Monster Hunter Wilds review - a next step in the evolution

Monster Hunter, as a series, is straightforward – you are a hunter who hunts various dangerous monsters. The core of these games hasn’t changed since 2004 when Capcom released Monster Hunter on PlayStation 2. Looking at how many games this series got since its debut shows that gamers didn’t mind this simplicity. The games weren’t popular, because it had memorable characters or stories. Instead, what mattered was the thrill of the hunt, the excitement of facing a new monster and crafting a weapon or armor parts using its materials. The challenging gameplay kept gamers’ attention for over 20 years, only gaining on popularity. That popularity piqued with Monster Hunter World, a game that was seen as a revolution in the franchise, selling over 20 million copies. From the first trailers, Wilds seemed like another step for the franchise. That is true in some aspects, although I’m not sure if these changes were necessary.

Welcome to the Forbidden Lands

During the open beta tests of Monster Hunter Wilds, there were concerns regarding its graphics and the overall quality. The textures were blurry and lacked sharpness. The final version of the game looks better and runs at a stable frame rate. However, while playing it in performance mode, because a game like Monster Hunter requires precise timing, I felt that the game looked worse than Monster Hunter World released in 2018 on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The quality mode makes the game look better, but it halves the frame rate, making the game run at 30 frames per second on base PlayStation 5, which isn’t the best for a game requiring fast reflexes, where every frame counts. What makes a good impression are the weather effects, especially when you are running during an intense storm – lightning hitting the ground, the sky flashing. These effects really help sell the weather system. Another impressive element of the audiovisuals is how the bodies of the monsters react to our attacks. They now have animations that make them jiggle and shake after getting hit, making the beasts more ‘alive’.

Mission briefing

After creating your character and Palico, a feline companion that will follow you everywhere, veterans of the series will experience one of the new features of Monster Hunter Wilds - our character is fully voiced. They don’t remain silent during the conversations and cut-scenes, limited only to nodding their head - the protagonist is now actively participating in conversations. However, this means that the option to have the characters speak in the made-up Monster Hunter language is no longer available. A shame, because it added to the charm and experience of this series. The good news is that you can set Palicoes to meowing instead of talking like a human.

After the opening cut-scene, you save a boy named Nata. The boy claims to be part of a Keepers tribe and tells you about a monster nicknamed White Wraith. Members of the expedition, which our character is part of, decide to help the boy find his way back home. It’s clear that this time Capcom has decided to place more focus on the story aspect in the newest Monster Hunter. In previous games, the story was simply there to serve as a reason for the player to hunt new monsters and visit various lands. In Wilds, however, the amount of cut-scenes and sequences, where characters just talk is much bigger.

Having a plot to follow is not a bad thing at all, but I’m afraid that this focus on telling the story instead of just letting the player do the hunting wasn’t the best idea. Quests, or hunts, may take up to a dozen minutes, but there are moments, where half of the player’s time will be spent on listening to conversations and watching cut-scenes. Well-directed cut-scenes, especially when featuring various monsters, but this still limits our participation to being just an observer. This focus on being more cinematic changes a bit in the endgame, but you will need to spend some time on finishing the story to experience that.

Running in the wild

The core of the Monster Hunter series is the gameplay. Picking up the right weapon out of the 14 available types and then embarking on a hunt. Defeating the target monster, carving it for materials, returning to the hub to visit a smithy, and checking if you can craft a new armor part or upgrade your weapon. Rinse and repeat. This simple concept had stood the test of time for over 20 years. Now, Wilds has shaken things up a bit. We no longer have a separate hub where we can find a shop or a smithy, and move to a biome that is a separate map. This time, some of the biomes are connected to each other and separated by small narrow corridors. Each of the biomes has a main camp where you can craft new elements of your gear, do some shopping, or accept side quests. Besides a base camp, each biome has a number of locations where you can set up a pop-up camp – a tent, where you can resupply, change your loadout, etc. These pop-up camps cost a small amount of points that you receive by finishing hunts or collecting certain items. They can also be destroyed by a large monster that has discovered them, but setting them up again isn’t a big problem.

