Monster Hunter World got here out an especially laborious to imagine 7 years in the past, again in 2018. It’s now 2025, and we’ve Monster Hunter Wilds. With Monster Hunter World, we additionally received a subsequent growth within the type of Monster Hunter World Iceborne in 2019, after which in 2021, we received Monster Hunter Rise with its growth, Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak, in 2022. Monster Hunter Wilds was introduced in 2023, and Capcom has been drip-feeding us tiny tidbits of data touting a residing world with climate results and much more freedom to discover.
Now, in 2025, the sport is lastly in our arms, and after two Open Beta Exams that saved us busy lately, we’ve been salivating in anticipation. So, does the sport stay as much as the hype surrounding it, and is it value trying out?
Monster Hunter Wilds
From the get-go, Monster Hunter Wilds makes it clear to you that it means enterprise. The sport kicks off with a minimize scene involving a baby being found within the East-West buffer zone close to the Forgotten Lands desert. You’ll enter the character creator quickly after and be thrust into the story fairly shortly. The sport’s character creator is sort of in depth, similar to in Monster Hunter: World, and it’s fairly simple to spend literal hours crafting your character’s facial construction to your liking in addition to altering their coiffure and color. You can too create your Palico, a cat creature that may accompany you in your hunts and once more, the customization is fairly good right here too.
When you’ve created your character, the sport onboards you with a narrative scene that has you leaping from a land ship onto a Seikret, a fowl monster that primarily capabilities like a horse within the sport. For those who’ve performed Last Fantasy titles, the Seikret will instantly remind you of a Chocobo. You’ll be launched to Alma, a guild Handler, who will job you with quests and offer you clearance or authorization to hunt monsters. Alma additionally permits you to choose your first weapon after some fast steering on the varied differing kinds obtainable.
As soon as once more, there’s quite a lot of variation to the forms of weapons you might have obtainable. Sadly, there aren’t any brand-new weapon lessons, however there’s a twist this time round to the gameplay method this time round in which you could now carry two weapons into battle. This can be a large change in that it means that you can shortly change from one playstyle to a different on the fly in battle. For instance you should utilize a Heavy Bowgun for breaking a monster’s armour after which shortly change to Twin-Blades to deal large injury in fast succession.
One other massive change is the truth that ranged weapons just like the Mild Bowgun, Heavy Bowgun, and Bow have an altered ammo system now. You not want to make use of sources for regular, pierce and unfold ammo, with solely elemental ammo needing strategic useful resource gathering and crafting. Moreover, all 14 weapon lessons have entry to the brand new “Focus” mode, which lets you goal a monster’s weak factors and inflict large injury and trigger wounds.
Whereas sequence veterans would possibly discover this to be a simplification of dealing further injury to monsters, newcomers will like it. Heck, I loved it, too! Particularly as a result of it actually feels as if you happen to’re doing quite a lot of injury to a robust opponent if you use a spotlight assault on their weak factors.
This additionally brings me to a serious caveat that extra hardcore Monster Hunter sequence followers will discover a tad disappointing. The precise hunts in Monster Hunter Wilds are very streamlined and simple. They don’t drag on for too lengthy and the cinematic nature of the storytelling implies that it’s fairly apparent as to the place to go and what to hunt. One other key level to contemplate lies with the truth that gamers can simply discover different monsters out within the bigger open world areas. This implies which you could go hunt a monster that offers you the supplies to craft stronger weapons which can allow you to decimate your present principal quest targets with ease.
That’s to not say that the sport is simple. Quite the opposite, there are many hunts in Monster Hunter Wilds that may nonetheless maintain you busy for a good portion of time as you become familiar with the varied monster’s mechanics and actions. Nonetheless, if you happen to’re a seasoned veteran from the previous days of Monster Hunter, the sport will really feel lots simpler to you due to all the various high quality of life enhancements and tweaks which were made to the core gameplay method.
One baffling choice from Capcom was the exclusion of a “Gathering Hub” and a severe step backwards by way of letting gamers play via the story missions co-operatively with buddies. Monster Hunter Rise had the system streamlined, and the truth that Capcom needed to add a YouTube video with a information concerning enjoying the sport co-op says sufficient concerning the complexity of the difficulty and the way it will likely be extraordinarily annoying to each sequence followers and newcomers alike.
The story of Monster Hunter Wilds revolves across the “Keepers” and a boy named Nata. With out spoiling an excessive amount of, there are a couple of monsters within the story which might be so extremely enjoyable to face off towards since you don’t know what you’re up towards as they’re fairly completely different to sequence staples we’ve seen earlier than. Capcom are additionally going to be including extra monsters over time and based mostly on consumer suggestions, I’m positive we’ll be seeing some fan favourites making a comeback too. Mizutsune, for instance, has already been confirmed as a monster that might be added to the sport quickly.
