Poach Hunt the Hunter patch notes: Everything improved with Update V0.8.8.5 (June 01, 2025)

Poach Hunt the Hunter has been in early access since August 2023. While the game's release date has not been announced, Poach Hunt the Hunter has been receiving daily updates for prevailing bugs and glitches and adding new content for players to enjoy.

Just a short while back, Poach Hunt the Hunter received another big update where the developer Ingozi Games fixed various bugs and glitches, improved the performance, and optimised the game further. Below are the full patch notes for Poach Hunt the Hunter Update V0.8.8.5.

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Full patch notes for Poach Hunt the Hunter Update V0.8.8.5

The latest update aims to improve the game's performance (Image via Ingozi Games)

Gameplay improvements in Poach Hunt the Hunter:

• Shotgun now keeps the aiming reticle when performing A.D.S. since it doesn't function the same as a classic scope aim, allowing for much more accurate usage of the shotgun.
• Larger animals such as Rhinos that are hanging out closer to the main reserve will now attempt to avoid the poachers if they get too close by relocating. This doesn't guarantee their safety in all situations, but can avoid a few mishaps and keeps things cleaner in terms of general gameplay.

Graphics:

• Improved tranquilizer dart rifle texture.
• Added advanced spine rotation animation to stampeding hippo.
• Fixed some grass in Hippo Mission with too low LOD threshold and thus were popping into existence too easily.
• Fixed foot IK clipping issue with General Gideon when sitting on camping chair during Mission 1/2 bonus interlude camping mission.
• Fixed "Lions Heart" powerup from making screen almost impossible to see anything, an issue introduced in V0.8.8.2 when switching over to linear color space.
• Fixed a minor graphical issue causing waterfalls to cast shadows in a really weird way.
• Fixed issue causing zebras to disappear when slightly off screen and if player is very close.
• Improved appearance of main weapon scope lens when viewed from hip-fire mode.
• Improved appearance of the rare Combat Shotgun weapon.
• Fixed weird appearance of bulldozer window glass, as seen in Chapter 2.

Bug Fixes in Poach Hunt the Hunter:

• Fixed rhino ragdoll issues in introduction scene/speech.
• Fixed bug causing introduction speech to not automatically go to the next scene without player intervention when completed.
• Fixed a new bug introduced in V0.8.8.2 that was causing 3 of the enemies in the hippo bonus mission to just stand still after being either killed or tranquilized.
• Fixed issue causing silenced tranquilizer rifles to play the louder sniper rifle audio.
• Fixed issue in hippo bonus mission causing hippo to run on the spot.
• Cardboard boxes outside shebeen are no longer un-destroyable.
• Fixed issue where exploding your vehicle could sometimes reset your radio entirely, have replaced for a randomization (in the event of this situation) to help players discover more songs than they normally would hear in a single play session.
• Fixed a NavMesh issue causing some enemies to walk through building in Mission 5.

Other Additions & Improvements made in Poach Hunt the Hunter:

• Changed Steam store page screenshots to match the latest game version.
• Improved hippo movement animation when circling a tree.
• Improved audio quality of ranger stuck in tree during hippo mission.
• Edited mission objective in hippo mission to be clearer about what the poachers are actually looking for, in this case not horns - but tusks.
• Added an automatic checkpoint in hippo mission in case player is killed by a hippo so they don't have to start from the beginning of the level again.
• Added cover points to enemy ambush in Hippo bonus mission.
• Increased hippo stampede accuracy.
• Added a new radio mission message for Hippo Mission Part 3.
• More audio balancing on enemy voices.
• Added more variation to nature ambience.

Optimizations

• Optimized hippo scene memory footprint.
• Shebeen location on map is now also streamed into memory when near like other locations to maximize performance when fighting inside the main reserve or anywhere other than near the shebeen.
• Moved all remaining waterfall zones into the world streaming system, the entire world outside the main reserve is now essentially steamed in from memory when needed to lower the memory load on slower/older devices.
• Some minor scene optimizations in general, related to animal locations during missions.

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