Monster Hunter Wilds Review
An Easy, Beautiful Evolution
The first time I tried Monster Hunter World, I absolutely hated it. The menus were messy and there were too many of them, I moved too slowly, and I couldn’t land a single hit with the first weapon I chose (the Insect Glaive). I deleted it from my hard drive and vowed never to play it again. About a year later, in a gaming drought, I broke my vow, gave it another try, and fell in love. Something just clicked the second time around and I went on to build multiple characters, spending over 800 hours with it and the Iceborne DLC.
Monster Hunter Wilds isn’t quite there for me…yet. It’s an ambitious step forward for the series, for sure, bringing quality-of-life improvements, a more immersive open world, and a truly beautiful ecosystem. But while it excels in accessibility and exploration, veteran hunters may find themselves craving the challenge that defined previous titles. After 30+ hours, here’s my full breakdown, from credits to endgame. Let’s get into it!
Story and Characters
For me, the Monster Hunter franchise has never been about the story and characters, and I would guess the same goes for a lot of veteran hunters out there. The story is what happens when I’m biding my time and looking for the next hunt.
In this iteration, your team has found a lost boy and you’re trying to unite him with a missing and unknown tribe. It makes sense, at least more sense than the story of previous installments, but still not what I’m here for.
This is the first Monster Hunter game where your main character has full voice acting. Even your Palico – a helpful cat companion responsible for keeping you safe – gets its own dialogue. You also get some conversation choices, but I never noticed that they made any impact on the story. NPCs are plentiful, each with their own piece of the larger plot, and they have distinct personalities. I’m pretty sure one is written to be on the spectrum, which I think is notable. And there’s some internet chatter that we may have seen some before in the Nintendo 3DS game Monster Hunter Generations. Altogether, the story doesn’t get in my way, moves things along, and gets me prepped for the next Big Bad to takedown, so it’s as good as it gets for the franchise. But, let’s be real, most players are here for the hunt. So, how does Wilds shake up the core Monster Hunter loop?
Gameplay Mechanics
There are many quality-of-life improvements in Monster Hunter Wilds, but I found that they are a bit of a mixed bag. The addition of an ostrich-like mount called a Seikret, which lets you run through the open world with ease, is fun, especially when chasing a monster across the map. In Monster Hunter World, the slow, multi-stage chases to put the final whammy on a beast was one of my least favorite activities, and the Seikret alleviates that frustration. However, introducing it so early may discourage new players from truly exploring their environment on foot—something that was a big part of my enjoyment in previous titles. If you are new to this world, my biggest piece of advice is to NOT let the helpful bird autopilot you everywhere you want to go. You’re going to miss out on some fun exploration.
Another big shift is quick harvesting, originally introduced in Rise, which has been expanded here. You can now use your slinger to grab items from afar, making material gathering more efficient than ever. While convenient, this change somewhat hindered my connection to the world around me. Everything is within arm’s reach and, when combined with the overly helpful Seikret, these changes can diminish the immersive adventure that defined Monster Hunter World and Rise.
Resource gathering is also everywhere—you can’t walk 20 steps without your scout flies highlighting bugs, ore, plants, or mushrooms. It rides the line of being distracting. Slinger ammo is everywhere, including some new versions, and drops from monsters at a consistent rate. Wilds REALLY wants you to use your slinger this time around.
The biggest change to classic Monster Hunter combat is the wounding mechanic. If you repeatedly attack the same spot on a monster, you create a wound, highlighted in red when you pull the left trigger. Using your weapon’s special attack on these wounds deals big damage and rewards you with monster materials.
Once I got used to it, I fell in love with it. I started to intentionally focus on legs, tails, and heads, planning my attacks around creating and exploiting wounds. But, I really miss the shinies. Monster materials used to drop as loot, but now they just appear in your inventory as a notation on the right-hand side of the screen. The act of collecting shinies after a battle always made me feel connected to the materials I was gathering, and that small thrill is missing here.
And here’s where Monster Hunter Wilds disappoints. The game is just too easy. Much like how Elden Ring made Soulsbourne games more approachable by reducing its challenge, Wilds opens the door for newcomers. But if you’ve played these games for years, or even just since World like me, it’s a bit of a cakewalk. In my first 16 hours playing solo, I didn’t cart once. Once I reached High Rank, I was only sent back to camp a handful of times. The only quest I truly failed was a boss fight where I initially couldn’t figure out how to escape its party-wipe attack, and once I did, I never failed.
