The Hunter

## Voice Clips

**The Hunter** is the first antagonist encountered in *Little Nightmares II*. He is the main antagonist of The Wilderness chapter.

## Descriptions

### Twitter Description

> *The Hunter seems to work alone, stalking the wilderness with a rusty shotgun and a lantern-style flashlight. His motives are unknown, but he does appear to have an interest in taxidermy.*
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### Website Description

> *Armed with his flashlight and battered shotgun, The Hunter stamps through the wilderness with cold ambition, sniffing out his prey, collecting new trophies for the groaning walls of his shack.*
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## Appearance

The Hunter is a large, humanoid monster with a somewhat stocky physique and a massive head covered by a burlap sack tied around his neck with twine, with a single eye hole where his right eye would be, topped with a brown Gatsby cap. The rest of the Hunter's outfit consists of a green overcoat, brown trousers, brown gloves, and black leather work boots. His coat is noticeably worn and crudely stitched together, with the seam of his right shoulder being the most threadbare, revealing a white cotton-like substance bulging out from between the stitches. This may either be the insulation of the Hunter's jacket, or an implication that the Hunter himself is filled with stuffing, similar to the rest of the taxidermy in his home. The Hunter also has heavy breathing, as seen when being idle.

## Personality

Like the other characters in the franchise, the Hunter does not talk and his personality is shown through his actions. He is shown to be possibly unhealthy and is rather aggressive while he performs taxidermy. It is evidenced that when the Hunter sets his mind to something, he doesn't back down, as when Mono and Six escape his cabin and evade him several times, he continues to venture deeper into the woods in pursuit of them.

It can also be said that the Hunter is somewhat of a slob, given the state of his cabin, which is a total mess with the many things lying out and about. Despite all this, he is also shown to be patient and doesn't kill and taxidermy his prey immediately, as shown in the *Little Nightmares Comics*, where he chases after and, eventually, captures Six, locking her in his basement for at least a month, as evidenced by the tally marks on the walls. It can be argued that he could have been hoping for Six to die of dehydration or starvation.

## *Little Nightmares Comics*

In the first episode of the *Little Nightmares Comics*, the Hunter tries to catch Six, who was hiding from him in the Wilderness. After finding cover, she attempts to elude him by throwing a pebble in a different direction. This proves successful as the Hunter turns and fires his shotgun in the direction the pebble caused noise, which grants Six enough time to duck into a small tunnel under a tree and make a quick escape. Unfortunately, the Hunter finds Six again when she is distracted by Mono, giving him the opportunity to corner and capture her.

## *Little Nightmares II*

While exploring the Wilderness, Mono encounters numerous traps, some filled with people. Mono soon learns that the traps are owned by the Hunter, who has an abnormal passion for taxidermy; a passion which the Hunter fulfills by trapping people, stuffing them, and then posing them in his house.

Mono eventually makes his way to the Hunter's house, where he frees Six from the basement. Together, they make their way into a shed, where the Hunter is skinning an animal he has killed. They quietly tread behind him and manage to escape through a small door where organs are dumped out of, but the noise they made draws the Hunter's attention. The Hunter grabs his shotgun and lantern and sets off in pursuit of them. Despite the Hunter's aim and rapid fire, the duo is able to dodge and shield themselves as they run. They eventually lose him by hiding under a small cliff, but instead of giving up the hunt and returning home, the Hunter travels ahead, hoping to find the children and kill them.

After some time, the Hunter finds the children near an abandoned barn and resumes his pursuit, but fails to kill them as Mono enters the building. Mono breaks a floorboard on the second story, which alerts the Hunter and causes him to fire at the duo from the ground floor. The Hunter follows them through the barn and along the adjacent dock, whilst the children sneak and dive through the swampy waters.

Further ahead, a couple of birds alert the Hunter to the children's presence yet again, where he promptly corners the kids in a small shack. Mono and Six retrieve a spare shotgun from the shack's wall. They both aim it at the Hunter, and the second the Hunter breaks through, they shoot him, killing him instantly and sending his body flying into the Wilderness.

## Strategy

The Hunter carries a double-barreled shotgun to shoot and a lantern to spot victims. He will run after Mono and Six, but more often the Hunter will aim and shoot at them, killing them if they stay out in the open for too long unless the player dodges it which is tricky and tough or if the player hides behind indestructible objects (for example, the logs in the swamp). The player can hide behind various objects, which will shatter when hit with a blast from the Hunter's shotgun. There will also be times when Mono and Six will have to evade the Hunter through timed stealth.

If Mono gets too close to the Hunter, he will bludgeon him in the back of the head with the butt of his shotgun.

## Trivia

* The Hunter's defeat appears somewhat similar to the Doctor and the Janitor. All three are too persistent and continuously chase the protagonists until they corner them, only to suffer a brutal fate.
* The appearance of the Hunter may have been inspired by Jason Voorhees, specifically as how he was portrayed in *Friday the 13th Part 2*.
* So far, the Hunter is the only antagonist in the game series to use a weapon.
	+ The Hunter's shotgun most closely resembles an AYA Nº 2, due to the stock shape, the receiver shape, and the 2 triggers.
* Despite the large number of bodies found in the Hunters traps and around the wilderness, his cabin only houses a small number of them, implying that the Hunter does not necessarily keep and taxidermies every living being he captures.
* The Hunter is the only antagonist from the game who does not have any extreme deformity or abnormal powers, relying solely on his skills.
* When questioned about the Hunter's motivations, Dave Mervick states, "*All of the residents of Little Nightmares... they don't really have motivations, it's like id - it's the base instinct of people, so we take this base instinct and pull it in different directions. So the Hunter is just bloodthirsty, he has the blood sport impulse I guess, just reduce people and animals to nothing or trophies on the wall, just pure naked aggression. They don't have a goal in life, that they want to achieve, it's just this urge -.*"

## References

1. ↑ https://en.bandainamcoent.eu/little-nightmares/little-nightmares-ii
2. ↑ https://www.eurogamer.net/little-nightmares-2-interview?utm\_source=social\_sharing&utm\_medium=CopyLink&utm\_campaign=social\_sharing

Noone • The Counsellor • The Candleman • The Workers • The Prisoners • The Tall Woman • The Child with Gooey Hair • Cici • The Bathers • Jester • The Merchants • The Shopping Mall • The Counsellor's Professor • The Performing Children (Rusty) • The Man in the Purple Suit • The Carnival People • The Dummy • Nomes • The Naughty Kids • The Balloon-Headed Man • The Puppet
Animals • Children • Unidentified Characters