Way of the Hunter 2 Price: Standard vs Deluxe and What You Actually Get

Way of the Hunter 2 launched September 29, 2026 at $39.99 Standard and $59.99 Deluxe, the same suggested retail price on PC, PS5 and Xbox. The $20 gap buys one thing you cannot price today: the Season One Season Pass, covering 8 DLCs across the first year, none of them named yet. Everything else in Deluxe is either a $4.99 pack you can buy alone or a 24-hour early access window that closed in 2026. Original-game owners get 13% off both tiers and the $4.99 Night Hunting Pack free.

All prices are US SRP and Steam list prices checked 2026-10-03. Nightly sales move the Steam price off SRP; nothing here assumes a future discount.

Official source: Way of the Hunter 2 FAQ — Editions, Pre-Orders & Pricing (Nine Rocks Games)

What each edition costs, in five currencies

The uplift is not flat, and the spread is wide enough to change the decision. A UK buyer pays 42.9% more for Deluxe; an Australian pays 81.9% more. An Australian buyer spends roughly AU$45 on the same upgrade a UK buyer gets for £15. If you buy in AUD, buying the pass separately hurts far less than it does in dollars.

The FAQ still carries a stale Early Access line: "currently available in Early Access on PC for €34.99 / $34.99. This price will increase once the full Version 1.0 releases." That increase already happened — PC entered Early Access at $34.99 on March 26, 2026 and went to $39.99 at 1.0. A guide quoting $29.99 is wrong on both counts.

The $20 gap, itemised

Buying Standard plus the pass plus the Heirloom Pack separately costs $39.99 + $34.99 + $4.99 = $79.97. Deluxe does all three for $59.99, a saving of $19.98. The catch is that the early access line is worth nothing today, and the whole saving sits on a pass the developer is "not revealing... just yet."

The release order is unsettled too — "The exact order of these DLCs is still being finalized." The one concrete roadmap number attached to the pass is map count: two new maps in the first year, roughly one per year after that, with a European reserve planned but explicitly not among the first two.

So who takes the $20? Buy Standard if you would rather decide on the pass later — it can be added to an existing Steam library at any time. Take Deluxe if you already know you want the whole first-year pass. Waiting until one DLC is named is the position most pass-regret ends up defending. The Season Pass breakdown covers redemption and verification per platform; is it worth buying at launch covers the rest of launch week.

What Standard already gives you

A lot of the gear people assume is premium is not. Thermal clip-ons and night vision arrived in Early Access Update 1 in April 2026 and sit in the base game, as do suppressors — which the developer calls functional equipment that "can directly affect gameplay." All three maps and all 28 species ship with Standard, and the FAQ states there are no plans for microtransactions, so nothing in the core game is a paywall.

Nothing in that view is gated. The rifle, the scope and Dall sheep all arrive with Standard — Deluxe money buys new content, not access to systems.

How to verify your Season Pass: three statues

The only officially documented way to confirm the pass is live is unglamorous — four statues placed in the world.

Three steps. Redeem the code first if you bought the pass as one: Steam uses Games → Activate a Product on Steam, PlayStation uses the store profile menu → Redeem Codes, Xbox uses the Microsoft Store app → Redeem a code. Then check outside the game — on Steam, right-click the game in your library, open Properties, click DLC, look for the Season Pass with a checkmark; PlayStation lists it under Add-ons or DLC; Xbox under Manage game and add-ons. Then go find the statues.

If the pass still is not showing, the developer's order is: restart the game completely rather than reloading a save, confirm you are fully up to date, contact the retailer you bought from, and only then escalate to THQ Nordic's Redmine tracker. Include platform, digital or physical, receipt, and what you already tried.

The four DLC items and what is in them

Steam lists four DLC, all on sale September 29, 2026. The Lodge Decoration pack appears nowhere in the developer's FAQ platform breakdown, which lists only the other three.

The Heirloom Pack is the one to buy standalone if you skip Deluxe: two rifles, a scope and a bronze elk for $4.99 is the best content-to-dollar ratio in the store, and the developer frames the rifles as additions for "visual variety" rather than differenters from the free pool. The Night Hunting Pack overlaps with base-game thermal and night vision, so it is the weaker buy unless you want the scoped low-light set. Early Access and console pre-order buyers got the Heirloom Pack free at launch; that window has closed.

If you owned Way of the Hunter 1

Original-game owners get the best deal in the store, applied automatically rather than at a code redemption step.

The 13% applies to Standard and Deluxe on all three platforms. On top of it the $4.99 Night Hunting Pack is granted free on Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox — an effective Standard price of $34.79 plus $4.99 of content, against $39.99 with nothing extra for a newcomer. The discount also narrows the tier gap from $20.00 to $17.40, which is the real cost of the pass decision for a returning player.

The original Way of the Hunter itself sits at $29.99 with a 75% discount to $7.49. Steam's store field lists its release date as August 16, 2022, which corresponds to its Early Access debut rather than the 1.0 release players usually refer to. Choosing between a discounted older sim and a full-price new one is a comparison, not a price question — see versus Call of the Wild.

Platform rules that affect what you pay

No cross-purchase. The FAQ: "No. PC, PlayStation, and Xbox are separate platforms and separate purchases. Purchasing the game on one platform does not grant ownership or pre-order bonuses on another." A Steam Deluxe purchase gets you nothing on console. The 13% owner discount crosses all three; the game does not.

No upgrade path is documented. The FAQ never mentions upgrading Standard to Deluxe. Treat any store upgrade offer as unverified until THQ or the retailer confirms it.

Physical copies are in production, not detailed. Editions for PC and consoles have no date, no retail price, and no confirmation of whether a box carries the Heirloom Pack. Per-platform bonus differences are in what each platform version has; the separate-purchase rule applies equally to crossplay.

Frequently Asked Questions

Was Way of the Hunter 2 cheaper during Early Access? Yes — PC Early Access ran at $34.99 from March 26 to September 29, 2026, then rose to $39.99 at version 1.0.

Is the Deluxe Edition worth $20 more? Only if you are confident you want all 8 first-year DLC. Today the pass delivers four statues, the release order is still being finalized, and no DLC has been named.

Can I buy the Season Pass without Deluxe? Yes. It sells standalone at $34.99 on Steam and can be added to an existing library at any time.

Is the Heirloom Pack the same thing as the Season Pass? No — the developer calls them "two separate things." Heirloom is two rifles, a scope and a bronze elk at $4.99; the pass is the 8 DLCs at $34.99.

Do I get the 13% discount if I own the original on Steam only? Yes — the Night Hunting Pack and the discount apply on Steam, PS5 and Xbox. The platforms remain separate purchases otherwise.

Are there in-game purchases or a premium currency? No. The FAQ states there are no plans for microtransactions.