Magical repetition – Monster Hunter Wilds Game Review

Capcom's Monster Hunter series became a cult hit when the fourth installment was released on Nintendo 3DS, but it remained mostly in its home market, Japan. The series gained real success after the release of the previous major installment, Monster Hunter World, in 2018. The subtitle here is very apt, because the game was released simultaneously on consoles around the world for the first time. And as a result, it sold more than 28 million copies, along with the large Iceborne expansion. The initially portable Monster Hunter Rise was also successful. The return of the "adult" part, Monster Hunter Wilds, has, as expected, only improved the results of its predecessors and is winning new fans. It is "winning", because more than 8 million copies were sold in just three days, and simultaneous online play on Steam alone exceeded 1.3 million players at its peak, which, by the way, is the fifth highest result in the entire existence of Steam. But what is so attractive about the new game about monster hunters and what impressions does it give to a newcomer?

Brave new world

Monster Hunter Wilds continues the tradition of the series, preserving the basic concept of hunting monsters, collecting resources and improving equipment. Players have access to 14 types of weapons, each of which has unique characteristics and approaches to combat. There are also new types of traps that allow you to influence monsters in different ways. A bunch of innovations have also been added that are designed to reduce the threshold of entry for beginners and improve the "quality of life" for experienced hunters.

The game has a solo mode, but the true essence of Monster Hunter is revealed in the cooperative passage of quests, where a team of players can track down and defeat huge monsters together. The organization of multiplayer (like many other systems in the game) looks quite archaic and requires finding a lobby for the game. Up to four players can join the game in one lobby at the same time. When a hunter goes hunting, he first goes alone, and then with the help of a special fire he can call for help. There are also guilds, where you can join or create your own and come to the aid of your comrades.

History as a justification for action

It all starts with a boy named Nata, who, fleeing a disaster that has befallen his settlement, flees to distant lands. So far away that a hunters' guild expedition finds him on the outskirts of the new Forbidden Lands region. The heroes decide to help the boy find his home and eliminate the threat. This is where the story of Monster Hunter Wilds begins.

The game's plot is built around exploring a new region inhabited by huge creatures that the player must track down and defeat. Usually, the plot in Monster Hunter was the background and reason for discovering new monsters and locations. This concept remained in Wilds, but this time they decided to make the story more dramatic. At least the characters develop, and the events unfold like in a JRPG or anime. Capcom spared no expense on directing and scripting. Now hunting a new monster is not easy, because it is big and scary, there is always a good plot justification for this.

The story is about 20 hours long, but the player never gets bored. However, such peculiarities of Japanese game plots, when against the backdrop of epic global events the characters continue to behave as if nothing had happened, can cause a certain dissonance. Especially towards the end.

However, the credits of the story campaign are far from the end, but rather the beginning of the end game, hunting for high-ranking monsters and additional missions. The plot itself has become more like a narratively supported and elaborate tutorial. Although it itself gives a complete impression of the game, its main mechanics and has enough content.

An unexplored world to the horizon

Monster Hunter Wilds offers a semi-open world consisting of large, diverse regions, each with its own unique climate and ecosystem. The game features day and night cycles, as well as dynamic weather that affects the behavior of monsters. For example, during rain, some monsters become more aggressive, while others hide in their lairs. Players can interact with the world around them, using landscape elements to set traps or search for resources. Each region is filled with secrets and hidden locations, encouraging exploration and experimentation.

Moving around the world has become more convenient thanks to the riding dinosaur - Seikret. It allows you to move around spacious locations faster. And it also automatically moves in the direction of the selected mission. This greatly simplifies navigation, but at the same time makes movement and the character in general more inert and less controllable by the player. After all, the mount is constantly moving somewhere, and as soon as you open a menu or map, you can miss how the dinosaur will take you somewhere else.

The game also features quick travel between the hunters' guild camps, as well as mini-camps that can be placed in specific locations on the map. This will save time preparing for the hunt. After all, it is in the player's tent that the character is equipped with weapons, armor, and various gadgets and ingredients.

Guild camps work as hubs where you can find a blacksmith and create, for example, new armor, or buy resources, get quests, and so on. Life is bustling here and lobby members are also located here while they are not hunting. Both in the camp and in other places in the regions, the detailing and reactions of NPCs to events in the game world are very well thought out. For example, after defeating one plot monster, the local leader of the tribe of aboriginal children will start wearing its skin as a trophy. Or partner Alma will pose with her artifact if you point the photo mode camera at her. And such small details are everywhere.

Equipment and hunting

Monster Hunter Wilds features the aforementioned 14 weapon types, each with its own unique capabilities. Almost every type offers a completely unique combat system and behavior pattern for the player. A new feature is that you can now carry two weapons at the same time, which greatly expands your tactical options while hunting. This adds to the uniqueness of hunting situations and deepens the combat, but complicates the already overloaded interface with endless menus and circular menus.

In addition to the riding dinosaur, the player will always be accompanied by a cute cat assistant - Palico. This creature will be a faithful support and constant support in battle and exploration of the world. Palicos fight side by side with the monster hunter, at the right moments they distract the enemy's attention to themselves so that the player, for example, can drink a potion and recover. And in the most difficult moments they even heal the player themselves.

