Monster Hunter Wilds review: Smashing and slashing

Wilds both refuses to take steps forward in some ways and takes giant leaps in others.

There’s an addictive gameplay loop in a good Monster Hunter game. It involves browsing the Smithy for new gear, spotting a specific part of a monster required to craft that gear, and then setting out on a hunt to acquire it. That loop remains intact in Monster Hunter Wilds with more player agency than ever before, but it’s a slog to get there. While all the best bits of a Monster Hunter game are present and even enhanced in Wilds, so are the matchmaking hoops players must jump through, and a campaign that overstays its welcome.

Lessons learned

Monster Hunter campaigns are designed to introduce players to the game’s mechanics, and that’s true in Wilds. It’s actually helpful, as anyone who’s taken time off after Monster Hunter World or Monster Hunter Rise will need a refresher. Things will start to feel familiar quickly, with many of the materials, weapons, and systems returning to complement several notable new features.

Perhaps the most groundbreaking new addition to Monster Hunter Wilds is the Seikret, a mount that can be used to quickly traverse regions with minimal input. While players are riding a Seikret, they can use their Slinger’s hook to grab resources. Target the resource using your Slinger hook, fire, and the item will be in your pocket a second later. While that is a fabulous quality-of-life (QoL) update, I’m a heavy user of the Seikret while in combat. You can perform a jump attack from its back or call it while you’re knocked to the ground and vulnerable to get scooped up milliseconds before meeting your doom. If you set a waypoint and mount your Seikret, it will deliver you to that exact spot while you’re busy sharpening your weapon or munching on consumables. Wilds also introduces a primary and secondary weapon system, allowing you to swap while riding the Seikret.

New Pop-up Camps add a twist to the old camp system. Instead of predetermined camps, players can now pick and choose from several locations and build a Pop-up Camp. There are limits to how many can be built per region, but they can be placed in the spots that suit you the most. They can also be customized to meet your aesthetic preferences or even destroyed by monsters in the area. When you build a new Pop-up Camp, you’ll be informed whether the area is safe, dangerous, or somewhere in between. If you place a Pop-up Camp in a dangerous spot, chances are it will be destroyed often, causing you to invest resources to repair it, and denying your ability to fast travel to that location until it’s fixed. The constant need to repair my camps, leading to their unavailability for fast travel, hinders the true potential of this new system.

Once you leave your Pop-up Camp on the back of your Seikret and cruise towards a monster, the fight begins. As you start beating up whatever nightmarish target you’re facing, you’ll be introduced to the wound system. Monsters can now be attacked in the same spot to create a wound, and that wound can be targeted via the new Focus system to deal big damage and collect parts. Focus allows you to aim your attacks more precisely and perform unique attacks that didn’t exist in previous games.

Sharpening the blade

There are quite a few returning systems that have been enhanced. Players can start quests by attacking a monster they see in the world, then pop an SOS flare to call other players to their aid. If no players join, a group of artificially intelligent (AI) hunters that are surprisingly useful will join the quest and help you complete the hunt. If another player joins while your team is full of AI companions, one of them will be dismissed for the human trying to join. This optional AI feature can make hunts feel too easy when they’re supposed to be difficult. For example, when a monster transitions to a new zone, AI teammates will often beat you there and start putting steel to flesh on their own. There were times I felt I needed the AI for a particularily difficult hunt, but then found that same hunt rather easy once help arrived. 

Where the AI system shines, though, is in its ability to follow your lead. When a monster flees to sleep and recover, your AI team will approach but won’t attack until you do. This allows you to set up bombs or whatever else you’d like and kick things off properly. If you set a trap, all your AI companions will move so it’s between them and the monster. As the monster approaches to attack, it’ll get caught in the trap and allow you to deploy tranquilizer bombs. The AI even harvests dead monsters and tails that have been severed, adding a touch immersion.

