Monster Hunter Wilds | Review

Wildly Disappointing

Jesse 'Doncabesa' Norris February 24, 2025Last Updated: February 17, 2025

0 4,984 8 minutes read

Monster Hunter Wilds will eventually be an incredible game. At launch, it’s too damned easy. Any longtime fan of the series knows the basic loop. Go out and hunt progressively difficult monsters to collect pieces of them with which you craft gear. The gameplay, graphics, and overall scope of Monster Hunter have never been better. Lost in a movement towards a wider audience is the game’s heart. The progression in Wilds is so damned easy that in over 50 hours of playing I never once failed a hunt while solo. I still had a lot of fun, and I think they can fix it.

Into the Great Sand Sea

Wilds begins with an expedition to the Forbidden Lands. The story in these games is never good, and full-on anime. It’s no different here, as you’re thrust into an epic series of monster hunts as you discover why the weather and creatures of this land are running amok. The writing is mediocre, the voice acting is over the top, and it’s all very “Monster Hunter”.

You’ll begin by crafting your Hunter with a deep character creation system that many will lose hours if not days in. Your overall body type and shape cannot be easily changed after your initial setup, though you can go through most of the other options at any time in your home camp. Any face can have any cosmetic appearance and voice that you want.

I think the biggest departure from previous entries is how big and expensive the main story cutscenes feel. The new tech in Wilds is incredible, with changing landscapes and highly detailed (new) monsters. This is all juxtaposed by some of the worst, lowest rez world and gear textures I can remember seeing in a current gen-only title. We’re two decades+ into the series now and it looks like some of the older monsters and their accompanying gear sets were plucked straight from a DS port.

Still, the overall nature of the initial 15-hour-long campaign is fast and fun with no mediocre extra mechanic modes mixed in. Every mission is a monster hunt, and they’re damned fun. Once you roll credits you’ll have finished roughly 1/3^rd of the overall game, with the latter parts focused more on leveling your Hunter Rank to progress.

It was a massively disappointing progression curve. By the time I rolled credits the first time I was dumbfounded, as it took me nearly 40 hours to do so in MH Worlds. When I saw how much more content there was after I was optimistic, only to never once feel any of that classic Monster Hunter gear-grind satisfaction.

The Heart of the Hunt

The heart of any Monster Hunter title isn’t the story, it’s the world you’re in and the monsters that inhabit it. Every fight is tough, with specific gear requirements to help make it possible. That is gone in Wilds, replaced instead with a focus on accessibility so strongly that I never once felt the urge to customize my gear for a hunt.

I never once bothered to set up an anti-frost build when fighting a cold-based monster. Fire damage? I was -7 on the stat sheet for it and didn’t lose a single one of my lives during the 12-minute-long fight. This game is so close to being amazing. We’ll get into the combat in a bit, but it is stellar overall. Even there though, the new wound system makes every fight the same in the end.

As you beat up a monster wounds will appear on their body, hold the LT and press the RB and you’ll destroy that wound. This deals massive damage when it connects, and drops a monster part. I used every weapon during my review, mainly focusing on the Long Sword by the end. The basic bone sword at level 6 would take out most enemies in a handful of minutes, with only the highest-level monsters requiring more than 15.

When you add into account how little “hunting” there is now, with the new Seikret mounts, it ended up becoming boring by the end. Seikrets are Chocobo/raptor-style mounts that love to automatically run at top speed to whatever your destination is. It sounded and felt great at first, but by hour 5 I missed having to actually track enemies or just explore the world on my own.

It’s hard to put into words for those new to the series, but Moster Hunter has been infamous for its style of difficulty. It isn’t just hard to hit things and not get hit, finding monsters, knowing what they’re weak to, and avoiding their strengths was everything. Now you can instantly have any item you need ready to go, be uber’ed to your target, and kill it while barely paying attention for the entirety of its content.

I thought Wilds would take me 100 hours to review, and in reality, I had completed all of its available content in 35, solo. Talking with fellow reviewers the game was even easier and far shorter when they played with a friend. The only time I ever failed a hunt was when a fellow reviewer matchmade into my fight, and uh… wasn’t very good, dying three times in a row. This game has everything it needs to be an all-timer, it just went too far for me as a long-term fan. It really does play damned well, though.

Slicin ‘n Dicin

The main fourteen weapons of Monster Hunter are back, and most are better than ever. The one that’s bestest and it’s not even close, of ever is the Hunting Horn. That thing breaks the game entirely by giving group-wide heals, making already easy fights even more of a joke. I digress because once (well, if) they fix things and put in proper difficulty, Wilds is the most fun I’ve had gameplay-wise.