From the very beginning of the game, a beginner is simply greeted by a bunch of menus, where he finds a variety of equipment, endless resources for crafting and improvements, and consumables. Complicating everything is the unusual and too archaic menu and inventory management, which requires additional getting used to. And the overload of the same buttons, especially on the gamepad, leads to constant "missing clicks" during combat. This happens even after many hours spent in the game.

The character has several behavior options: movement, combat, or riding a horse, etc. And in these states, the same controls are responsible for different actions. Automation, like moving on a mounted dinosaur, has also reached here, so the states are switched contextually and automatically. Only now the character made several swings at the monster, and after a couple of seconds run a distance to restore health and at this moment a bunch of changes occur. As soon as the hero runs away from the center of the battle, the state switches to "run" and the weapon is hidden, all this is accompanied by animations in real time. Next, to drink a healing potion, you need to select the desired item in a small drop-down menu and use it, and this is again an additional animation that takes time. And then you need to take out the weapon again, with another animation and transfer the character to the combat state. Yes, it sounds quite complicated, although in reality it just looks so scary. However, it still takes some getting used to, and it also requires precise control during combat. And all this without pauses while you jump through different menus. In addition, the usual pause is hidden in a separate menu, and it doesn't work in online mode.

For the first time, Monster Hunter Wilds has added a focus mode that allows you to more accurately aim at the weak points of monsters. There is no target capture familiar to action/RPGs here. It seems to be more accurate, but it does not work in such a way that the hunter is aimed at the monster. This is because the camera can be pointed in one direction, but the damage from the weapon will be applied in the direction the character is looking. And the new focus mode adds a sight to the combat system that allows you to aim and, in fact, focus attacks on a selected place on the monster's body or on weakly illuminated wounds. By inflicting critical damage, the player fills a special scale that allows you to perform combo attacks. These combinations are unique for each type of weapon and cause huge damage.

In Monster Hunter Wilds, each monster has unique behavior patterns, weaknesses, and special attacks. Enemies can learn from the player's mistakes, changing their battle tactics after several encounters. There are also hardened monsters - especially dangerous enemies that have enhanced stats and battle-scarred vulnerabilities, making them less vulnerable, and requiring the player to be highly skilled and knowledgeable about their moveset.

In addition to the actual hunting, the game has tasks for catching monsters. They require special training. After all, you need to hunt down a monster and cause damage to it, in order to use special ammunition or bombs to make it lose consciousness and thus catch it. Various traps will help with this. And, as with regular hunting, interaction with the environment works well, the use of which can cause additional damage to the target. You can collapse a part of a rock on the monster, or a bunch of vines from a tree, or blow up an oil source, which will first explode and then burn for some time.

Side activities, in addition to hunting, include searching for and catching small fauna from different biomes using nets, as well as fishing using various baits and quests to catch various rare species of fish.

And all this in a circle from the beginning of the story campaign with an enviable repetitiveness, which somehow works. Hunting monsters is interesting, meeting new species and choosing weapons, equipment and tactics - isn't that what we all gathered here for?

Character development and crafting

Leveling here is very deep: you can improve weapons, armor, mounts, and even your faithful cat companion.

As in previous installments, crafting plays a key role in Monster Hunter Wilds. Players can create new armor and weapons using materials obtained in battles. A new feature is the ability to insert modifications into armor, which allows you to create unique combat builds. The game also features an alchemy system that allows you to combine different resources to create powerful potions that improve your character's characteristics. Crafting and upgrading armor have become even more important, as the complexity of the game has increased significantly, and without well-chosen equipment, it will not be easy to survive.

Each monster drops unique resources that can be used to create armor and weapons. If everything is more or less clear with armor - you just need enough resources, then with weapon crafting everything is much more complicated. Special attention was paid to weapon personalization - each type has several branches of development, which allows you to adapt the style of play to your personal preferences. Depending on the monster from which the resources are taken, the characteristics of the weapon change, and new types of it open up in a huge leveling tree for each type.

One of the automations already mentioned is automatic crafting. The player sets up a list of what will be automatically created as soon as the necessary ingredients are in the inventory. This greatly simplifies the routine and makes it easier for beginners to start the game. After all, you don't have to sit down and figure out recipes. It's enough to simply collect all the resources on the go while moving around the locations using the grappling hook. This hook is also an important innovation in Monster Hunter Wilds to improve the standard of living and reduce the entry threshold for beginners.

To grind or not to grind?

Monster Hunter Wilds is not a revolution, but a successful evolution of the series. The game has retained all the key elements of the franchise, adding more freedom, tactics and immersion. The developers have placed great emphasis on the detail of the world, which adds depth to the game. It can be difficult for beginners due to the large number of mechanics, but fans of the series will find here many reasons to once again immerse themselves in the world of hunting large monsters.

The technical condition of the game at release may be an obstacle in the hunt. On PC, it generally receives low marks due to poor performance and visual bugs. But even on consoles, on the PS5 Pro, the game, although it works stably, constantly underloads high-resolution textures and sometimes suffers from frame rate drops, which is especially noticeable if you don't use a screen with VRR.

However, after patches with fixes, Monster Hunter Wilds can become a great starting point for diving into this iconic game series, allowing you to discover a new genre and a new experience. And this is very valuable in the era of constant re-releases and remakes that spin the same ideas in circles.