Monster Hunter Wilds review — Sharper than ever

Monster Hunter has absolutely exploded in popularity over the last decade. What began as a niche series on the PS2 has become one of Capcom’s flagship franchises. Monster Hunter World breathed new life into the series with open areas, while Monster Hunter Stories 2 brought some much-needed story. Monster Hunter Wilds combines these two concepts, for a Monster Hunter that just might be the best yet. The Hunters Guild- I mean the GamingTrend team has been exploring the Wilds for some time now, and here are their findings.

David:

I’ve been a fan of Monster Hunter since 4 Ultimate on the 3DS, though it certainly took a few tries to get into the series. It’s not exactly well known for being easy to grasp, even the basics. However, Wilds seems to be carefully crafted with new hunters in mind. There’s still a lot of work to be done, such as proper weapon tutorials, but going through the story makes it a lot easier to pick up on all of the game’s nuances and mechanics.

But let’s start from the beginning. The Forbidden Lands were thought to be uninhabited by people, with only incredibly dangerous monsters making the East their home. At least that’s what most assumed, until a young boy was found unconscious on the border. Nata hails from a people called the Keepers, but his village was attacked by a fearsome, white monster nicknamed The White Wraith. A few years later and the Hunter’s Guild is ready for an expedition into the Forbidden Lands. You are the hunter for Avis Unit, specially selected for your incredible aptitude and adaptability. Your goal is to research the Forbidden Lands and find the Keepers, but there may just be a whole lot of monsters between you and Nata’s home.

I’m paying special attention to the story here because it’s actually pretty good! It’s not a masterpiece of fiction, but the characters are fantastic and it emphasizes the environmental themes of the series. It also doesn’t take too much of your time; I reached the credits in around 16 hours, making this one of the shorter Monster Hunter campaigns. That brevity is refreshing in an industry that prefers 100 hour campaigns over tight, well written stories. 

It also helps that the story is constantly throwing you into new hunts, sometimes immediately after one ends. There’s usually a cutscene or two between hunts, but Wilds wastes absolutely no time getting you into the action. Hunts also steadily increase in difficulty over the course of the story. The Chatacabra and Doshaguma are easy enough to take down, but try to fight an Ajarakan with a weapon you’re not familiar with and unupgraded armor and you’re gonna have a bad time.

Hunting a monster then upgrading your gear with parts from that monster so you can hunt even bigger monsters is the core gameplay loop of Monster Hunter, and it feels better than ever in Wilds. The 14 weapon types all feel great to use, and you can carry two of them into a hunt now. I stuck with our lord and savior, the Sword and Shield, for the majority of the game. It keeps the satisfying combos from World, but feels even more mobile, while able to stand its ground by blocking for perfect counters and clashes. 

The reworked wound system also feels fantastic to take advantage of. Just like other games, reportedly attacking the same part of a monster will break parts of them, opening a wound visible with a glow by holding the left trigger to enter focus mode. Focus mode allows you to aim your attacks a bit better, and while it can feel a little awkward at times it can come in very handy. In Focus Mode, you can then press R1 to perform a wound breaking move unique to your current weapon. For example, Dual Blades will break the wound, then spin along the monster’s spine, increasing Demon Gauge with every hit. 

Attacking wounds is always worth it, and may even be a little too powerful. Something like the Long Sword can stay in its leveled up mode indefinitely by breaking wounds rather than needing to slowly build up to it. It may be just that I’m a more experienced hunter now, but I feel Wilds is notably easier as a whole than other games in the series. The game gives you so many ways to make yourself overpowered, and only the final few monsters gave me any trouble. You have food buffs, decorations, some amazing Palico abilities, wounds, and we haven’t even mentioned your new Seikret buddy.

The Seikret is a chicken/dinosaur thing and your new way to get around the world quickly. The Palamutes were a great addition to Rise, but it was annoying to have to choose between your doggo or your kitty as a companion in multiplayer. Now, your Seikret is always at your side, even when your Palico ditches you in three or more player hunts. 

You can press up on the D-Pad at any time to summon them to your side, which is more helpful than you would think at first glance. Here, at any time also includes when you’ve been knocked down, so any time you hit the dirt and need to heal, it’s a good idea to summon your Seikret. You’re not invincible while riding and can be knocked off, but using items on the Seikret makes it way too easy to stay topped off or recover from bad play.

Even so, I wouldn’t want to get rid of them. They make getting around the world a lot easier, which is important in an open world where you can immediately enter hunt after hunt with no loading or menuing needed. You can also make them look like a Chocobo. Adorable!

