The Thrill of the Hunt
My history with Monster Hunter began at the series conception on the PS2, where I bought a network adapter to play the game online. While it wasn’t the first game I’ve ever played online, it made such a strong impression that I continued the tradition on the PSP with ad-hoc multiplayer and so on and so forth with every new release since then.
While the last main entry Rise and Sunbreak were great games, I felt they were a step backwards in some areas compared to World which was the mainstream breakout title for the series. With the introduction of this new title, I hoped that the series would lean closer to Worlds while improving upon its formula and after a long trek through the Wilds, I can confidently say that this is exactly what I was hoping for and more.
The world presented in Wilds is gorgeous and I often found myself taking screenshots of scenic locales.
MSRP: $69.99
Platform: PC, PS, Xbox
Played on: PC (9800X3D/RTX3080)
Played: 80~ hours
On an expedition, a collapsed boy is discovered on the border of the Forbidden Lands, a place yet to be explored and thought to be inhospitable. A few years later, an official expedition is charted into the unknown to discover the mysteries of the Forbidden Lands and reunite the boy with his people. As the person tasked with the safety of the expedition group, the fierce hunter prepares to meet any potential threats along the way.
As is generally the case, the story in a monster hunter game is often an afterthought- an excuse to move to new locations and fight bigger monsters. In the case for Wilds, they have certainly taken great efforts to make the story and its presentation a highlight of the experience and the results speak for themselves. There are tons of beautifully directed and exciting cutscenes throughout the campaign and the way they transitioned into gameplay in a seamless transition was a joy to behold. There were also fun encounters with the natives of the Forbidden Lands, Wudwuds with their silly antics being my favorite of the bunch. While not every story beat and plot elements hit their mark for me, I was still thoroughly invested to see how things would end and found myself quite happy as I watched the credits roll.
The visual presentation in Wilds is a highlight with a realistic day-night cycle and different types of seasons which transition in real-time in spectacular fashion. The various monsters from the largest behemoths to the smallest little endemic life are brought to life beautifully with fantastic animation work that really sell that feeling that these are living, breathing creatures inhabiting a world.
The world and its denizens carry on with their business whether you’re there or not.
Having said that, the true meat of any Monster Hunter game is right there in the title- hunting monsters. The tools of the trade are the hunter’s various weapons and depending on the choice of armament, it can give the feeling that I was playing a completely different game. Afterall, going from a slow, powerful weapon like the Great Sword to the fast hitting and nimble Dual Blades is enough to give me whiplash in terms of how they need to be controlled.
In Wilds, the biggest new addition to the combat is undoubtedly the “Focus Mode”. Either by holding/toggling (depending on settings) a button, the hunter enters a Focus mode, and a reticle appears. In this mode, the hunter is able to precisely target the monster using the reticle giving more control on exactly what parts of the monster the hunter is trying to damage. As each parts of the body responds differently based on the type of damage affecting it (bludgeon, severing, etc) this was a god-send when trying to make the most of each attack.
This worked well in conjunction with the “Wound” mechanic where enough attacks on the same part would create a glowing open wound that would take additional damage from normal strike and also give an opportunity to be popped by a “Focus Strike”. The popping of a wound using focus strike would deal a significant chunk of damage to the monster and also have additional benefits depending on the weapon type.
For example, as I mained the high flying, fast attacking Insect Glaive this time around, I was able to Focus Attack wounds to regain all of my extracts which unlocked the ability to use my finisher move which had incredibly high DPS potential. So, when I would start a hunt, I would sneak attack the monster from behind for some quick damage and immediately go into the air using the vault move to land several hits before the monster could even roar to mount it. Once mounted, I would proceed to open several wounds on the monster, knocking it down. Then, I would immediately use Focus Strike on a wound to get my extracts, fully power myself, do my finisher for massive damage and pop another Focus Strike on the way down to get ready for the next finisher.
All that happened in a matter of a few seconds but required precise aiming and timing, feeling amazing to pull off when everything went according to plan. Learning and trying to master each weapon’s moveset to truly get a feel for the flow of combat kept the experience feeling fresh even after 80 hours of playtime and the fact that there is still so much more I’d like to explore and master is a testament to the game’s incredible combat and weapon system.