Monster materials are too easy to acquire with the new wound mechanic, even though I’m a fan. I frequently defeated a monster for the first time, went to the forge, and found I already had enough mats for a full armor set. I didn’t need to farm monsters until I was crafting Rank 7 and 8 weapons and armor. And because materials are so easy to get, a major part of the game loop feels nerfed.
The armor and weapon designs are as fantastic as ever, though. Sets take inspiration from the monsters they’re forged from, and your Palico’s armor is even better this time around. Some sets fully transform your little buddy into something new, like the Mega Man set from the special event hunts in World. My little guy has been sporting an octopus look for hours and I love it.
The endgame introduces Artisan weapons, which are also fairly easy to forge but more challenging when it comes to upgrading them. But, for fashionistas out there, they are UGLY. For veteran hunters, the difficulty may not be enough to keep you engaged and your mileage may vary.
For me, post-game has been about finishing side quests, like fishing and hunting endemic life, while farming Artisan weapon upgrades. But without the difficulty, it feels less satisfying than previous titles. Seeing a quest for two tempered monsters doesn’t make me think, "How am I going to survive this?" but rather, "How quickly can I clear this and move on?"
Just three weeks post-launch, Capcom has already added event quests and a title update with at least one new monster is on the way. I sincerely hope Capcom ramps up the difficulty with future updates.
Co-op & Multiplayer
But maybe none of that matters to you. Maybe the co-op hunting is what you’re here for. And the good news is that multiplayer with strangers has never been easier. Once it unlocks, you can instantly jump into a stranger’s hunt or go solo. However, if you are trying to locate your friends the first time, prepare for a bit of a mess.
My first time around, it took a good 15 minutes for me and my buddy to link up because of a mix of multiplatform player codes, group distinctions, and a muddy user interface. It feels more complicated than it needs to be, but, hey, I’m not a game developer.
When we finally figured it out, I thought we would be running around the open world together, fighting roaming monsters side-by-side, but that’s not how it works. One person still needs to start a quest and have your friends join, even if you are hanging out in the same gaming session and seeing each other at camp. Supposedly, Capcom is working on a future update to include a large hub for hunters to hang out in. Time will tell if the multiplayer, outside of monster hunts, gets more engaging.
For solo players, Capcom took a page from Rise by having NPC hunters join you in hunts if you’ve set off a flare and no human players are available to join up. I couldn’t tell if they did much damage, but they helped take aggro during a monster’s rage, which can be just as important.
Visuals & Style
Also important is how the game looks, and, to be honest, I was a little worried at first. The opening area is a grey-brown saturated desert, and my first foray into the next zone, a dense forest, had me questioning if the whole game would have a muted color palette. However, don’t fret! This was clearly an intentional design choice. The game is very pretty.
Wilds has seasons and as they change, the world transforms. Landing in the forest during a monsoon or returning to the desert after a sandstorm gives the world a feeling of life and movement. The contrast between the dull early areas and the vibrant later environments makes its beauty stand out even more. This seasonal change mechanic is a fantastic addition and the world feels alive. It gives each biome its own identity beyond just aesthetics.
Performance-wise, Wilds runs smoothly in graphics mode (though I did notice a couple FPS dips), and Capcom gives players a 60FPS lock in performance mode from the very start. So, whatever you prioritize in your gaming, you have access to it here.
Final Verdict
As a whole, Monster Hunter Wilds is a blast to play and I’m jealous of new players starting here—this is a fantastic entry point into the series. It’s an impressive evolution of the franchise, bringing stunning environments, quality-of-life improvements, and the most accessible entry point for newcomers. However, its ease of play and streamlined systems come at the cost of challenge, making progression feel less rewarding for longtime hunters. While the seasonal changes and larger world make for an immersive experience, some mechanics diminish the sense of adventure.
The endgame offers plenty to do, but without difficulty spikes to keep me on my toes, it so far lacks the tension that made past entries so satisfying. Even so, Wilds is an exciting step forward for the franchise, and with future updates, it has the potential to become one of the best Monster Hunter games yet. And, for those reasons, I give Monster Hunter Wilds an 8/10.
What Worked For Me
Core monster hunting is still here
Beautiful environments with changing seasons
The story is the best of the series
What Didn’t Work For Me
Challenge (too easy!)
Co-op with friends better; still a mess
Some changes have removed enjoyable mechanics
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