This free flowing structure makes Monster Hunter Wilds addicting, even more than the previous games. More than a few times I would be hunting a monster to make a cool armor set or weapon, then see that another monster for a different gear set had just shown up. That loop repeats over and over until suddenly it’s midnight, all without ever going back to a hub or the quest counter.

You don’t need to worry about missing out on anything either. If you don’t have time to hunt a monster right now, you can save the encounter as an investigation right from the map. This includes special variants of monsters too, such as Tempered and Frenzy, making it incredibly convenient and player friendly. 

What isn’t player friendly is the multiplayer. Playing Monster Hunter with friends is one of the most enjoyable parts of the series. From watching your friends get thrown across the map to having someone clutch a hunt with seconds to spare, online has always been a good time. Wilds is certainly better than World in this respect, but not by much. Online play revolves around three things: SOS Flares, Lobbies, and Link Parties. SOS Flares can be used mid-hunt, and allow anyone in your current online lobby to join. If no one joins, NPC hunters will come to your aid while you wait which is incredibly helpful. Lobbies work similarly to World, though they’re much bigger here and supposedly allow you to see other players in each area’s base camp. We saw this in the beta, but weren’t able to successfully test it due to very low player counts pre-release. 

Finally, Link Parties are for when you want to play multiple hunts with a group of up to four players. With cross-play, this requires the use of your Hunter ID, but good luck finding it or how to enter other players’ IDs. Here’s a hint: you need to go into your Hunter Profile then press in one of the sticks, and to enter someone else’s ID you need to find a way into the multiplayer menu and scroll all the way to the right as there’s no way to access that portion of the menu on its own. 

Once you’re finally in a Link Party, you won’t actually be able to play together immediately. Unlike the rest of the game, you can’t just go out into the world alongside your friend and find some monsters to hunt; one of you needs to post a quest first, then the other players can choose to join. For story missions, this means everyone will have to wait until one player finds themselves thrust into a hunt after some cutscenes. To actually adventure alongside each other, you need to form a different kind of party called an Environment Link, which only appears once you’re actually in a Link Party together. I simply do not understand why this is made to be so complicated and unintuitive. Capcom themselves have figured out multiplayer in their other games, so why not with Monster Hunter?

At least, playing on PC, I don’t have to pay for online. And for the most part, the PC version looks and runs great. On an RTX 4070, 32 GB of ram, and an Intel Core i9-12900K I’m usually getting above 60 fps, usually around 80 to 90, at max settings and 1440p. That’s for the most part though, and I experienced more than my fair share of crashes and geometry bugging out. Crashes seem to mostly happen when embarking on a quest, so thankfully, you don’t lose much progress when it happens. Buggy geometry, where polygons get stretched out and fly all over the screen, is mostly localized to later areas in the game too. I’m confident Capcom can fix these issues, but at launch, things might be a little rough.

Raven: 

There are a lot of reasons that I love Monster Hunter. I have been playing this series for a long time and up until now, Monster Hunter World has been my favorite. After spending some time in the Wilds, my opinion has changed completely; this is the Monster Hunter game for me. Everything in Wilds feels better and the open-world gameplay is simply superb. I play on the PlayStation 5 and have been having a blast.

Before diving into what I love, there are a couple of things that I can’t stand. For starters, getting into a group is too much of a process. It felt quicker and snappier in World and it’s such a shame because this game rocks when you’re playing with a friend. Aside from that, I am not a fan of the new bag system, it doesn’t feel as snappy as I would like it to be even after sorting it. 

As for the weapons, I love everything that I have gotten to try thus far. The Hunting Horn has been my favorite weapon for years and it has never felt better, especially on the PlayStation 5 controller. I do feel as though the Hunting Horn got slightly shafted though because the animation for hitting injuries looks…off. I understand that the weapon is blunt but there should’ve been more effort into making the animation feel fluid and special for the weapon. 

With that out of the way, I have a confession to make: I love hunting monsters, especially in this game because the details in the armor and weapons are some of the best in the series. But I tend to play these games to examine the monsters, watch how they interact with each other, and see how Capcom brings them to life. 

I am nothing short of amazed at the ecology of Monster Hunter Wilds. Every monster feels alive and because the details are more crisp it is easier to notice the little things. I love watching the birds land and eat what I assume to be bugs off of the back of the monsters. Each of the sleeping animations is also amazing, and if you’re brave enough to get close you can see how each monster snores: I think this detail is pretty cute. What really showed me how well the animation team did was the twitchiness of the various spider enemies; they looked so alive. I am so glad I didn’t turn on arachnophobia mode because you miss so much of life when you can’t see the little details. 

I had a lot of fun with Monster Hunter Wilds. It’s a fantastic game that seems to consume me every time I turn on the PlayStation 5.