Monster Hunter Wilds Review – A Living, Breathing Evolution to the Monster Hunter Series

Monster Hunter Wilds marks another evolution in Capcom’s beloved action RPG series, bringing significant changes to the franchise’s core mechanics while maintaining its hunting essence. After spending over 40 hours with the game, we’ll review and explore how Wilds balances new features with traditional Monster Hunter elements, examining everything from its enhanced storytelling to its refined combat systems and quality-of-life improvements.

Story and Narrative

For the first time in the series, Monster Hunter puts considerable emphasis on storytelling. The addition of a speaking protagonist helps drive the narrative forward, making players feel more involved in the story rather than just responding to monster appearances. While the story spans about 15 hours through low rank and leads smoothly into high-rank hunts, some veterans might find the increased story focus unusual for the series.

Despite well-crafted cutscenes that build up to climactic moments, the narrative, while competent, isn’t particularly memorable – which aligns with the series’ traditional focus on gameplay over story. The later parts of the story may feel strange to series veterans, as they deviate from typical Monster Hunter narratives. However, the overall structure connects well, providing a coherent experience that serves as a stepping stone into the game’s high-rank content.

World and Environment

The game world represents a significant step forward in environmental design. Similar to Monster Hunter World, Wilds presents expansive, living environments with clever natural boundaries, such as sandstorms marking map edges instead of invisible walls. The dynamic weather and time systems create constantly evolving hunting grounds, affecting both atmosphere and monster behavior. Each time of day brings its own character – soft morning light, cool afternoon shadows, and stunning sunsets. Weather conditions like freezing storms and lightning add both visual drama and tactical considerations to hunts.

One notable change is the more realistic approach to the hunting experience – gone are the elaborate Palico-prepared feasts, replaced by personal cooking or sharing meals with villagers during extended hunts. While this adds to immersion, it does remove some of the series’ characteristic whimsy, though elements like Congalala’s signature moves maintain some classic Monster Hunter humor.

The removal of the traditional canteen system marks the last vestige of Monster Hunter’s more lighthearted elements, pushing the series toward a more serious and immersive direction. The game’s endemic life system returns, requiring players to keep their nets ready for collection, similar to the system introduced in Monster Hunter World.

Monster Design and Variety

Monsters remain at the heart of the Monster Hunter experience, and Wilds delivers both returning favorites and intriguing new creations. Each monster feels naturally integrated into its environment, from desert dwellers to forest inhabitants and creatures in the oil fields and ice cliffs. The development team has clearly pushed for greater variety in monster designs, introducing tentacle-based creatures and others reminiscent of Yama Tsukami.

Returning monsters like Congalala and Blangonga maintain their signature attack patterns and comedic elements while benefiting from modern animation improvements. These classic monsters remain formidable threats despite their familiar antics, with updated mechanics that respect their original designs. The contrast between familiar monsters and novel creations provides a balanced hunting experience that caters to both nostalgia and discovery. However, some players might note that the game features fewer large monsters compared to previous installments, though each is crafted with greater attention to detail.

Combat and Mechanics

The new Wound System, Focus Mode, and Parry System (Offset Attack) revolutionizes hunting mechanics, making combat more accessible while adding depth to the experience. For instance, hammer users now have more options beyond focusing solely on monster heads, as the Wound System encourages targeting different body parts for maximum effectiveness. When mounting monsters, players can now create multiple wounds and chain knockdowns by targeting different weak points, adding a new layer of strategy to mounted combat.

The Long Sword feels more fluid than ever, maintaining familiar moves while incorporating new Focus Strike mechanics. Players can still utilize familiar techniques like Foresight Slash and Iai Spirit Slash to build gauge, but the addition of Focus Strike allows for faster gauge building and more frequent use of Helm Breaker attacks. The Spirit Release Slash adds another dimension to combat, reducing gauge from Red to White while maintaining aggressive gameplay.

Veterans might find the overall difficulty reduced compared to previous titles, as exemplified by easier encounters with returning monsters like Gore Magala. The universal ability to parry and guard across all weapon types, combined with damage bonuses for perfect timing, makes even slower weapons like the hammer more aggressive and accessible. This change particularly benefits solo players, who may find less need for multiplayer assistance compared to previous games.