Perhaps my favorite improvement is creating quests and hunts from the world map. It will take time to unlock, but eventually players can view the world map and see a list of active monsters in each region. Selecting the monster of your choice, you can create a quest and launch it directly from the world overview, then fire off an SOS when you hit the ground. It’s a small thing, but it cuts down the time spent getting in and out of the action. Less fuss, more monster hunting.

Failing to evolve

Monster Hunter Wild’s campaign is a struggle, especially in the back half. Part of this is due to the fact the real game begins once the story is put to bed, but also because the campaign itself is poorly executed. Most quests play out virtually the same. You start with a group chat, move into an on-the-rails Seikret segment, run into a monster, get permission to hunt it for reasons, then you get to play the game. Mixed in will be both skippable and unskippable cinematics.

The worst part, though, is that once again the campaign drags on longer than required. Without spoiling things, rolling credits usually spells the end of a campaign. Not in Monster Hunter games. I’ve put as much time into the campaign after rolling credits as before, with one objective after another requiring me to increase my Hunter Rank (HR). Whatever little momentum the campaign manages to gain now and then is immediately lost when you are forced to spend a few hours grinding HR to unlock the next quest. By the time you do this, it’s been hours since your last narrative moment.

Monster Hunter Wilds' problems don’t end there. While I didn’t play much of Rise, I recall the disaster that was co-op and multiplayer matchmaking in World. Yeah, that’s back and still a mess. You want a friend to join you in your world? Start by linking your party, then head back to the menus and create a physical link. Once you’re together, don’t dare launch a campaign quest or you’ll be sent back to your respective worlds.

How do you play the campaign with friends, you ask? Well, start by launching a mission, then sit through the cinematics and auto-riding Seikret segments. When you meet the monster, let the fight begin, then you can invite a friend to join your quest. Of course, your friend had better do all of those same things, otherwise they can’t join you. All this plays out while you’re getting your face caved in by a monster. How, after World fell flat on its face with this system in 2018, is this still the standard? How can so many aspects of Monster Hunter Wilds be stellar for it to have a wonky system like this?

Hook it to my veins

Everything I griped about earlier is true, but if you know how good a Monster Hunter game can be, you know that it’s all stuff you can easily brush off for the sake of your loot-goblin soul.

You need a Yian Kut-Ku Ear to craft that Chicken Decapitator Great Sword? Whip open your Large Monster Field Guide, browse to the right monster, and you’ll see that you have a 100 percent chance of obtaining that part if you break its head. Once you’re in the hunt, mount that monster, stab it in the face to create a wound, then use a Focus attack. It’s an unmatched amount of player agency that makes the gameplay loop far outweigh the tedious campaign or frustrating matchmaking.

It also doesn’t hurt that Wilds looks and sounds beautiful. The regions are lusher and more alive than ever before with a day and night cycle and weather that creates countless immersive moments. I’m a little concerned about performance on both PC and console in some of the busier scenes. My rig crushes the recommended settings and yet there were times performance would dip down to 40 frames per second (FPS) at a 2K resolution. There are obviously concessions and tweaks to make that can get some frames back, but I’m curious to see how consoles hold up.

A bright future

Monster Hunter Wilds moves the franchise forward from previous games, yet it tends to step into some of the same traps that both World and Rise did. Those issues, however, are dwarfed by an addictive gameplay loop that will keep players engaged for hundreds of hours. When you factor in the game-changing Seikret, and the ease of which players can launch into hunts, Monster Hunter Wilds is a must-play for series fans.

This Monster Hunter Wild's review was completed using a PC review key provided by Capcom. Monster Hunter Wilds releases on February 28, 2025 for PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5.

Review for
Monster Hunter Wilds
9
Pros

• That loot goblin gameplay loop
• Seikrets change the game
• Launching hunts has never been easier
• Focus mode is top tier
• Somehow, AI hunters are useful
• It sure is pretty
• Pop-up Camps can be great

Cons

• The campaign
• Trying to play the campaign co-op
• Pop-up Camps can also be a pain