I only managed to try out about 6 of the 14 available weapons in earnest but I loved each and every one of them for different reasons.
The other new addition is the Sekiret, which is an evolution to the Palamute companions presented in Rise. As a rideable mount, they were essential to traversing the large environments in a timely fashion, but they were also much more than that. For the first time in Monster Hunter history, they allowed bringing two weapons out on a hunt without having to go into a camp to swap equipment. Just by getting on a Sekiret, I was able to swap from my primary to secondary on the fly and this opened up much more possibilities in combat.
For example, elemental weapons are fantastic as they allowed me to exploit the weakness of monsters but on hunts that require taking down multiple monsters, it was often that they would have completely different weaknesses. Now with the ability to swap weapons on the fly, I would simply prepare two elemental weapons, ones suited for each of the monsters I’m fighting, and swap as needed. Alternatively, I could be using a short-range melee weapon like the trusty Sword & Shield and carry a Light Bowgun in situations where ranged combat is more suitable. This is a feature I’ve been asking for since the very beginning and to finally have it feels fantastic.
I’m not running, I’m just getting my other weapon out!
While the story and by extension the “Low Rank” campaign took me about 15~ hours to complete, the end game after the credits roll is most certainly where the real Monster Hunter experience begins. With the introduction of High Rank, there’s a whole new set of weapons, armors, decorations, talismans to find and craft. The difficulty of the game also sees a much-needed increase with the introduction of Tempered Monsters and investigations with additional, guaranteed rewards are introduced which can be saved to be run again up to three times, which is a great quality of life change.
With the introduction of HR equipment, there were decorations that could be slotted in for new skills for various different types of build. This time around, there is a difference between weapon/armor decorations which can only be slotted into its respective category. This one factor changed the balancing and stressed the importance of weapon decoration slots more than ever before. With that in mind, the “Artisan” weapon system introduced a way for me to craft my own weapons with the best slots available and a random upgrade system that allowed for some fancy min-maxing for those willing to spend the time and resources to make a perfect weapon for a specific build. Outside of my Blast Artisan IG build, which prioritized mobility and damage, I was most proud of a set of Sword & Shield support build I made which allowed me to buff my allies and keep them healed near infinitely while dealing respectable damage and creating wounds constantly for other hunters to take advantage of.
While I have nothing but good things to say about much of what Wilds is about, I do feel the need to bring up the fact that technically, MHWilds is not in the best state. Even while using DLSS in Balanced mode and the benchmark showing that I should average over 70FPS, I was often seeing FPS in the low 50s despite capping it in 60 and while my GPU certainly could use an upgrade, my PC is by no means weak (check above for PC used) and I was expecting a steady 60 and while playable, it certainly did not manage to hold that in the thick of battle, where it matters most. I’ve also noticed various artifacting which occur from time to time, where certain textures go out of control, filling the screen with dark gibberish polygons. While not a constant issue, I’ve seen it a handful of times and feel the need to bring it up and hope that there will be a patch to address it after launch.
Also, while sending out/responding to SOS was seamless and simple, setting up things like lobbies and trying to get a party together to get through the story mode together was anything but. Given how unintuitive it was to play through the story mode in World and how that was one of the major complaints about multiplayer in that game, it’s a shame that’s one area that wasn’t improved on very much and given how great of a job they did with every other aspect of the game, this blemish stands out all the more for it.
While the game is undoubtedly gorgeous, it is not optimized particularly well.
Monster Hunter Wilds is an exceptional entry in an already storied and critically acclaimed series. It features some of the most fun and engaging combat in series history and features a high quality story campaign that’s very entertaining to watch unfold as well as an endgame filled to the brim with meaningful activities. If not for the technical issues and unintuitive multiplayer decisions, this could very well have been the best Monster Hunter game ever made.
Fun Tidbit: I took part in a discord channel with fellow reviewers for the first time for a Monster Hunter game and it was a great experience bouncing back and forth about build ideas and hunting with some folks I used to watch videos of back when the series was niche. I hope I get to do the same for the inevitable G-Rank expansion to Wilds!
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