Equipment and Skills

Wilds introduces a significant change to equipment builds by separating skills into Weapon Skills and Armor Skills. Weapon skills like Attack, Critical Eye, and Focus are now exclusive to weapons and their decoration slots, while armor skills like Agitator, Evade Window, and Earplugs are confined to armor pieces and their respective slots. This separation streamlines build creation and supports the new Secondary Weapon system, allowing players to switch weapons mid-hunt without changing armor.

The system also rebalances various skills for efficiency. Guard, now a weapon skill, has been reduced from five to three levels to accommodate limited weapon slots. Conversely, armor-exclusive skills like Weakness Exploit have increased level caps, requiring more investment to maximize. The addition of Group Skills and Set Bonuses tied to monster types provides new build possibilities, though the emphasis on set bonuses might limit build variety compared to previous games’ more flexible mixing and matching of armor pieces.

For instance, some set bonuses are powerful enough to encourage using four pieces from the same set, limiting armor combination options. Unlike in Monster Hunter World and Rise, where players carefully matched individual armor skills and decorations, Wilds shifts the focus toward completing set bonuses first and then filling in equipment skills with decorations. However, players can still create builds focusing purely on equipment skills rather than set bonuses if they prefer, and the new system allows for more weapon flexibility since they’re less dependent on armor for core skills.

Quality of Life Improvements and Performance

The game introduces numerous convenience features, headlined by Seikret, your new bipedal mount. This companion offers improved mobility and utility, including weapon sharpening while mounted and emergency escapes from dangerous situations. Unlike the Palamutes from Rise, Seikret provides a balanced approach to mobility – while it can automatically navigate to targets and allow weapon swapping, it remains vulnerable to monster attacks, preventing it from becoming overpowered like Rise’s Wirebug system.

The new 3D map system reduces navigation confusion by clearly showing elevation levels and routes, though some players might find the detailed display overwhelming due to limited filter options. Small monsters are now marked with purple dots, making resource gathering more straightforward. The weapon crafting system has been streamlined with the addition of Forge/Upgrade from Wishlist, eliminating the need to navigate multiple menus to craft specific items.

Weapon designs have also been improved, moving away from the basic modifications of World to more unique and monster-specific appearances. Each weapon tree now features distinct visual designs that clearly reflect their monster origins, rather than simple texture changes on basic models. The radial menu system has been expanded to accommodate more items across eight groups, improving item and sticker accessibility during hunts.

On PS5, the game runs smoothly with options for prioritizing either resolution or framerate. The PS5 version maintains consistent performance whether played on the console or through PlayStation Portal, with no noticeable latency issues. PC performance shows promise with good framerates on high-end hardware (tested with an Intel Core i5-13500, RTX 4070 SUPER, 32GB RAM), achieving 60-70 FPS at 1440p with DLSS Quality enabled. Frame Generation can double these numbers without significant input delay when using Nvidia Reflex. However, some stability issues did happen, particularly when starting an Optional Quest crashes that weren’t present in the PS5 version , suggesting the need for additional PC optimization.

Verdict

Monster Hunter Wilds successfully refines the franchise’s tried-and-true formula while pushing it in a more immersive direction. The game excels in creating a breathing, dynamic world that responds to time and weather changes, making each hunt feel unique. The combat system’s evolution through the Wound System and improved mobility mechanics offers both accessibility and depth, though veteran hunters might find the overall challenge reduced compared to previous entries.

The separation of weapon and armor skills, combined with the new set bonus system, creates interesting build possibilities but may restrict the free-form equipment mixing that characterized earlier games. Quality-of-life improvements, particularly the versatile Seikret companion and improved crafting systems, streamline the hunting experience without compromising the core gameplay loop.

However, the shift toward a more serious tone, evidenced by the removal of traditional elements like the festive canteen system, marks a departure from the series’ characteristic charm. While this change enhances immersion, it comes at the cost of some of Monster Hunter’s beloved quirkiness.

Played on PS5 and PC, Code provided by Capcom Singapore

Monster Hunter Wilds

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

Release Date TBC

PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox Series X|S

A world with an ever-changing climate. Life here has learned to adapt to the harsh environments, the wildlife developing its own ecosystem, and the humans developing their own culture within it.

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