Monster Hunter Wilds Review (PS5, Xbox Series X/S, & PC)

Down to spending some more hundreds of hours in the newest beast-hunting entry in the Monster Hunter series? It’s an easy hell yes for veterans who have stuck with the franchise for two decades now. However, newcomers may be reluctant a bit, especially when there are a ton of exceptional action RPGs out there. Believe it or not, Capcom understands this very well. They’ve been religiously dedicated to pushing the franchise into the mainstream, the brilliant success of 2018’s Monster Hunter: World being just the beginning of the greatness to come. 

But perhaps Capcom has gotten a little carried away with trying to please the masses. The core of the franchise is gradually slipping through the cracks, potentially giving veterans a reason to look elsewhere. If not with Monster Hunter Wilds, which remains a still heck of a good time, then with future entries if Capcom continues in the trajectory of making the series accessible to everyone. But enough speaking in code. Here’s what we think of the new title in our Monster Hunter Wilds review below. 

A Reason to Hunt

One of the ways Monster Hunter is cutting deeper into the mainstream is the now fully-fledged story in Monster Hunter Wilds. As veterans will attest, the series hasn’t always been the best at crafting profound stories. Perhaps that is why the solo campaign in the new game, despite being deeper and more thoughtful, still doesn’t quite hit the right spots. Don’t get me wrong. There is a story worth unraveling here. 

You set out to explore the uncharted lands, running into Nata, a lost boy revealing the Forbidden Lands may have more hidden mysteries than you have been privy to. As the Hunter, you’re the last remaining hope of a world whose natural phenomenon is fighting with its inhabitants. Previously, lovable and cheerful monsters have turned into enraged beasts feasting on scarce resources and wreaking havoc. 

But before you can restore peace and natural order, you have to navigate the diverse biomes of Monster Hunter Wilds. Village after village, you’ll encounter all sorts of problems needing your attention, often associated with a deranged beast. Hence, your monster-hunting duties begin. All of this may sound familiar; definitely not the most far-fetched story Capcom could have come up with. But it’s the NPCs and companions you recruit along the way that matter most.

Not only are the characters personable, but they prove quite memorable, even after the credits roll. While the writing can be a bit cheesy at times, and the story can be lackluster most times, the characters steal the show. The characters are ultimately the commendable effort to the solo campaign and the reason we presume future entries will continue to elevate the engaging quality of storytelling.

Where Monsters Thrive

Monster Hunter’s fantasy worlds have always been inviting. Even for veterans, you can’t help taking in the wonder of humans co-existing with gigantic beasts. But Monster Hunter Wilds takes it a notch higher, at least in regard to visual quality, variety, and detail. It’s often easy to pause and let the lush forests and thriving jungles wash over you. Biomes vary, hopping from sprawling desert dunes to coral highlands. Though smaller in scale compared to Monster Hunter: World, what’s present is still tenacious in its ability to intrigue. 

The level of detail, too, is commendable. Capcom has clearly put a lot of work into the design of nearly all of Monster Hunter Wilds’ regions. Even the sound effects are immersive, whether it’s the shimmering waters or the rustling of the leaves. It’s sad, then, that the beauty and compelling design of the world aren’t exploited to their full potential. 

When exploring in the Low Rank of the solo campaign, you hop onto your chicken versus dinosaur creature Seikret and press a button to traverse to your next target. The traversal is automatic, so you cannot persuade your mount to stray off the beaten path and explore a striking element. If you were to gather resources, well, you have the grappling hook that you can launch from atop your mount. It covers quite a distance without ever dismounting. 

It’s all efficient and all but also discouraging to explore, even when the game has been described as an open world. Thus, your Low-Rank playthrough plays out pretty linearly, with the cinematic setpieces and monster fights keeping you going. Perhaps it’d have been okay were the cinematic setpieces particularly gripping. Or the monster fights challenging, which we’ll now dig deeper into.

Easy on Me

The core of Monster Hunter games has been accepting a quest to fight a gigantic monster and looting their parts for resources and upgrades before hunting down your next target. It’s a system that, though repetitive, works wonders, enough to stack up hundreds of hours of gameplay. That’s because the monsters haven’t always been the easiest nuts to crack until Monster Hunter Wilds. 

Low Rank will feel like a breeze for veterans. It’s a tutorial-like playthrough that hardly challenges you to switch weapons or upgrade them. You can make do with the simplest of loadouts in roughly 10 to 15 hours, which is quite an intense amount of precious time to spend persevering a not-particularly engaging story and relatively easy gameplay. 

Yet veterans will marinate in the fact that Monster Hunter games have the potential for hundreds of hours of gameplay. See, the next bit is the High-Rank section that adds more weapons and monsters, raising the difficulty. It’s where you’ll begin to sweat it out, calling in companions and online players to lend a hand in downing the most fearsome monsters. 

In truth, the rush kicks in during multiplayer when you’re frantically trying to coordinate attacks and laughing sheepishly at the failed attempts of your compatriots. There are never enough times you can jump into a new monster-hunting session with your pals, especially with the intricate design of the beasties and the cinematic spectacle of battle moments the fights often take. 

So, in the end, it comes down to how patient you are to endure Low-Rank. If you can make it through Low-Rank, I’m confident you’ll discover more satisfying and rewarding action sequences. 

Mixed Bag

I’m torn on the new fighting mechanics, though. Namely, Wounds and Focus, Capcom has kept its promise to keep the franchise fresh and innovative. It somewhat levels up the playing field. After all, you’re fighting against monsters a thousand times bigger than yourself. While you still spend a good amount of the fight dodging and rolling out of the way of destructive incoming strikes, Wounds, and Focus give you an upper hand. 

You’ll need to strike an enemy multiple times in the same place to inflict a Wound. This weakens the spot, which is enhanced by Focus that lets you clearly mark the Wound spot and go in with a Special Strike whose damage is damn near irreparable. Eventually, you’ll inflict lots of significant damage that makes most monsters easier to defeat. 

While the first few successful tries at Wounds and Focus sure feel satisfying, it can gradually begin to feel overpowered. Battles that used to take ten minutes now pan out in less than five or less. It’s part of the reason battles are easier, which takes away the hope that Capcom can tweak the numbers to raise the difficulty a bit. 

More Streamlined

In any case, Monster Hunter Wilds more streamlined combat system does sweeten the deal. Rather than return to the hub to pick up new quests and upgrade, regions are interconnected, so you can ride from one region to the next without cutting into a loading screen. You can collect resources aboard your mount using your grappling hook, which also comes in handy when interacting with environmental traps against monsters. 

Further, you can call your mount at any moment, whether mid-combat, to swap weapons, healing potions, or items with the resources strapped to their backs. Or you can hop onto your Seikret to get away after sustaining significant damage. There’s a special way Monster Hunter Wilds has streamlined your gameplay so everything is more cohesive.

Yet it’s hard to ignore the missing community hub from previous games. Before, you could spend time at camp telling stories and bonding. You could even customize your hub. Now, customization, though still as impressively deep as before, is restricted to your character. Also, it’d have been nice for the multiplayer to receive the same streamlined playthrough. You still cut in and out of the game between quests. It hardly makes sense why Monster Hunter Rise’s freedom to consume cutscenes together wouldn’t make it to Monster Hunter Wilds.  

Verdict

We can go on and on about the pros and cons of Monster Hunter Wilds. Like most games, there are some excellent aspects of gameplay. However, you’ll also find missing core features and run into bumps in the road. While the new entry has added new changes and quality-of-life updates, they haven’t entirely elevated the overall experience. 

Still, it’s noteworthy that Monster Hunter Wilds remains true to the thrill of the hunt. No other franchise does spectacle monster battles better than Monster Hunter. With the inevitable upcoming updates and expansion, I’m confident Monster Hunter Wilds will satisfy both newcomers and veterans alike.