PETA goes after Hunting Simulator 2, asks developer to swap out guns for cameras

Following the release of Hunting Simulator 2, PETA France has sent a letter to Alain Falc, chair and CEO of French video game company Nacon, asking for the game to change direction by replacing guns with telephoto lenses and making the goal to shoot the best photo of a wild animal.

"There are boundless opportunities for amusement, so it's near psychopathic to get a thrill from gunning down other living beings, even in a virtual world," says PETA Vice President Mimi Bekhechi. "Nacon must stop glorifying violence to animals by transforming the players of Hunting Simulator 2 into wildlife saviours and admirers, trading in the game's guns for Canons."

A British study of deer hunting found that 11% of deer who'd been killed by hunters died only after being shot two or more times and that some wounded deer suffered for more than 15 minutes before dying. Unlike natural predators, who help maintain wildlife populations by killing off only the sickest and weakest individuals, hunters kill any animal whose head they'd like to hang over the fireplace – including large, healthy animals who are needed to keep the population strong.

PETA – whose motto reads, in part, that "animals are not ours to use for entertainment" – notes that hunting also claims human victims: over the past 20 years in France, over 410 people have been killed by hunters, according to figures from the French National Hunting and Wildlife Agency.

The letter is available upon request. PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview.