Monster Hunter Wilds Review
Getting into Monster Hunter when World came out, I was excited to get my hands on the latest entry in the franchise. In the first 3 days since launch over 8 million copies have been sold, setting records for Capcom, so does it live up to such an achievement? Let’s discuss.
In the grand scheme of things, I’m still a fairly recent Monster Hunter adopter, but I quite like the franchise. The core loop of choosing a target, prepping for the hunt, fighting the monster, crafting new equipment, and starting all over again is quite satisfying. The series always felt measured, with enough friction to make it satisfying and engaging across dozens or even hundreds of hours.
Monster Hunter Wilds seems to be attempting to be an even more streamlined and approachable entry in the franchise. Given the sales numbers, it would seem they succeeded! I’d wager this could do what Worlds did for me, and get many new fans into the franchise.
The biggest way they do this is with the addition of a mount, the birdlike Seikret. Monster Hunter Rise had a mount as well, but Wilds takes it a step further. Once you start a hunt, with the tap of a button your mount will auto navigate directly to whatever monster you’re hunting, letting you sit back and enjoy the ride.
Gone are the days of World where you have to examine footprints and scratch marks to find your way to monsters. With these changes, within a minute or two you’ll find yourself face to face with a variety of monsters and be able to jump into the fray. You can even collect items along the way, sharpen your weapon, or even change weapons on the back of your mount.
Combat is better than ever in the latest entry, thanks in part to the new wounds system. Monster Hunter continues to strike a great balance of fluid but weighty combat, where you can react quickly, but still need to think and plan ahead. After striking a part of the monster repeatedly, they develop a wound, which you can attack more for extra damage.
You can also take advantage of focus mode, another addition that allows you to aim your attacks using the camera, and unleash focus strikes. Unique to each weapon, a focus strike allows you to destroy a wound, dealing a lot of damage at once, and sometimes opening up the monster to further attacks.
Notably, this is seemingly the franchise’s easiest entry. I’m sure my skills as a player have gotten better as I’ve gotten familiar with the franchise, but a lot of people have felt a bit underwhelmed by the challenge.
With Worlds, I remember struggling against my nemesis, Diablos, for days. I had to craft totally different gear, learn what he was weak to, and study his patterns to finally come out on top. It was frustrating, sure, but it also made me fall in love with Monster Hunter. It gave me the same satisfaction as beating a difficult boss in a souls-like game, if not more so.
In Wilds, I breezed through the campaign without failing a single mission in probably half the time it took me in Worlds. There’s often a joke in Monster Hunter communities of the campaign being an extended tutorial, but this was the first time I felt it was true. Once I rolled credits, the flow of the game felt like it changed.
Most story missions felt a bit on rails, and often warped me back to camp after a hunt. Once I was on my own, I had to go into the map and choose which monster to fight, and then the quest would begin after the fight had started. Once I had slain the monster, the quest was finished, but I was still in the field. It felt like a mismatch of what I had been doing the last 20 ish hours and what the next 20 hours would look like.
Between the quality of life changes, like the mount, and the new wounds system, which is great, but does speed up fights, it feels like there was something lost. Monster Hunter felt like a game about friction, and removing that friction may have ended up removing something that felt integral to the core of the series, at least as I understood it.
Now, on the other hand, after dozens of hours that friction began to get annoying, and so spending more time in Wilds will probably be a more pleasant experience in the long run. If I slip on my game designer hat for a second, I wish they had more friction during the campaign, and then remove it for the postgame, where the grind begins.
I’ve been playing this game on PS5, so I’ve managed to avoid the PC performance issues I’ve seen many people calling out. Performance wise the game has been doing well enough, but graphically I have spotted a few rough textures in places. Overall though I think the game looks good, and the monsters look better than ever.
No one really plays these games for the story, but Wilds really felt like a nothing burger. While Worlds had a bit of a yikes colonizer story, I enjoyed that natural progression of mastering a new place. Rise felt like a community of people sharing and protecting a way of life, which felt resonant. If Wilds had a theme or a message it sure went over my head, I got pretty close to skipping cutscenes honestly.
Your main cast of characters I probably couldn’t name
I feel bad being so down on the game, because I really enjoy my time playing it. It’s satisfying and smooth, but still complex enough to feel like there’s a learning curve and high ceiling. For me, the difference has been enjoying it as a game vs enjoying it as an experience, like I did with World.
Wilds is a very good video game, but I can’t quite help but feel like a bit of soul was lost in giving it the broadest appeal possible. The friction that I fell in love with, from the environment and the monsters has dissipated, and nothing has quite replaced it. Yet, I’m sure I’ll still be hunting monsters for another 20 hours or so, because it simply feels fantastic.
