Salzwiesen Park Guide: Animals, Weapons and Whether to Buy It

This is the easiest loadout question in the whole series, and I find that rather restful. Every animal on the map is class 1 or class 2. The wiki notes that this goes further than Revontuli Coast and New England Mountains, the earlier small game maps, which still carried some big game.

The class column splits into two bands:

• Class 1: the eleven birds plus the European rabbit. Birdshot is the natural fit, and nine of those birds are ducks and geese whose wiki habitat entries name ponds, lakes, wetlands or other water.
• Class 2: the common raccoon, the raccoon dog and the red fox. These need ammunition rated for class 2.

The included Gopi 10G Grand covers both bands with one gun. The wiki rates its 10 gauge birdshot for classes 1 to 2 at a 25 meter range, and gives it two shells and a strong hipshot, so it suits close, quick shots at flushed or flying birds. The buckshot and slug loads it also takes are rated for classes 4 to 9, which nothing on this map needs. One side mission, Outfoxed, asks for a red fox taken from 350 meters, far beyond a shotgun, so bring a rifle or other weapon with class 2 ammunition for that one. One Steam reviewer suggests the air rifle for the foxes and raccoons.

The gear around the gun matters more here than on most maps. Several Steam reviewers say you need blinds or tents, decoys and callers to get close to the birds, and one names the pointer and retriever dog packs and the remote caller from the Modern Hunting pack as what made duck hunting work for them. Those are separate paid add-ons, so count them in if you do not own them already. Two reviewers also point out that the reserve has no lookout towers or other built hunting structures.

Steam players are split almost down the middle. Across all languages the add-on had 138 positive reviews out of 209 when I read them in October 2026, and in the 46 most recent English reviews, 34 were positive. The split follows one line: whether the reviewer wanted a bird and small game map in the first place.

The things people like:

• Something to shoot at every turn. This comes up more than anything else. Reviewers describe flocks of geese one after another, more foxes than on any other map, and the reserve as their go-to for earning in-game money and experience fast.
• A calm map. One reviewer calls it a very calm and relaxing map with no bear to jump out at you, and another calls it very cosy. That is my kind of reserve.
• The clay shooting range. Several reviewers say the range alone was worth it to them, as a way to practice shotgun shots at moving targets.
• The Great Ones. One reviewer recommends it as a beginner-friendly map and a good place to grind for the red fox and pheasant Great Ones.
• The look. Positive and negative reviews alike call it pretty or beautiful.

The complaints are worth reading before buying:

• Small for the price. The most repeated complaint. Reviewers point to the size, the few outposts and points of interest, and the missing story, and several say to buy it only on sale.
• No big game. Some reviewers simply call it boring or the most limited map. One positive reviewer answers them directly: the reserve is sold as a waterfowl park, so do not buy it if you do not enjoy hunting birds.
• Bird bugs, worst in multiplayer. Reviewers report flocks that get stuck in mid-air or do not count as kills, and birds that ignore callers and lures in multiplayer. One says solo play is the best bird hunting in the game and multiplayer is awful for the same reason.
• Familiar animals. Only two species are new, and reviewers note that many of the birds and much of the landscape will look familiar from Revontuli Coast and Hirschfelden.

The Steam forum thread I read in full shows the same split. Its opening post, from December 2024, says geese were the only thing the poster had success with and that the raccoon dog and rabbit missions felt impossible. The replies disagree: one says the raccoons and foxes are everywhere if you walk between need zone times instead of waiting at one, and that the marsh is full of ducks if you set a blind and decoys. Another calls the reserve their go-to for money and says lying down in the grass works as well as a blind.

Buy it if bird and small game hunting is what you enjoy, or you want a quiet place to grind the red fox or pheasant Great One, practice on the clay range, or build up in-game money. At $6.99 it is the cheapest reserve add-on in our best theHunter: Call of the Wild maps table, and it does its one job with a dense animal population and 15 species.

Skip it, or wait for a sale, if you want deer, bears or a story. Nothing on the map is above class 2, there is one main mission, and the reviews that call it poor value are mostly from players who expected a full-size reserve. Mostly multiplayer hunters should also weigh the bird bugs reviewers report in group play.

If you skip it, the pillar table points to two other bird options. Revontuli Coast costs $7.99, rates Mostly Positive at 78% of 524 reviews, and has 19 species with some big game alongside the birds. Hirschfelden Hunting Reserve comes with the base game and already has the red fox and ring-necked pheasant Great Ones, so you can try a pheasant hunt before paying for anything.

For me, a small, calm marsh full of ducks and foxes sounds like a lovely evening, and the bird bugs in multiplayer are the one fiddly part I would want to know about before buying.