Everything feels great, from attacking to dodging, and your overall movement. While the Seikret is the biggest change, there’s a speed to Wilds that I can’t help but appreciate. It is never clunky, and the monster animations are faster to match. The game will always tell you what the next button press will do in the top right portion of the screen, and the combat is as potentially deep as ever.

The Seikret isn’t only a method of travel, it also allows you to carry two weapons at a time. I always had a melee and ranged option, with the Long Sword and Heavy Bowgun being my preferred setup. Each zone has a main camp with various temporary structures available for setup as well. There are vendors, side quests, main quests, and more to visit when you’re not slaying wild beasts.

In your tent, you can change gear and restock. I found it nice, how easy it was to restock, early on. Much like everything else I soured on it over time. Instead of feeling any real pull to hunt or resource gather it was just always available. Even during fights, your Seikret is constantly restocked with fresh potions and status cleaners.

There are no health bars for enemies in Monster Hunter, instead, you need to read the enemy’s movements and sounds to know what level of damage they are at. That does change a bit in Wilds as your Palico buddy (little cats that help you fight) straight up says when a Monster is about to die. They also speak human languages by default, instead of their weird cat one.

I really wish that this game made me have to prep for a hunt. It feels like the tying in of main quests and hunts, where you do not know what you’re going to fight ahead of time, led to them making fights far easier. When you don’t know what is coming next you can’t have a specific setup. Instead of making it a “this is what you’re fighting, go prepare!” style of quest each time they just made everything do less damage to you and take more damage from any weapon. It’s a shame because the world tech added into the RE Engine for this game can be stunning.

A(n occasional) Technical Showpiece

During the two beta periods, there was a lot of worry over both the resolution and overall look of Wilds on consoles. Thankfully the retail builds both looks and runs a hell of a lot better on Xbox Series consoles. I played on a Series X where there are 3 modes available. You have quality, balance, and performance. Each of these modes can run locked (30,40,60) or unlocked. 40fps locked requires a 120hz display, and you will not want to use unlocked without having VRR.

I primarily used the balanced mode and left it unlocked. It felt decently stable while offering better visual clarity than performance. It did severely dip during a few of the more weather-effect heavy hunts. Overall I think the game looks good most of the time, occasionally amazing, and often kinda ugly. I mentioned it earlier but there are a large number of sub-240p textures in the game. The camera will butt right up to something so low resolution that it would be at home on a PS2.

This is countered by a world-state system that changes on the fly. Areas shift between various seasons depending on the story at first, and seemingly random in the post-game. Deserts become lush forests, and enormous dunes give way to sinkholes that send you and other monsters into caverns. As lightning strikes the sand it instantly turns to glass, only to crumble as you or a monster roll through it. It is simultaneously one of the best-looking and ugliest games of the generation. Newer monsters and their associated gear look immaculate, as do the faces of the main characters. It all has that RE Engine look the majority of the time.

Great Music, OK Voiceovers, and a… story

While it isn’t the focus for me when it comes to this series, the story in Monster Hunter Wilds is another miss. Character motivations change on a whim, with a young child character at the center of it. He sees himself as a crazed ravenous beast in a line that could not make less sense to me. Things happen, none of which Capcom wants us to talk directly about, and I never felt a thing other than “Please let me just fight again”.

With the exploration and gear grind feeling useless I hoped that at least the post-credits 2/3rds of the story would add some stakes or difficulty. Instead, you mostly fight either the same characters from the first part of the story in a barely tougher form or see some fun returning ones. The returning monsters do not always animate or look as high quality as the new ones, either.

The music is excellent, with catchy orchestral tunes upping the epic factor of every fight. You can set the BGM of your tent and those types of customization settings seem to be how they’ll monetize the game. You have different gear looks that you can always have on, emojis to send to party/lobby members, and more.

The Lobby system is a huge step up from previous titles. Public lobbies can have up to 100 hunters at a time, though during my review period,d I never had more than 5 others with me. You can also do private lobbies and link parties. The latter lets you do quests together in a way that means you’re just there, together, with no having to constantly re-invite for each quest. The menu system is archaic and overall it’s pretty bad, but it’s the best and most streamlined the series has had.

There are a lot more systems, monsters, and other items I’d like to touch on. Sadly our embargo is rather restrictive on what we can talk about, and most of the footage for the video review will have to be from the first fifth of the game.

Wrapping Things Up

Overall there’s been a fair bit of negativity in this review. I hope the post-launch support brings the gear grind that series veterans know and love. As things are at launch if you have a group of friends to play with it will be a fun, albeit easy 30 to 40 hours before you run out of content to push. If they can bring back the grind of needing specific items to have any chance against the toughest monsters then you can add a few points to this final launch score.