The Hunter

The Hunter
Face Card
In-Game
Boss Splash Screen
Starter Guns	Rusty Sidearm Crossbow
Starter Items	Dog
In-Game
Portrait
Starter Guns	Rusty Sidearm
Starter Items	Dog

The Hunter is one of the Gungeoneers in the games Enter the Gungeon and Exit the Gungeon.

Story

1,147 years prior to the Hunter's adventure into the Gungeon, she travelled to Blacksword Manor to defeat Dr. Wolfenclaw. However, she was captured and stored in a cryo-pod until the events of Enter the Gungeon. It is unknown how she escaped the cryo-pod.

Past Kill

If the Bullet That Can Kill The Past is used on The Hunter, she will be brought back to the front entrance of Blacksword Manor before her capture. After entering the manor, the Hunter will eventually come across a strange machine. Dr. Wolfenclaw will appear and greet the Hunter, saying that he's thrilled to be able to use her in his latest experiment. The Hunter responds by saying that she will not let him have his way with her and that she's come to stop him and his twisted religion. Dr. Wolfenclaw will then summon a circle of bullets, trapping The Hunter. The player will be given the option to use a Blank to destroy the trap. Dr. Wolfenclaw will initially be surprised by such advanced technology but claims that it won't matter and decides to unleash his monster upon The Hunter. Should The Hunter defeat the monster, she will be relieved that it is finally over and leave the manor with Junior.

When The Hunter gets trapped, the player will also have the chance to give up. If this option is selected, Hunter will say: "Never! I'm not getting frozen again!", which leads the player back to the option of fighting Wolfenclaw.

When entering the past, The Hunter will have Colt 1851 and Sticky Crossbow as available weapons, along with Wolf as an item.

Notes

• Defeating the Hunter's past will unlock Wolf and Dog.

Strategy

The Hunter starts out with the smallest loadout of all the Gungeoneers, having only 3 items to work with compared with the usual 4. However, the tools that The Hunter is given are strong enough for her to hold her own within the Gungeon's depths. The Hunter's main weapon, the Rusty Sidearm, can best be described as average. It has decent damage, but with a mere 6 shots in a single magazine and slower bullets than most starting guns, it forces the Hunter to constantly be on the move. Arguably the best part about the Hunter is her secondary weapon, the Crossbow. It's the strongest of the starting guns in terms of damage and can 1 or 2 shot every basic enemy on the first floor except for Gun Nuts, which take around 5. The extreme range provided by the Crossbow allows the Hunter to stay much farther away from enemies compared to other Gungeoneers and thus, take less damage on average. The Crossbow is also extremely ammo efficient to the point where it's quite possible for it to clear the majority of the first floor (including the boss) alone.

The Dog is the Hunter's only passive item, but it has the potential to be quite useful over the course of a run. Upon completion of a room, the Dog has a 5% chance to dig up a pickup. The pickup chance is completely separate from room rewards, so it's possible to get both at once. The pickups uncovered by the Dog can be coins, hearts, armor, blanks, keys, ammo and maps. Keep in mind that the Resourceful Rat will steal any armor and ammo left in the room, so they should be used/picked up immediately if they appear. The Dog will also bark at Mimics, though this feature is less beneficial for more experienced players.

Overall, The Hunter is an all-around solid Gungeoneer, as the Dog is able to provide free resources, while the Crossbow gives a viable alternative to the otherwise average Rusty Sidearm until more powerful weapons are found. Due to this, the Hunter probably has the strongest early game of the 4 main Gungeoneers.

Escape Route

For a more detailed breakdown of each elevator, see; Routes#The Hunter's Route

Like all characters in Exit the Gungeon, the Hunters escape route up through the Gungeon features a series of unique elevators.

The Forge	The Hollow	Black Powder Mine	Gungeon Proper	Keep of the Lead Lord
Standard two-level elevator with no way to fall.	Two-layer elevator with a large gap in the center of the bottom platform.	Six small platforms surrounding a central platform. Surrounding platforms have faces and will shoot at the player, but stepping on them can press them down and prevent them attacking.	No elevator. The player must climb a series of rickety platforms to keep pace with an auto-scrolling camera.	Same for all characters. A free-moving rocket powered platform which bounces around the elevator shaft.

Trivia

• Although the Wolf accompanies The Hunter in her past, the item will show up as Dog in the Ammonomicon.
• By pressing the interact button near her Dog, Junior II, The Hunter will pet it. This will not work with the Wolf.
• The Hunter's past is the only past to not have her infinite ammo starter weapon.
• Nicknames that NPCs use to refer to The Hunter include:
  • Pilgrim
  • Prof
  • Lady
  • Ma'am
• The Hunter's alternate costume bears a resemblance to her dog, Junior, who waited until the Hunter returned to her past.
• The Hunter's secondary alternate costume from Exit the Gungeon resembles the main character of the game Bloodborne, who is also named '"The Hunter"'.
• The Hunters pose in her boss splash screen image resembles Clint Eastwoods iconic pose in The Outlaw Josey Wales.
• The icon on her belt is the 'Serious Bomb' logo of the video game series Serious Sam.
• The Blacksword, and in particular Dr. Wolfenclaw bear resemblance to how Nazis are portrayed in late 20th century media. From this, the similarity between the names Wolfenclaw and Wolfenstein and the visual similarity between Dr. Wolf's Monster and Mecha Hitler, the Hunters past can be safely assumed to be a reference to the Wolfenstein series.
• If the Hunter's past is accessed in co-op, she will say to the Cultist “Oh, and... you. If you want to get back to the Gungeon, I'd hop in one of those cryo-pods for about... fifteen hundred years or so.”
• The Hunter's role as an artifact hunting scholar who seeks to retake an ancient relic from a naziesque organisation may be a reference to the film franchise Indiana Jones.

Cut Content

• The Hunter has gone through the most name revisions out of any character, originally being called 'The Scholar' in very early development, and then 'The Guide' during the pre-alpha.
• In Enter the Gungeon's pre-alpha, the Hunter (then known as the Guide) started with Sense of Direction instead of Dog.
• The Hunter originally had a much lower quality avatar which was later replaced with the current version.
• There is an unused item called the Hunter's Journal which seems to fulfil a similar purpose to the Dog, and may have at one point been the Hunter's starter passive item.

Gallery

• 

  The Hunter in-game.

• 

  The Hunter's alternate costume.

• 

  The Hunter during the boss splash screen.

• 

  The Hunter's old, since replaced, facecard.

• 

  The win screen after defeating The Hunter's past.