Monster Hunter Wilds walks a tight rope, offering the most approachable Monster Hunter experience to date, while still finding ways to give veterans of the series more to chew on. This balancing act is successful, with new focus attacks giving smart ways to target monster parts while adding another tool to use in combat. The regions feel lively thanks to changing weather and the streamlined experience for starting a hunt lets you get back into the action as fast as you want.
Monster Hunter Wilds
Developer: Capcom
Price: $70
Platforms: PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S (Reviewed), and PC
An Xbox Series X|X code was provided by the publisher for the review
Refining the Hunt – How Wilds Evolves the Formula
Monster Hunter Wilds is a massive refinement of Monster Hunter World, offering a bounty of quality-of-life improvements over its predecessors while incorporating new systems, like focus attacks on wounds and offset attacks. Perhaps its greatest feat is the ease of getting into new missions, letting you start quests out in each region or from the map itself.
Monster Hunter Wilds follows an expedition into the Forbidden Lands, in search of a mysterious monster that attacked Nata, a young boy from the region found by an exploration team. The story itself is fairly bland, with the majority of the cast not experiencing anything close to a character arc, although it is quite fun how often other solutions to problems are suggested before you ultimately solve every problem by hunting monsters.
That said, the story setup allows for a more grassroots setup for monster hunting. Since the Guild is new to the area, each region gets a makeshift base setup, with the option to build pop-up camps around the region. This smaller setup means you have to be leaner, so activities like eating meals are no longer restricted to base and instead can be performed pretty much anywhere. Pop-up camps let you resupply almost anywhere, and the ability to carry a second weapon on your mount all make for a streamlined process of preparing for each hunt, letting you get back into the action faster.
The Seikret mount lets you move quickly through each region, which is important with how much larger each area feels compared to Monster Hunter World. The mount also features an auto-pilot function, taking you directly to your set destination. I thought this feature would feel like it’s taking away too much of the friction of Monster Hunter, but combined with the new ability to gather resources from your mount with the Hook Slinger, means that you can focus on resource gathering while moving, making sure you always have something important to be doing while being taken to your destination, although you can also manually steer as well.
Tactical Combat with More Ways to Target Monsters
While you won’t get the full experience until you enter the high rank endgame, the changing weather and cycles found in each environment make for a world that feels more alive and creates more dynamic hunts. Now it’s not only raining during certain missions, as you can just as easily end up in a flooded forest as one that’s in full bloom. This weather system does pause at certain story quests, which can make the game feel odd if you need to focus on other hunts first, but having each region change slightly over time adds more variety to the experience, making it feel like the game is actively experiencing different seasons and weather.
Combat feels pretty similar to other Monster Hunter entries, which is great, and the new additions to combat feel right at home both at the moment and as ways to get more materials. The new wound system lets you create wounds, something present in previous games, but focus attacks change the way these function. Once created, you can destroy wounds, either by continuing to attack them normally or by using the focus attacks, which will do a ton of damage and typically reward you with materials, making it easier to target specific parts, which can net specific materials. While this does lessen some of the randomness of material gathering, it doesn’t lessen the grind, which is a great middle-ground for a game about the process of gathering materials and not the reward for doing it.
Sneak attacks are high damage hits you can do on unsuspecting monsters, either by sneaking up on them or using the ghillie mantle. These small additions offer easy to identify ways to attack and deal damage to monsters, providing a clear path for newcomers, while also giving veterans ways to target farms, creating a nice improvement that doesn’t take away from the core experience of hunting monsters. Palicos have gotten a slight upgrade in combat too, gaining access to a large array of Palico tools, all of which can be accessed during a hunt instead of choosing a specific tool to deploy with. Materials that would fall off a monster during a fight in previous games are now collected automatically too, another nice addition.
Player Freedom at Its Peak
Environmental attacks are also found in greater numbers here, with far more rocks to drop, and natural traps to activate when fighting monsters. While not every corner of each region features them, there are plenty of areas with multiple of these, allowing you tons of opportunities to gain an advantage against monsters. Combat’s main flaw is that it is easier, at least in the earlier hours. While great for newcomers, it does make the low rank quests in the story menu too easy, especially when it comes to your equipment. You can pretty often get through a hunt with any weapon and armor set, assuming you have enough combat skill. Luckily, this issue isn’t present in high rank, which does punish you for not having the right gear for fights.
Story quests still play out similar to previous games, with you deploying from base camp via your handler, Alma, usually with a cutscene leading into the fight. Side quests and investigations are deployed similarly, but the way investigations are collected has changed. Instead of gaining them as you interact with monsters, defeating the monster in one of the regions outside of a story or side quest will give you the option to add an investigation, at the cost of research points. The only small downside here is that if a monster you are looking to hunt isn’t currently present in one of the regions, you’re out of luck until one comes through. Rarely, there would only be one monster you’re interested in hunting at a time, but it’s a small frustration in a game that’s ultimately great at letting you do exactly what you want to be doing. This issue can really come up when the weather is static due to your current story mission, locking certain monsters out from appearing, but once you reach the endgame this problem mostly goes away.
While I can’t reveal the full roster, I am happy to report that Monster Hunter Wilds features a great variety of monsters to hunt. This is true both in terms of monsters not present in either Worlds or Rise and a good mix of animal types and inspirations. Perhaps one of the main faults of Monster Hunter World at launch was a heavy amount of Wyvern monsters, but Wilds doesn’t make the same mistake. It also avoids gimmick missions, like the Zorah Magdaros defense missions or the Rampage defense missions in the previous two entries, both of which were criticized by players. Instead, every mission is a classic hunt, even if there are side objectives or tasks.
Player customization is at its most customizable and easiest to use here. Not only does the character creator feature tons of options, including pitch control for your character’s voice, which you will be hearing more frequently than in previous games, but the armor system offers more choices too. Now you have access to both versions of armor, which were previously restricted based on gender choice, and there is no punishment for mixing pieces from the two sets, which only differ visually. Once you reach a high rank in the endgame, whenever you craft a high rank piece of armor, it’s automatically added to your layered armor choices, instead of requiring you to craft it separately. Your Palico, Seikret, and pop-up camps all have customization options too, letting you pick out a look that fits your style.
The Final Word
Monster Hunter Wilds does an incredible job of balancing quality-of-life improvements and a streamlined system with the by design grind-focused gameplay loop. Newcomers will find this entry more approachable than previously, and veterans will find the new combat additions and combos offer plenty of depth to justify a new entry. The constantly changing environments make the world feel alive, and it creates a seamless connection between preparing and initiating a hunt. It’s a tad easier than some will like, and the story is bland as hell, but the hunting is great, and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters.
MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
