Monster Hunter Wilds Review

The latest rendition of using gigantic weapons to slay even bigger beasts might have finally hit its peak. With Monster Hunter Wilds, players can finally experience a fully open Monster Hunter world that is teeming with life, tells a good story, and delivers non-stop action. For both fans of the franchise and newcomers alike, Monster Hunter Wilds is absolutely brilliant.

Whereas other games in the franchise might have delivered spectacular combat, Monster Hunter Wilds is finally delivering a well-rounded experience. For the first time ever, hunters can travel through multiple biomes in a seamless open world. They can choose to explore the beautiful flora and fauna or continuously hunt dangerous beasts without having to return to a hub. This makes the world feel alive in a way none of the previous games did.

Power Overwhelming

As someone who started with Monster Hunter: World, the sheer amount of options available has often overwhelmed me. With 14 main weapons, dozens of items and ammo types, tons of weapons and armor options, and a plethora of food buffs it’s very easy to get choice paralysis. That’s just the start because once you decide on what to bring then you have to juggle buffs and navigate the less-than-intuitive menu system while in combat.

Before jumping straight into the action, I definitely recommend testing out all 14 weapons in the training area before deciding on the 2 you’ll bring into battle. I personally aligned with the dual swords and brought a bowgun for some ranged backup. As you’d expect, most of the game’s content involves gigantic boss fights, so finding a main weapon that really meshes with your playstyle should be top priority.

After finding your weapon of choice, I recommend jumping straight into the fray. Monster Hunter veterans can worry about tweaking your item loadout for maximum efficiency, but the tutorial and story modes will gradually introduce most of the optional tools as well. Furthermore, the initial few fights are pretty easy and it’s best to get these appetizers out of the way for the main course.

Unlike previous Monster Hunter titles, Wilds initially has a huge emphasis on leading the player around the world through its story. Although previous games had story elements, they were mostly to provide context or add drama to the hunts, but in Monster Hunter Wilds the story is a central focus and even explains the existence of many monsters.

For the first time ever, players will journey into the Forbidden Lands, discover new tribes and cultures, and hunt the mysterious White Wraith, which has all of a sudden started to wreak havoc on the inhabitants and creatures of the land. The main story is relatively short, but all of the cutscenes and voice acting is done quite well. After completion of the campaign, high rank monsters become available and additional story elements are added as your Hunter Rank increases.

Stunning Boss Fights

After getting a hang of clearing the usual chaff, standard monsters like Congalalas and Rathians eventually stop posing much of a threat. Even so, every monster I encountered felt like a unique experience with its own style and attack pattern that brought it to life. I appreciated having to learn and adapt to each monster’s attack patterns, and even if every fight wasn’t a significant challenge I appreciated the visual details put into the creatures and their environments.

While almost every battle in Monster Hunter Wilds is technically a ‘boss fight’, each of the biomes has an Apex monster that is truly king of the jungle. One of my favorite encounters was seeing the Uth Duna for the first time with its beautiful, shimmering purple skin. This leviathan is an absolute chonky unit that has no reservations about throwing its weight around and even with a massive hitbox, it was difficult to bring down due to its protective water shield.

Each of the other Apex predators was equally impressive from the lightning wyvern Rey Dau to the flame octopus Nu Udra and of course culminating with the impressive ‘White Wraith’ Arkveld. There are also a few other impressive beasts that I’ll leave you to discover on your own.

The overall improvements to weapons further enhance the experience. In general, combat feels slightly quicker and a lot more fluid than before. One of my biggest gripes with Monster Hunter Rise was how stiff and clunky the combat felt, but I didn’t find that to be an issue with Wilds where I could chain combos and/or dodges until I ran out of stamina.

There’s also the addition of Focus Mode which temporarily locks your character onto your target and allows for Focus Strike attacks. Normally, Focus Strikes are slightly more powerful attacks that can’t turn into a combo, but if you hit the same spot enough times you’ll open up a wound which can be exploited by these strikes to do massive amounts of damage and sometimes knock your foe down and gain additional crafting materials. There seem to be a limited number of wounds per body part, or there is at least a long cooldown between wounds, so moving around each monster opening up new wounds makes combat feel more dynamic.

The Secret of Seikrets

In most games, there’s almost nothing I despise more than mounted combat. Between terrible movement and aiming controls, awkward mounting/dismounting button choices, or animals that just seem to get stuck on every minor obstacle, it’s almost always a bad experience.

That being said, the Seikrets in Monster Hunter Wilds are absolutely fantastic. It’s like the developers heard all of my issues with mounts and not only fixed them but improved upon them in such a way that I constantly relied on my Seikret even during combat instead of just leaving it safely behind a structure and hoping it didn’t get in the way or killed somehow.

Although Seikrets are an evolution of the Palamute from Monster Hunter Rise, their function varies slightly. The main difference is that Seikrets mostly exist for transportation reasons and don’t have any special gear. Even if they don’t fight alongside the hunter, they can be used for both mounted and ranged combat, and the controls for both feel very responsive. 

On top of that, the controls are vastly improved. If the hunter has a target identified, the Seikret will autopath to the objective. I’m generally not keen on auto-movement in most games, but this frees up the hunter to use the Hook Slinger to forage for materials, find the right kind of ammo, or interact with the environment in other ways.

Additionally, the Seikret reacts very quickly and will almost never get stuck unless you’re trying to force it into unclimbable terrain. Finally, it can scoop you up in the middle of combat to get your hunter out of dangerous situations, which is a perfect time to restock supplies from its pouch, switch weapons, heal, re-apply buffs or use a sharpening stone.

In addition to the Seikret, hunters still have access to their furry feline friends, Palicoes, which provide lots of combat support. While they do assist in direct combat, Palicoes will spend most of their time healing, cleaning statuses, setting up traps, or gathering nearby resources. Thankfully, their AI is quite good as there were multiple times where the Palico started to heal or cleanse a status effect before I even knew I needed it.

 

Better with Friends

For the most part, I spent most of my time with Monster Hunter Wilds in Online Single Player mode and even though some of the fights were very challenging I still haven’t found any that were impossible as a solo player. However, there are also a lot of options for those who prefer multiplayer and having additional players can either reduce the difficulty or allow players to try out different roles.

There are options to jump right in to a recommended online server, search for a specific lobby, or create your own private lobby. Additionally, even in single-player mode, hunters can fire off an SOS Flare to request assistance from other players. In offline mode, or if no other players join, NPC expedition hunters will rally to your side.

Performance wise, I had absolutely no issues with Monster Hunter Wilds on the PlayStation 5. I chose the Prioritize Framerate mode, capped at 60 FPS with 120 Hz output and didn’t experience any major frame drops, delay, or stuttering during any fights. Even without prioritizing visuals, the monsters and environments still looked amazing.

Although it’s possible that Monster Hunter Wilds could put off some veterans who started early with the series, it’s made a massive jump in progress towards being a more well-rounded game that is inviting to a much broader audience. In terms of visuals, it’s the best the series has to offer and the seamless world makes the environments come to life like never before. Add on the improved combat and mount controls and it’s a game you won’t be able to put down once you start.

Full Disclosure: A copy was provided by PR for the purposes of this review. Reviewed on PlayStation 5.