Alberta Bound.
Hunting has never been a genre in gaming that I have found enticing, apart from the Monster variety in a certain Capcom game. Growing up during every major console cycle, I’ve seen plenty of them. From Big Buck Hunter Arcade, to the Cabela’s series that surprisingly ended over a decade ago, the opportunity in gaming to head out in the woods with a rifle and bring back your trophy is still well alive in theHunter: Call of the Wild, and now, they’ve taken a trip to my neck of the woods, Alberta, Canada.
The Askiy Ridge Preserve DLC takes place in Alberta; however, it’s not exactly based on a real area of land without some liberties taken. Kihciy Askiy is a real Indigenous culture site in Edmonton, Alberta, some 3 hours from where I live. It is located in Whitemud Park and is known as “Sacred Land”, a location intended for Indigenous ceremonies, cultural practices, and teaching. It’s also a place that illustrates the Indigenous history and their traditions. That said, this area is far from the mountainous range featured in the DLC. This massive map utilizes the ATV well, allowing you to rip around a gorgeous locale that is wonderfully crafted to capture that Alberta landscape.
The Askiy Ridge DLC places you down in the bitterly cold landscape of its titular ridge, as a contractor sent out to aid in various tasks and objectives. You are greeted by Janine, a local who is effectively who you are interacting with throughout the entire campaign. She has her own objectives and stake in the story, placing you in a position where you are often in conflict with other characters in the story, whether you like it or not.
The story is something that feels ripped out of a Disney+ movie. You are a contractor sent to a winter hideaway and are tasked by your contact to aid in stopping a resort from being built in the preserve. You’ll then be tasked with finding any sort of cultural touchstone that could halt or delay the building of said resort. Now, the idea is solid, and for the most part, it does that to a decent degree. However, when the story starts diving into its final few chapters, it certainly doesn’t hold up, and you’ll start to feel like you are caught up in something that you don’t have the context for. I’ll also stress that when the story ended, I was actually confused if it did or not. The ending is so anti-climactic, and the whole ‘stop the resort’ storyline is abandoned entirely in favor of absolutely nothing. The story just ends. There isn’t even anything that alerts you to its conclusion.
While there are 13 missions, half of them are simple little side things that are over and done with in no time. Even some of the main missions are just picking up garbage in a hut, or taking pictures of some buildings or structures after a storm has ravaged the location. The missions lack anything impactful, and in fact, you can proceed through this entire DLC without hunting one single animal. There is no saving anyone from a pack of wolves, or anything that requires the use of your gun. You’ll aid in helping the flow of water through a beaver dam, or evaluating the damage to a tourist sky bridge, but nothing that contributes to the “hunting” the title is known for. If anything, the missions are lacking, and the story, dialogue, and delivery are a complete miss.
Now, when you want to engage with hunting and traversing this wilderness, theHunter: Call of the Wild: Askiy Ridge has everything you’ll need, with a major issue I’ll dive into shortly that got on my nerves a bit. Getting on your ATV and ripping around is a riot, with some of the best ATV sounds I’ve ever heard. As someone who grew up on a quad, I really appreciated the sound design and feel of the machine, it’s absolutely legit and is a high point of this experience for me. While I could have had a dog, those were only available through DLC, so I took on this expedition without man’s best friend.
Exploring the wilderness of Askiy Ridge was fantastic. The visuals can often hold their own, but do lack that next generation of consoles look that I think could benefit the series going forward. You can track animals by their tracks, droppings, or other factors that allow you to gauge where they have been, how long ago they ran by, and where they could be going next. You can also pinpoint where certain noises are coming from and the distance to your prey, allowing you to prep your rifle, crouch, and slowly make your way in for the kill.
Now, my main issue here, and this is likely something present in the main game as they are not likely to change their UI, controls, or mechanics for a single DLC, is that the menu structure, the game’s controls, and swapping of weapons are a bit of a chore. There is a weapon wheel, but it seems only available in the weapons menu and not outside in standard gameplay. When you load up the menu, you have to back out of the map to use the menu options on the left-hand side; it’s a really weird setup. While this didn’t impact my experience to the point where I was frustrated, it did annoy me to a certain degree, given how absolutely unintuitive it was. Given the lack of any real systems, I’m shocked this is not built to be incredibly simple.
Across the Askiy Ridge, there are 19 species to track down, with a new addition like the North American Beaver. While I found their dam, I was never able to track the little nickel-posing beastie, but it is something that has me still playing the game to find. While Sasquatch is a focus of this DLC, they are another creature mentioned within the game’s narrative that I never did find, or even teased about other than its presence in the main story. I do appreciate that when you hunt something, you can just claim the trophy, and you don’t have to place it on your bike and take it back to the main hub location.
With a solid assortment of rifles, pistols, shotguns, and magnums to equip, I didn’t find too much of a use for such variety, but did encounter a few rams, wolves, and deer, as well as plenty of elk, but never up close to make my pistol even remotely needed. New to this DLC is the Laperriere Outrider .30-30, a lever-action rifle with a side-loading and side-ejecting design, suited for small to medium game, like the Whitetail Deer or the Gray Wolf. Compatible with a wide range of rifle scopes, it is a versatile and powerful choice for hunting at any time of day or night. It’s a solid rifle, and while my experience with the main game is largely minimal, apart from the few hours I’ve spent with it apart from the DLC, it seems like a good choice to bring with you into the hunt.
As an Albertan, I felt almost obligated to check out this DLC, given how few games take advantage of our beautiful province. While the location is largely Alberta in aesthetics and culture, it nonetheless feels ripped from our landscape in compelling ways, and the ATV’s sound and feel also reminded me of tearing around in wide open spaces similar to this gorgeous and vast environment. The new animals to hunt, and the new rifle, are solid additions, and while the story is incredibly forgettable, the core experience of hunting is still present and satisfies in the same way this series has been known for.
Developer - Expansive Worlds. Publisher - Expansive Worlds, Avalanche Studios Group. DLC Released - June 17th, 2025. (DLC) Base Game: Feb 16th, 2017. Available On - Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, PC. Rated - (T) Blood, Violence. Platform Reviewed - Xbox Series X/S. Review Access - Review code for the base game and this DLC was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.
Jeff is the original founder of Analog Stick Gaming. His favorite games include The Witcher III, the Mass Effect Trilogy, Hi-Fi Rush, Stellar Blade, Hellbade: Senua’s Sacrifice, and the Legend of Heroes series, especially Trails of Cold Steel III & IV.