You can pet the dog (and take it hunting with you) in Hunting Simulator 2

Hunting games require a blend of detective work, patience, and good aim. Finding the spoor of your prey, identifying them, and getting close enough for a clean shot can take hours. And most of those hours are spent walking. There's lots and lots of walking.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could have some company on those long hikes into the wilderness? In Hunting Simulator 2, you can. You'll be able to buy dogs—a beagle, a Labrador retriever, and a pointer—and take them with you on your hunting expeditions. Have a look at those good dogs in the trailer above.

Naturally, it's not just for companionship: each of these lovely doggos excels at hunting in different ways. The beagle can track down and flush your quarry out into the open. Retrievers can swim into lakes and carry back ducks or other waterfowl you bring down. And pointers will do that adorable thing where they stand motionless, cock one of their front legs, and stare in the direction of hard-to-spot critters like rabbits. The trailer above also shows a dog following the blood track of a wounded deer, and another dog finding a big puddle of stinky wolf pee. Good dogs!

Through a combination of tracking prey and being rewarded, your hunting dog will increase their skills and become better at their jobs. So don't forget to pet them when they do something right! Hunting Simulator 2 and its dogs are coming to Steam on June 25.

Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.

Latest in Action
Assassin's Creed Shadows change seasons - An upper-body shot of Yasuke looking cheerfully up into the distance.
Assassin's Creed Shadows puts up the 'second highest day-one sales revenue in Assassin's Creed franchise history'
A shock trap transformed into a Lego brick in Monster Hunter Wilds.
A modder keeps turning Monster Hunter traps into Lego bricks so that the monsters will know true pain, and they've just done it again
Nova, a hero from Marvel Comics, smolders at the camera while surrounded by flames.
The team behind Shredder's Revenge has a Marvel beat 'em up on the way with a whopping 15 characters and unsurprisingly gorgeous pixel art
The First Berserker: Khazan tips - Khazan
10 The First Berserker: Khazan tips to smash your foes
Crysis hero Prophet running down a beach while under fire
Crysis Remastered Trilogy activates maximum value mode as upgraded version of the legendary, hardware-crushing FPS series is currently 60% off
Phantom Blade Zero
Chinese action game Phantom Blade Zero didn't click for me until I realized its deep commitment to wuxia film authenticity meant I had to relearn how swords work
Latest in News
A screenshot from SaGa Frontier 2, showing one of the protagonists wandering through a quaint fantasy village
One of Square Enix' most underrated PlayStation-era JRPGs just shadow dropped on Steam
The titular character from Princess Mononoke is depicted riding the wolf goddess Moro and carrying a spear.
Studio Ghibli AI image trend floods social media, cheered on by OpenAI and denounced by critics as an insult to Hayao Miyazaki
Marvel Rivals tier list - Wolverine
Marvel Rivals director says a future patch will reduce the shooter's insatiable hunger for RAM: 'It's a very big problem'
Hogwarts Legacy potions professor holding a potion
An unannounced Hogwarts Legacy expansion and 'definitive edition' have reportedly been cancelled
Story of Seasons - A cahacter in a purple tuxedo stands outside in a town square talking to the player
Story of Seasons is doing another Harvest Moon remake and it might be the best the series has ever looked
Assassin's Creed Shadows change seasons - An upper-body shot of Yasuke looking cheerfully up into the distance.
Assassin's Creed Shadows puts up the 'second highest day-one sales revenue in Assassin's Creed franchise history'