Graphically, Monster Hunter Wilds is an especially combined bag proper now. Enjoying the sport with out the high-resolution texture pack is a totally completely different expertise from enjoying the sport with it put in. All the things simply seems manner higher with high-resolution textures, albeit with a knock to efficiency. On PC, if you happen to transfer the digicam round your character, you’ll instantly discover a dip within the body price. This isn’t game-breaking, however it’s jarring to see occur, particularly if you’re in the midst of a heated battle.
This occurred to me on two separate PCs, with each PCs working Nvidia RTX graphics playing cards (3060 and 3070Ti) and an AMD (Ryzen 5 7600) and Intel (i7-14700KF) processor with 32GB DDR5 RAM, respectively. Capcom must do quite a lot of work right here to get the sport working as easily as doable. I do must say although, a number of the visible glitches have been hilarious to see in-game, and I had an excellent giggle at them. Some avid gamers on the market, nonetheless, could not see this in a optimistic gentle and might be livid about it for positive so I do hope that it does get addressed quickly.
With that stated, although, the sport seems completely incredible when each graphics setting is cranked up. I did encounter some delicate artifacting and texture pop-in, however for essentially the most half, it wasn’t as unhealthy as some Steam customers have been reporting. Monsters look nice and I’m an enormous fan of the brand new monster designs, notably one late sport monster that’s simply so freaking cool! The “open world” isn’t precisely as open-world as I believed it might be, however the areas are nonetheless fairly giant and look superb.
Particularly two specific places which might be filled with element. Photograph mode customers, rejoice! There’s a lot potential right here for screenshots, you’ll have a blast taking some really awe-inspiring photos in-game. The climate results that Capcom touted are nice to see, however they have been overhyped, in my view.
One other slight graphical criticism I do have, although, is that the blacksmith has the identical animation for every part that she crafts. So if you happen to’re crafting a chunk of armour, you’ll nonetheless be met with the cutscene animation of her crafting a weapon. This can be a minor oversight by Capcom, however it’s immersion breaking and in addition very complicated since you would possibly suppose that you just chosen the unsuitable choice when in actuality, you didn’t.
Monster Hunter Wilds soundtrack is as glorious as ever, with the principle Monster Hunter theme and the varied monster themes. Nonetheless, there wasn’t a catchy village tune this time round that will get caught in your head like Seliana’s theme from Monster Hunter World: Iceborne or Kamura’s purification theme from Monster Hunter Rise.
The voice performing in Monster Hunter Wilds is carried out by some very notable seasoned veterans which were within the trade for years. Surprisingly, your playable character additionally speaks quite a bit which is a departure from earlier video games the place your character was primarily mute other than making battle sounds.
The core gameplay of Monster Hunter Wilds is a well-oiled machine, and gamers can play the sport totally solo ought to they be inclined to. You can too take NPC hunters alongside, and so they legitimately do an awesome job in serving to you out in battle which is superb for avid gamers who don’t have buddies to play with. Nonetheless, regardless of the above, the most important enjoyable points actually do lie with the multiplayer element of the sport. With the ability to hunt monsters with your folks is immensely extra satisfying than soloing every part with the NPCs.
As with earlier titles, Capcom have launched scaling to the sport, so when looking with buddies, every part isn’t precisely a pushover, however it does really feel lots simpler to hunt with buddies than it does to hunt alone. Except, in fact, your folks are fully helpless, through which case, it will likely be time to “Git Gud,” because the saying goes.
Last Verdict
General Monster Hunter Wilds is a superb sport that I nonetheless had a tonne of enjoyable with. It’s the proper entry level for newcomers to the franchise, and it most positively will entice newcomers, given how in style the sequence has change into lately. Seasoned veterans will nonetheless have a blast, however I foresee quite a lot of minor grievances and complaints effervescent as much as the floor as the sport goes via its preliminary teething section of tweaks, balances and adjustments that Capcom might be bringing to the desk.
Proper now, PC efficiency is a serious challenge, and hopefully, this might be addressed quickly. Even with that, although, Monster Hunter Wilds will get a strong 9/10 from me, with the minus 1 level being deducted for the tough PC graphical efficiency and the watering down of sure gameplay points that Monster Hunter: World and/or Monster Hunter Rise did lots higher. Capcom, you probably did an excellent job right here. You simply must construct on this additional now and switch it into an excellent greater success with subsequent patches and updates. We’re “On the hunt!” for extra refinements and polish, so don’t fail us now!
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