Monster Hunter Wilds Review

It is a formula that very few have been able to mimic: to grab a giant hammer, bonk a monster on the head over and over again until it dies, skin it for rare materials to make better bonking hammers, and stylish boots which will help you hunt down and ruthlessly slaughter the next stronger monster. Capcom has had the recipe perfected for decades now as the Monster Hunter Series has grown from strength to strength. Even with Monster Hunter Rise, which was held back by the Nintendo Switch hardware from a technical point of view, it resulted in an action-packed hunt.

We now enter the next generation of hunting in Monster Hunter Wilds. An ambitious, larger-than-life game that almost cuts down all the fat from past games. Monster Hunter Wilds is first and foremost a classic MH title. Gone are the raids, gone are the tower-defence missions, gone are the Palico-managing expeditions. Now, you have a load of hunts and that’s basically all there is to it.

Wilds feels watered down at times with a larger focus on the new interconnected open-world hubs rather than shifting through menus to pile up research and expeditions that happen while you’re taking on new hunts. The game also has a generally decent campaign that plays out like narrative-driven action adventure. Oh, and there are a lot of technical issues. If anything, Monster Hunter Wild’s biggest monster you’ll face is the technical issues.

It all starts when the Hunter, who is your character of course, arrives at a new region called the Forbidden Lands. They are travelling with a band of guild members. The guild has been tasked to search for life in this new land. They happen to find an annoying lost boy who has been running away from his people amidst attack from a monster he calls the White Wraith.

Some stuff happens (don’t want to spoil any story here) and the game revolves around finding this boy’s people, discovering the truth behind this White Wraith monster thing, and beating up a bunch of Monsters that get in the way.

The funny thing about the whole story is that the people of the Forbidden Land seemingly have never seen a Hunter before. Nor have these people ever thought about fighting back against the monsters. Instead, they have found ways to repel them, and if that doesn’t work, they run away. You would think that by now, someone would have picked up a rock and thought, “Maybe we should throw it at the overgrown pig that harasses our village”. But no, the whole hunting of monsters becomes a revelation when the Guild arrives.

Monster Hunter Wilds – The R1499 experience

Regardless, Monster Hunter Wilds plays out in chapters. As I took on missions, I moved from one hub to the next. Unlike Monster Hunter World and Rise, Wilds feels a lot more open and expansive. There really isn’t a main hub base that you always return to. Instead, you’re always just around the latest base camp in the region you’re currently exploring.

There are a number of regions that are unlocked as the story progresses. Some hubs last one chapter before moving onto the next, but in the end, the entire game was mine to explore as more monsters appeared, and the classic end-game Monster Hunter grind kicked off. But you have to get through the story to get to the real meat and juice of the game.

Unlike previous Monster Hunter games, the story now includes a lot of narrative. There are cinematic cutscenes for every mission, discussion cutscenes in-between to listen to, and a few (maybe too many) long walks through large areas as you and your team chat back and forth about the current situation. Oh yes, the Hunter now has a voice. This helps a lot as your character can now interact with NPCs, ask questions, and during cutscenes, comes alive – as alive as their bland and dead personality can get anyway.

Generally speaking, the story in Wilds is quite interesting. It made me question the entire overarching plot of the series and ties some previous games together too. The cinematic cutscenes are fantastic to watch with well-thought-out action sequences and monster introductions. For every new monster, there’s a cool scene to watch.

Then there are the in-between story moments that are just painful to watch. The “standing around and talking” scenes are an eyesore with poor lip-syncing, animations, badly textured character faces and clothes, and just dated, everything.

This is a major gripe I had with Monster Hunter Wilds; it is fugly. The game is a technical train wreck with various performance issues, bugs, and visuals problems that really take away from the experience. Texture pop-in happens in almost every area. Textures are then drab and low-resolution across assets like NPC clothing. Not to mention the visual hiccups that appear where the ground would just turn into a pre-rendered texture while you’re watching a cutscene.

Even monsters end up losing textures during hunts. A monster would smooth out as their texture would turn into a low-resolution version and some monsters would even lose all their fur and scales. It isn’t good at all.

It is very difficult to get immersed in the story when a character looks like a robot and the inside of their mouth looks like the sun is shining out of it. Even when you’re inside a tent, it is overly bright and has zero global illumination.

Every environment has this washed-out, unnatural lighting system on it that ruins the visuals. Even the forest, which is meant to be lush and gorgeous, ends up being a white-washed mess with horrible ray-traced reflections. There’s almost no shadow on any objects, and the entire game’s presentation takes a hit because of it. Also, Capcom decided to focus on RT reflections in Monster Hunter Wilds instead of lighting. Why? I have no idea. There are so very few reflections in the first place that it seems pointless.

I can’t tell you how much I hated the visuals in Wilds because the game was meant to be the “next-gen” entry in the series. Instead, we got this mess. The RE Engine is not an open-world engine. Please stop making these types of games this way using it, Capcom. I beg you. Go back to MT Framework and leave RE Engine for Resident Evil.

Performance was another story. I tested all modes on PS5 Pro relentlessly. All of them had some issues. 120Hz (40Hz) mode had screen stuttering during fights. Not screen tearing, the screen would stutter while rotating the camera.

The non-120Hz modes then resulted in even worse visuals, unstable frame rates, low-resolution images, and worst of all, screen flickering. The flickering is what had me because it made me feel ill. There was this flickering like a CRT sort of filter on it. Not good at all. Again, all these performance issues happen while the textures are flickering around and monsters are losing their fur and scales.

I am complaining about this a lot, I know, but Capcom should have done better here. If the visuals didn’t look rushed and unfinished, the game’s performance is not up to standard. With everything “good” the game did, it was held back by some technical mess. I think this game needed more time to cook.

