#Wake up, Expansive Worlds! We need a Native Engine Overhaul (2026 Graphics Standard)

1 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

final gyro
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Dear Expansive Worlds team the visual gap in theHunter Call of the Wild is becoming impossible to ignore because in 2026 your engine feels outdated compared to the competition. While Way of the Hunter and the upcoming Way of the Hunter 2 on Unreal Engine 5 offer volumetric 3D foliage and real water physics where you can actually swim your game still feels like a flat cardboard forest from 2017. Your store screenshots show lush vegetation but the actual gameplay is full of paper thin leaves and blurry textures that break the immersion. We dont just want more maps we want a full engine overhaul with high resolution models 3D vegetation and a world that feels real and physical like the competition offers. Stop the flat forest era and upgrade the Apex Engine or players looking for true next gen immersion will move to Way of the Hunter for good.

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🔧

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With NO HATE only to improve

stray blade
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Pointless then just upgrading the engine they would have to make a new game completely and cut xbox 1 support off completely

dim oriole
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Honestly the game's graphics are just fine the way they are. I would rather have this than them making the game more hardware heavy. Not being able to walk in deeper water is kind of bad ngl there, but honestly not being able to swim isn't that much of a problem. And I will never really understand why people want 3D volumetric grass of all things...

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Hands textures tho are inexcusable

weary jetty
final gyro
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Im talking about ps 5 support bc in pc you can actually improve it with graphic menu and mods but in ps 5 u cant do anything

weary jetty
final gyro
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@weary jetty Sorry for not mention it

dim plaza
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The only graphical issue i see with cotw is screen space reflections and water. but thats expected with how it works. only real upgrade to that would be some ray traced reflections.
I guess shadows could be improved aswel but yea the engine is holding pretty strong.

dim oriole
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You forgot hand textures XD

final gyro
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Damn hand textures are fireeeeee. Maybe do a comparation with Way of the Hunter XD

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Actually the vibe is good i can say but it will be fire if they add some 3D textures to the leaves of trees bc they are like maked from cardboard and if they can do some better water quality it will be so freacking cool

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Remember they did a fishing game with damn cool water phisics and reflections

stray blade
final gyro
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bro nobody talking about fishes and anglers. If u read im talking about the water graphics of COTW and the graphics that they can add from that fishing game. NOBODY IS TALKING ABOUT FISHES AND ANGLERS

solemn coral
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Woth is not a good comparison. It is soo poorly optimized on console (even the powerfull ps5), that you can choose slow motion (quality mode) or ugly artifacts at the treetops etc (performance mode). I prefer cotw as it is (looking okay at 60 fps)
Honestly I gave up on woth a year ago and don't have it installed anymore. It does not look so much better than cotw but eats performance like a AAA title.

Cotw can run on old gen hardware thus increasing its player base. It also demonstrates, that is far better optimized to run smoothly.

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But the hand textures are ugly. Thats why my friends and me always wear skins with gloves. 😅 these are okay... please EW, give us new hands 🤣 (Prio 20 or even lower)

weak quail
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Also, on PC running at 4K with everything on ultra (except heat haze and motion blue and depth of field) the game still looks quite amazing. I was running around unlocking the maps and sometimes just stopped to take in the view. I know not everyone can do those kinda settings (heck, I gotta run the game at 30fps but I'm actually 100% fine with that) but it definitely looks great on that platform.

Series X and PS5 could definitely do some things to make the visuals a bit better, such as better textures and LOD, but as it stands, they are still running a PS4 game at its core and it was probably the best they can do to get the game to hit a relatively sometimes unstable 60fps. Also, I may be nuts here but I feel the Xbox has slightly better visuals than PS5, a little less blurry (and yes, all my TV settings are universal for both HDMI ports and I don't use HDR as the game doesn't natively support it).

Also also, PS4 and I assume Xbox One are quite rough to go back to.

Point being? If you want an engine overhaul, wait for theHunter 2. Or if you wanna see what the "latest and greatest" version of the engine is, play The Angler. You'll lose out on hunting and dynamic weather, but, hey, crossplay...

dim oriole
solemn coral
# dim oriole Honestly it's kind of amazing how there's a mod to change dog coats but nothing ...

We on console can't have any mods. The hands are the only things I really dislike (and the ugly grey gum-like rim of the scopes when you aim (primarily on the argus, which I use the most). These are my only complaints on graphics design. (Apart from obvious bugs (not design) like broken lighting on several maps on the rifle). The engine and the visuals still are great.

