The Monster Hunter games occupy a special place in the hearts of gamers. It is the progenator of a genre that sees players hunt down gigantic monsters in an epic tug-of-war where steel clashes with tooth and claw. Monster Hunter Wilds continues to evolve the series’ wildly successful loop of hunts and upgrades. However, a point of contention lies with the game’s pacing, as well as changes to other supporting systems. Nevertheless, Monster Hunters Wilds delivers in every front that matters most to players: the gameplay loop.
The game’s story starts with a mission to reunite a boy named Nata with his people, the Keepers, and to investigate a potentially dangerous monster nicknamed the White Wraith. The journey sees the expedition exploring all four corners of the Forbidden Lands in search of answers while meeting and getting to know the tribes that call each region home. In the end, Nata learns what it means to be a hunter. More importantly, our hunter avatar finally breaks protocol and authorizes a hunt for personal reasons.
Monster Hunter Wilds takes the series’ combat to a new level. Every archetype in the game receives new and meaningful actions that amplify what they’re already good at. I mostly use the Sword & Shield and the Gunlance so far, and all I can say is that I am genuinely impressed with what I’m seeing. The S&S is more relentless with a constant stream of slashes, capped with a devastating downward stab finisher. The Gunlance, for its part, gained an extended shell combo that ends with a heated Wyvern’s Fire finisher. This kind of constant damage output on an otherwise defensive weapon is sublime.
The most significant change to the general flow of combat is the new Wounds mechanic. This feature allows Hunters to focus on a wounded body part and apply a debilitating attack that results in materials dropping out. The action also increases the probability of the monster falling over, opening it up to full combos and team attacks.
For the longest time, NPCs played a minor role in the overall hunting experience. They don’t have much of a story and are just there to introduce the next monster waiting in line. That’s not the case anymore in Wilds. Our Avis unit, which includes handler Alma and blacksmith Gemma, plays a much more active role in the story. A lot of the dialogue occurs during riding sequences where the group makes note of their observations of the area. Though it’s mostly Alma getting excited over ancient architecture. And speaking of our favorite handler, the whole “Alma giving us the authority to hunt the monster” is already an instant hit with the community. I wouldn’t be surprised if future handlers are modeled after her.
It’s not just the A-team getting an expanded role. The support team members, namely Olivia, Erik, and Werner, also share the spotlight. Olivia is an excellent field leader and protector. Erik and Werner are geniuses in their fields but come with their own eccentricities. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about the villagers in each region. They quickly fall to the wayside once their part in the story is over. Post-story campaign, they exist solely as quest givers, pointing the player towards the direction of high-rank Tempered monsters and to set a rematch against that region’s apex predator. Considering how forgettable NPCs were in previous MonHun games, it was not the most terrible of losses.
In previous titles, every time a new monster is introduced, there would be a cutscene showing off the new monster, and then all you have to do is casually walk to the quest-giver and initiate the hunt for said monster. That’s always been the case as far back as I can remember. In Wilds, however, there’s a lot of riding and exposition-dumping between quests. I didn’t mind it so much since it reminded me of Red Dead Redemption. You can gather materials and listen to conversations among teammates along the way, but as soon as you step away from the group, you are pulled back with extreme force. I feel like some leeway would have been acceptable, if only to gather resources around the periphery.
This change is obviously for newer players who may want a bit more story to their experience. It’s not bad for what it is, I just wish the execution could have been slightly better overall, especially when you factor in that your friends won’t be with you until the hunt is initiated.
The kitchen is something I expected to be part of the full game when I first played the beta test. For all the grief I gave Rise’s paltry dango, I miss the kitchen staff’s performances, doubly for the feasts they prepared in Worlds. Outdoor cooking is an inspired choice, and the results for the prepared meals are oddly appealing. Why couldn’t we have them both? I may never know.
The one thing I didn’t miss was the shared chest at the beginning of each hunt. We’ve all had that one teammate who would gobble up all the contents before everyone else loaded into the instance. Now, all the guild-approved stock gets automatically sent to your Seiret’s pouch. So, that’s something.
There’s no better way to say this, but the main story campaign was too easy. The revelation hit me like a ton of bricks after staring down Zoh Shia’s corpse, and the end credits started rolling. In less than 24 hours of play, I got through the main story and steamrolled through the campaign like it was nothing. I could have shaved off a couple more hours if I hadn’t done some side quests and collected stuff. During that time, I only used three armor sets during my short time in low rank: Hope, Quematrice, and Guardian Doshaguma. The last one only came together because I felt like changing things up. It also helped that the passive skill worked well with Gunlance.
That wasn’t the only source of confusion I had in the game. I was confused about how armor upgrades in the game actually worked. I didn’t use my collection of armor spheres until the 8th hour of play. I’m not exaggerating when I say that, at some point, I was looking around for ways to use them like I was John Travolta from Pulp Fiction.
Thankfully, the game doesn’t truly begin until High Rank is unlocked.
The after-story campaign is where the game truly comes to life. The monsters are tougher and stronger, I even used demon drug and armor skin for the first time. You know something is wrong when the only time you feel like your life is at risk is when you go up against a tempered Gravios while wearing Guardian Doshaguma armor. You know, the armor set that’s incredibly weak to fire.
More than that, I didn’t have to listen to Nata being an Arkveld apologist, nor did I have to sit through another long riding segment while everyone was doing their best NatGeo impression. It was only me, the team, and a string of missions involving a mysterious frenzy virus. I can’t ask for more than that.
The Tempered and Frenzied monsters, while a fine addition in their own right, felt like a bandage solution for a lack of monster diversity. We know that more monsters will be added in the future, starting in April. But right now, there seems to be a lack of options for much of our gear. I’m sure my opinion will change once we’re neck deep in Tigrexes, Kirins, and elder dragons. In the meantime, I have taken up the hobby of crafting Artisan weapons to kill time. These have mostly replaced variants in my builds in case I needed something with a high ailment stat over pure firepower. I farmed Frenzied Arkvelds and Tempered Gore Magalas for Rarity 8 gear parts. It also helped that the dragons rewarded two Hunter Symbol III’s, allowing me to make the best versions of my other weapons.
This near-endless loop of hunting and upgrading is what I love about Monster Hunter. Capcom has the entire process down to a science. For all the things I complained about so far in this review, none of it ultimately mattered. Capcom knows its audience, and we will keep coming back as long as the core gameplay loop remains intact. Everything around it can change. In fact, Wilds changed a lot of support systems. At the end of the day, we stay for the epic fights and the promise of better gear. Long rides and a boatload of exposition will not change that.
If you’re wondering why I have yet to mention anything about PC performance. That’s because I didn’t run into any severe issues during my 76 hours in the game so far, save for frequent disconnects and drops mid-fight. And mind you, I’m on a mid-range PC with average specs. There were a bevy of visual bugs at launch, but those got straightened out one week after launch, for the most part. Visual hiccups still occur when I cooked food, but other than that, the game ran fine. More than fine, actually.
Despite a shaky start, Monster Hunter Wilds delivered on the most important thing that matters in a Monster Hunter game: the core gameplay loop. The game is built on a solid foundation, and it is only going to get better from here. However, it needs to be said that the game still suffers from optimization issues to this day, two weeks after launch. Wilds will go down in history as a great Monster Hunter game. How great it ultimately will be remains to be seen. What I do know is that the game is a blast, and I can’t recommend it enough. (After you’ve unlocked High Rank, of course).
“The guild authorizes you to have many more great hunts!”
