Hunter: The Reckoning – Wayward

Players fight large numbers of enemies at once, as hunters with different strengths. Here, the Judge uses a magic attack against enemies.

Hunter: The Reckoning – Wayward is a hack-and-slash game in which 1–2 players take the roles of hunters while fighting large amounts of enemies, including undead and cultists, using melee and ranged attacks, and magical abilities called "edges".[1][2] Edges have several kinds of effects, such as enhancing one's attacks, or protecting oneself. Using them consumes some of a character's conviction meter, which is recharged with gems that fallen enemies drop. In addition to the basic melee and ranged weapons each character have, players can also collect special weapons with limited ammunition, such as flare guns and shotguns.[3]

The characters belong to different classes that play differently. These include those for the four returning hunters from the previous Hunter: The Reckoning video game – the quick Martyr, the melee-focused Avenger, the magic-focused Judge, and the balanced Defender – and the newly added, strong Wayward,[4][5] and the all-around powerful Risen. Players initially only have access to the Martyr, Avenger, Judge, and Defender; the two Wayward characters are made available by completing a certain area, and by playing through the entire game, respectively, and the Risen is made available by completing the game on its "nightmare" difficulty setting.[5] Each character has a set of statistics, such as strength and speed, which slowly rise as players fight enemies. Characters that are not in use still gain experience, but less than the actively used characters.[1]

Progression is non-linear: players have access to an open-ended hub area, from which they can choose which stages and missions to go to.[2][3] Several of the areas are reused from the first game, but have new goals.[6] Mission objectives vary, and include getting to the exit, finding and rescuing innocents, protecting a character from oncoming hordes of enemies, escorting characters, assembling silver weapons to fight werewolves, and defeating boss enemies.[2][3][6]

Wayward is set in the town of Ashcroft, in the World of Darkness – a gothic-punk interpretation of the real world, where monsters exist and hide in plain sight – and takes place two years after the events of the first Hunter: The Reckoning video game.[7][8][9] Since the first siege by darkness there, society has returned to the town. Along with them come two unknown Hunters whose arrival has gone unnoticed by the majority of the town's population. Before going on a hunt, an anonymous hunter sends a message to the hunters from the previous game – Deuce, Samantha, Father Cortez, and Kassandra – telling them that the battle for Ashcroft is not over: a cult has entered the town, and with it a large effusion of creatures from the dark, and that they must return to quell it. The four hunters go to Ashcroft to meet up with the anonymous hunter in a hotel, who turns out to not be there.

The game was developed by High Voltage Software.

Wayward was developed by High Voltage Software,[4] based on White Wolf Publishing's tabletop role-playing game Hunter: The Reckoning,[2] and was published by Vivendi Universal Games[4] following former series publisher Interplay Entertainment's sale of the Hunter: The Reckoning video game rights in March 2003.[10] It was produced by Chad Kent, designed by Warren Capps, and programmed by Anthony Glueck, with art by Joe Hamell.[11] The game's score includes two songs by Forty Foot Echo, and five by No One.[12]

The game was announced in January 2003 as a PlayStation 2 version of the previous Hunter: The Reckoning video game, although with a new story, new gameplay features and an additional playable character.[13] The core gameplay was tweaked based on issues players had had with the previous game.[7] It was released for the PlayStation 2 on September 8, 2003 in North America,[4] and on October 17 in Europe.[14] A sequel, Hunter: The Reckoning – Redeemer, was released the following month for the Xbox.[15][16]

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score Metacritic 68/100[17] Review scores Publication Score Game Informer 6.25/10[18] GamePro [6] GameSpot 7/10[3] GameSpy [4] GameZone 8.3/10[19] IGN 8.2/10[2]

Wayward was met with "mixed or average reviews" according to the review aggregator Metacritic,[17] and was considered a good introduction to the series and a worthy sequel.[2][4][19]

Critics appreciated the controls, and how they had improved compared to the previous game,[2][4][19] although GameSpy and IGN thought they took time to get used to.[2][4] The gameplay changes compared to the previous game, such as the non-linearity and diverse missions, were well received,[2][6] but the combat and character progression were considered simplistic by GamePro and Game Informer.[6][18] The game was also criticized for reusing areas, and how those were not designed with certain new mission objectives in mind.[2][6] The multiplayer mode was commonly criticized for being limited to two players, compared to the previous game's four-player mode;[2][3][4][19] the multiplayer mode was still well received, however, and considered better than playing alone.[3][4]

The visuals were criticized for being dull, blurry and dark,[3][6] with worse textures and animations than the previous game.[2][3] The framerate was also seen as a problem, with slowdown occurring in crowded scenes,[2][19] although GameSpy found it mostly stable even in those circumstances.[4] The art direction and character design was praised by IGN, reflecting the original tabletop game well.[2] The audio design was well received, particularly combat and monster sounds,[2][3][19] with GameZone considering the sound effects to be rivaling those in fellow horror game series Resident Evil.[19] GameSpot and GameZone liked the voice acting,[3][19] but the audio quality thereof was criticized by IGN as sounding muted.[2]

• Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived June 11, 2004)