Since Wilds has combined some of the maps, these places serve as fast travel points, however, the maps themselves aren’t that big so you aren’t forced to search for places, where you can set up these camps. That’s because your other companion, a bird-dinosaur hybrid called Seikret, helps a lot in navigating the maps. If you have played Monster Hunter Rise, you probably have seen similarities between a Seikret and that game’s addition to the series – canine-looking Palamutes. Both animals can be used as means of transportation and they are incredibly useful in hunts since you can sharpen your melee weapon while mounting them, instead of having to stand still for a moment to make your weapon usable again. The difference between these animals is that a Palamute was also supporting you actively in battle by attacking monsters, while a Seikret keeps its distance, awaiting your summon. Seikret is also connected with another big change in Wilds – you are no longer forced to carry only one weapon. That is because your Seikret has a satchel where you store your secondary weapon that you can freely switch between. Having access to a melee and a ranged weapon at the same time is very useful, although if you are proficient with your preferred type, you won’t probably use this feature a lot. Nonetheless, this option opens up paths for some really interesting builds and ways to hunt.

Cut and smash

Since fighting monsters of various sizes is what we do through the majority of our time, Capcom made sure to make that a pleasant experience. Pleasant in that the character controls really smoothly which is very important in a game, where positioning during a fight is crucial. Each of the fourteen weapons got new moves and tweaks to their movesets, making the experience of using them fresh even for those gamers, who have been playing the previous Monster Hunter games. Another important addition is the Focused Mode, where we can precisely aim with our weapon and focus on attacking the monster’s specific body part. This can be helpful for slow-swinging weapons like the Greatsword, where a swing leaves us open for getting attacked. This mode also highlights wounds – spots on the monster’s body that has received enough damage. The mechanic of wounding monsters is present since the beginning of the series, but now we can perform a Focused Strike to deal massive damage to that part, provided that strike connects. Those wounds can also be destroyed with regular attacks, but this takes too much time when compared to the Focused Strike, so the choice here is obvious. Destroying the wounds has another advantage – we get additional monster materials from that. With this, players don’t have to spend more time on repeatedly hunting the same monster over and over again to get a specific material required for gear.

And since we are talking about gear, one of the criticisms of Monster Hunter World was that the weapons weren’t as visually interesting as they were in previous games. Wilds doesn’t make that mistake – each weapon tree looks distinctive, there are no duplicates between monsters that share pretty much the same appearance, differing only in small details like a tuft of hair hanging by the blade. Even though fourteen weapons seem like a lot, and it is, it may be a good idea to introduce a new weapon type to expand this already huge arsenal. The last time we got a new tool for hunting was in Monster Hunter 4, released in 2013, so Wilds was a good opportunity for giving use one or two new weapons.

We use all that gear to hunt some pretty interesting monsters, some of which were already featured in the beta tests. Although I don’t want to write too much about them so that I won’t spoil the fun of discovering and fighting them. I’m sure that a few of these new monsters will remain in the series for longer. At least I hope, because beasts like Rey Dau were really fun to hunt thanks to their distinct sound, attacks and animations. However, after completing the game, I’ve noticed, that there aren’t that many monsters overall, but this will probably change after the release – Capcom has added new monsters to World and Rise in updates, so they will probably do that with Wilds, too. Another thought that kept popping up in the back of my brain was that for the majority of the time I’ve spent with the game, I didn’t have much problems with defeating the monsters. This, of course, changes in the endgame, but even then I didn’t cart that often and I’m not even that experienced in the MH series.

Mission complete

Despite a few shortcomings like some story sequences dragging for a little bit too long, fewer monsters to hunt, and the slightly worse graphics, Monster Hunter Wilds is still a great game. The new monsters are simply fun to look at and fight, the Focus Mode and new moves for the weapons add another layer of depth to the combat system, making this game a good entry point for newcomers, while the long-time fans will still find the experience fresh.