RV is the main transport to and from the town, and here you can trade with locals at the bar, or pick up some tasks to go after.

The controls do take a bit of getting used to and feel slightly delayed with the animation that is being performed. When it came to the hunting side of things, lining up a shot does feel like the controls are slippery as it is very easy to overshoot where the cross-hair is, even with the smallest of adjustment. The D-Pad on a controller is a good way to use extra items or tabs, keeping the options easier to find and use, such as the two-way radio and water flask being assigned to D-Pad down, and up being to holster and equip your rifle.

There is a multiplayer mode in Open Country, but I did not get to experience it given I was unable to get into a game. A little bit of research shows that Open Country’s main multiplayer mode is an online Co-op, where a second player can join your game and help you complete the 30+ missions available.

Open Country needs work in the graphical department. The character animations are very buggy, and even people in the bar were clipping into the floor and other objects. The first thing I noticed, and then couldn’t help but notice more and more, was the rendering issues. Things such as grass and bushes would not come into the frame until the player is close, so as you are running down a path all the grass and extra details are coming into existence. This was even more annoying while hunting. Countless times I’d be taking a long-range shot, clearly lined up, only for it not to hit due to a bush that hadn’t rendered. This was definitely the most annoying thing I had experienced with Open Country.

The sounds and audio Open Country brings to the table are quite decent, from a mellow soundtrack while tracking about looking for things to craft and hunt, to the voice actors that are used. These are a great fit, I just wish there were more sound effects in the game like other hunting simulators. You can only hear animals when you were close to them, unlike other games where you can hear them in the distance, with a warning or mating calls, brushing against bushes and twigs being snapped. That type of thing.

Open Country set out to try something new with a hunting simulator by adding survival elements, which is a great addition but as a whole, the game just felt like a miss in my books. There are too many bugs present that affected the hunting mechanics of the game, and some really disappointing graphical issues.

Written by: Shane Walsh