Colorado is the mountain and forest reserve, roughly 100 km², and the region the demo opens on and the one you start in. The official map reveal describes it as running from the high mountain peaks down to the rolling grasslands, built from seven biomes that each change how you hunt.
Hunting Simulator 3 Colorado map: the seven biomes
| Biome | What it is | How to hunt it |
|---|---|---|
| Alpine | Rugged high-altitude zones with sparse vegetation and panoramic views | Long sight lines, but almost nothing to hide behind |
| Turf Zones | Low wetland areas, rich in animal tracks | Good for slow, patient stalking |
| Lodgepole | Narrow tall forests with limited visibility | Excellent cover, poor sight lines |
| Aspen | Golden autumn foliage, and very quiet | Quiet ground that still gives you cover |
| Grasslands | Open areas | Ideal for spotting prey from a distance |
| Shrubland | Transitional zones with their own visibility and cover rules | The middle ground, and where mixed herds show up |
| Spruce Forests | Dense and dark | Needs a more careful approach |
That mix is what makes Colorado the harder of the two maps to read. You are not hunting one terrain, you are hunting seven, and the animal you want decides which one you drive to.
Which animals work which biome
The roster follows the terrain closely:
- Open ground — Rocky Mountain Elk, Rocky Mountain Mule Deer and Great Plains Bison hold the open grassland and shrubland, where you can see them coming.
- Timber — American Black Bear, Grey Wolf, North American Cougar and Red Fox work the spruce and lodgepole forests, where sightlines are short and your noise carries.
- Wet low ground — the Turf Zones are track-rich, which is where the rabbits and the ground birds sit.
The Colorado animals guide lists all 19 species and what each one is.
The headquarters and the demo area
The reserve has its own regional headquarters, and it includes a shooting range, so you can test a scope or a shotgun pattern before you take it into the field. The missions, the Field Journal and the lodge for this region all live around the same hub.
The free demo is set in the restricted demo area of Colorado, and its first mission — A Matter of Rabbits — takes place there. That means the demo teaches you on the same map you will hunt after you buy the game, just in a smaller section of it.
Reading the terrain
The practical way to use the biomes is to pick the biome your target lives in and work that ground rather than covering the whole reserve. A UTV crosses 100 km² quickly, but the engine carries sound, so park short of the animals and cover the last stretch on foot.
Once you are inside a biome, the question becomes where in it the animals actually are, and that is a need-zone question rather than a map question. The find animals guide covers the need zones, the herd sizes and the loop that finds game.