Visual and performance aside, Monster Hunter Wilds is a solid game most of the time. The campaign is a good trip, and the post-game scenario will keep you busy. I managed to get through the entire story in about 15 hours before the credits rolled and the so-called “high rank” story unlocked.

I then spent another 30+ hours grinding through that content before it all started to feel pretty much done and dusted, and I was bored out of my mind in the game. Monster Hunter Wilds does feel a bit content-dry in comparison to Rise and World. There’s definitely a point where you’ll feel like you’ve hit a wall. Unless you’re grinding to make every perfect set for a wide variety of play styles. But I would say MR80 is the finish line right now.

With that being said, the game is the start of something new, so I am looking forward to the future. We know new content will arrive in a timely manner, but Capcom should really sort the technical stuff out ASAP.

If you have played a Monster Hunter game, the experience is very familiar in Wilds. However, some much-needed quality-of-life changes make this experience a lot better. First off, I used the Giant Hammer for the majority of the game. It was brilliant. It felt so much better in Wilds than all past games. I didn’t feel squishy, and the general movement with this large weapon felt more nimble.

This means I was able to manoeuvre around faster than before, put my hammer away much quicker, and trigger a dodge with ease. The same goes for the Great Sword. It too feels generally faster to use, and you’re not so “heavy”. I felt like I spent less time rolling around on the floor stunned and more time swinging and bonking.

The Long Sword is also enjoyable. Although, I had to master its new combo system. If anything, this weapon kind of feels badass now as I kept slicing away while filling up the soul meter and then pulled off the iconic jump slice only to finish the combo with another flurry of cool-looking swipes. It is very fun to play.

All the weapons follow the same path with minor refinements to movement and attack patterns. There’s also a new focus mode where you can highlight open wounds on a monster and if you attack them with a faster hit, you’ll perform a combo and break that wound. The focus attack is so satisfying to pull off and always results in a material drop – a great way to gather more materials during a hunt.

A big change to the game is also the addition of the Seikret. These Chocobo-like mounts carry you around the world and can reach all sorts of places you can’t. Essentially, they take away any sense of exploration from the game but at the same time, add an autopilot feature. So I could hop onto my Seikret and it would follow my waypoint or the hunted monster to the next spot while I refilled my health and even sharpened my weapon.

These mounts also get refilled with supplies during hunts so when I ran out of potions, I could mount it, it would run away from the monster and I could quickly put the potions in my item pouch. They can also house a secondary weapon which is a fantastic way to force players to build to load outs.

Yes, these mounts really do ruin the game’s sense of exploration. I spent less time mining outcrops and harvesting rare materials around the map because I was always on the back of my Seikret going straight to the objective. So I was forced to abandon it at times when I wanted to explore the hubs. And you’ll want to explore the hubs for cool materials and camping spots where you can build fast travel camps.

That is another change: camps no longer need tedious quest lines to unlock. You just find the spot and task the Palico to make the tent. Granted, they can get destroyed by nearby monsters, but then you simply repair it. I loved this feature because the previous game’s focus on collecting materials to unlock new camps meant I never had any camps available. I just always ran from the same starting camp on each map.

Then we have the monsters. There are some intense monster fights in Monster Hunter Wilds. Are they the best we have seen in the series? I wouldn’t say so. If anything, I was a bit underwhelmed by the monster roster. The campaign ends with a somewhat large-scale fight, but without Elder Dragons, the High Rank monsters didn’t feel like a challenge. I can’t mention the later High Rank fights here, but I would prefer if you “temper” your expectations and prepare for a rather lacklustre time.

The High Rank essentially revolves around fighting the same limited monster roster (not even the whole list, just two for the very best) over and over again to make very specific gear. This gear can roll a certain way with various perks that you decide. So there’s a lot of freedom to craft your dream weapon, but once done, you’re pretty much done. You can scout the regional hubs for monsters to fight, but there’s no challenge beyond this.

The system is unique and while present in only a few previous games to some degree, it builds on some mysterious lore from the series. However, as it stands, High Rank leaves a lot to be desired, and hardcore Monster Hunter fans might be let down by how Capcom handled this. It will likely change as new Monsters are patched in but I will don’t have much to return to as someone who spent 60+ hours in the game compared to World, which at launch, was on 100+ hours.

Not to mention that Monster Hunter Wilds is not very challenging. I died once during the campaign, but only because I didn’t know how to avoid a one-hit-kill shot from a monster’s ultimate attack. High Rank monsters are tougher to fell, but they too feel underwhelming in a fight. I barely struggled in even the last fights I took on by the so-called “most powerful” monsters.

The SOS Flare also enables the ability to summon AI bots to help fight. They actually pretty good in a fight but not half the skill of what other players are going to bring to the game. I can see multiplayer lobbies being a slaughter pit for monsters as Hunters just power through these quests with their eyes closed.

I want to say I loved Monster Hunter Wilds, but the game didn’t land the way I hoped. Everything it attempts falls flat for me. The story, while being a welcome change, just showcases the RE Engine’s problems. The technical issues are just heartbreaking to see, and the real joy of the series, the nail-bitingly difficult High Rank mode, feels slapped together with weak monsters and an uninspired gear system.

In the end, Monster Hunter Wilds is a tough recommendation in this state. It needs more content, more work, and some polish. It stands in the shadow of the brilliant Monster Hunter World as a lifeless, uglier sequel that almost feels rushed and incomplete. While the general gameplay feels excellent, the game is often bogged down its uninspired regions and weak monster roster. Yes, there’s a dedicated campaign this time around but it is forgettable.

This Monster Hunter Wilds review is based on a code sent to us by Capcom. The game is available on 28 February for PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC starting at R1,499.