Remember: This game still runs on a ps4, though i prefer the smoothness of my ps5.

warm grotto
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I'd prefer they fix core game mechanics before messing with graphics. I've seen deer fly away, crocodile fall from the sky, the red ATV looks like it has a permanent flat rear tire.

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Stupid dogs swimming with alligators and crocodile but not getting eaten

sharp kite
warm grotto
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and they are not cheap to buy a new one! Are we going to get a dog breading mode?

final gyro
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XD this Publication got so many comments in one day. I saw a game called Way of the Hunter and it looks freacking amazing, try to look at it

sharp kite
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(Sorry for the ping Nimi)

solemn coral
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WOTH (way of the hunter) did not convince me. I felt not like "home" mechanicswise and also the poor performance on ps5 made me give it up. Woth is some years younger than cotw, but honestly: The graphics are not so much better. If you would translate it to a car: It's newer, but drives slower and consumes more without offering something special, while it lacks features you had and loved in your old car.

Even some game mechanics left me annoyed, e.g. not being able to spot animals by usage of the rifle scope, so you always had to change back to the binoculars, to make sure, you are still on the right animal. All this made me give it up... and the low performance of cause

solemn coral
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After all I've read after having left the game, woth still is not able to keep at least the 30fps stable on the base ps5 qualitymode. To me it is not suitable for consoles as it is poorly optimized and a stuttering festival. (At least if you don't own a pro-version, on which the devs only seem to focus). I guess the same applies to medium-equipped PCs. Eating performance like a champ, but looking not so much better, than what COTW can bring even to an old last-gen console. If I could refund WOTH with its dlcs, i would.

The hunter: COTW is the better deal BY FAR.

weary jetty
dim plaza
vocal copper
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Games old. Just make a COTW 2 at that point with all the money you make on COTW 1.
And make the new one cross platform allowing players to enjoy the game with friends would be leagues ahead.

solemn coral
final gyro
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🫡

lime crescent
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Improving the engine is one thing that could be done, but another thing that really needs to be addressed are the bugs in the game. The constant issues with the dog in multiplayer, and overall improvements to multiplayer, would help a lot as well. This game has a very poor multiplayer experience (on Xbox) — you can’t even choose which server you want to join like you can on PC. It feels like the game isn’t getting the attention it deserves… Bug fixes are usually tied to new content, but it’s rare to see a standalone patch that just fixes things. These problems should be solved first, and then a new or updated engine… A new engine won’t help if the game keeps having issues like these.

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"The game has huge multiplayer potential, but the broken multiplayer on Xbox is sinking it faster than the Titanic

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"And another thing I absolutely don’t understand is why the Xbox version doesn’t have the same languages as the PC version. For example, Czech is available on PC but not on Xbox… like what? Why? Everything is the same — is it really that hard to just do CTRL+C and CTRL+V? It’s all the same… I just don’t get it."

sharp kite
raw storm
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So, i habe to say something.

CotW would be bice with a cool herd Management but,

the engine for me, is fine.
i love how the Natur looks on my xbox Series x, sometime i only go into the game to Look around and releax (when bikes are coming?). It has more real feeling for me than other games, and even more as woth, this looks too Comic.

also love the hdr. feature.

so for me, it has the best natural gfx feeling actual.

gray salmon
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Please tell me who is swimming when they go hunting? Who is walking in thay deep of water? You walk trough bogs and small bits of water like that. This is the best hunting game in the store, I have played way of the hunter and its trash. Imagine having to buy way of the hunter 2 when we only have to pay for 1 game lmaooooo

astral summit
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idk man, I like how the game look. Graphics alone wont make me switch games.

I agree the game could look better, but i dont want it to look more realistic. I like the current artstyle. I dont want it to have that generic UE5 look

In a perfect world they could upgrade the engine, keep the artsytle and game sytems as is, but thats nit realictic. Upgrading the engine will just make performace worse and potentially ruin the artstyle

lime crescent
lime crescent
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Please, developers, kindly fix the dog. On Xbox in multiplayer, the dog has been getting stuck on the right side for several years and does not respond to commands. For heaven’s sake, stop just making money and start taking care of the game. I’ve reported this bug multiple times, I’m not the only one, and you still haven’t been able to fix a single bug for years. Are you kidding me? I’m really getting fed up with this… please fix it.