Monster Hunter Wilds – Review

I finish eating, stroked my feline partner's head, I wear my faithful hammer on my shoulder and come out willing to enjoy monsters for hundreds of hours. I am very happy while I faced giant beasts, I pick up materials to create better armor and go the new scenarios on the back of a dinosaur that I affectionately called Yoshi. However, something at the bottom of my mind shouts that things are not as good as I expected. In this review I will try to understand what this annoying voice is saying about Monster Hunter Wilds.

If you have played any of the previous deliveries of this series already know how this works: we defeat a monster several times, we use their parts to create more powerful weapons and armor that allow us to defeat stronger monsters that in turn use to create weapons and armor even more powerful and thus 'ad infinitum'. That does not change. The world we travel is now much more detailed, creatures are more imposing and everything looks better, but deep down it remains the usual, for better and worse.

This time we visited a region east of the world called the Prohibited lands. Although it was believed uninhabited, the guild will soon discover that it is inhabited by several communities of humans, Wyverians and Lynians who live in a cycle of drought, calamity and abundance, as well as by dangerous monsters that had never been seen before. This approach lends to One of the colonialism stories for which the saga has always been criticizedbut for the first time we see attempts to subvert this.

History has never been the fort of Monster Hunter And the lack of consideration for its plots has allowed a strong dissonance between what we do in the game (hunting hundreds of creatures) and what we are supposed to be doing (protecting the balance of the ecosystem). Monster Hunter Wilds It makes the effort to reconcile this and even has very direct dialogues that move away the purposes of the guild of colonialist fantasies of previous deliveries. In addition, it does something very important: For the first time it gives a personality to our hunter or hunter.

The protagonists of these games had already had a voice before, but this time they are directly involved in development, they express their opinions and emotions about what is happening. They even have a close relationship with cream, a surviving child of an attack on one of the communities of the prohibited lands and whose character arc is the one that defines the issues of freedom, legacy, responsibility and relationship with nature.

This new story is not perfect. It falls into some of the old tropes and the actions of the characters do not always go hand in hand with what they say in the dialogues. But it is admirable that Capcom actively tries to correct the mistakes that their narratives had in the past. Even so, what really matters are the hunts and as we already said at the beginning of this review, the gameplay of Monster Hunter Wilds It is bulletproof … even if you begin to feel some mellas.

The main negative criticism and the main praise that can be done to this game are the same thing: it is very similar to Monster Hunter Worlds. The maps design, the rhythm of clashes with monsters, the tone and atmosphere of their world are direct descendants of the 2018 game. That is not bad at all, Worlds It was already an excellent game and that this is similar is a quality indicator. The problem is that it does not have true innovations or surprises about what that game was already doing.

Capcom has made much flaunt in the trailers of elements such as monster herds, the system of changes in ecosystems, the focus mode and the wounds of the enemies, but None of these systems represents really interesting changes to the way of playing. The herds are dispersed with the traditional shots of Boñiga, the changes in the ecosystems do not affect the structure of the game and although the focus mode and the wounds are very well integrated into the fighting, they do not alter them fundamentally. There is also a new 'temporary camps' mechanics that can be destroyed by monsters, but instead of being strategic or immersive it is a complete annoyance.

Although I have fun and excited greatly in the dozens of hours I have played Monster Hunter Wilds And I will continue to have it very well during the hundreds that I will eventually dedicate to you, I have not been able to avoid missing the retractable claw of Iceborne and especially the acting actions of Risethat really made the confrontations feel special for all the options they gave us. Until Koei Tecmo's excellent game Wild Hearts He tried to innovate more through his focus on the tools that he hunted that this new installment of the saga he copied.

The new “quality of life improvements” simplify too much the things I liked. Those who continued thinking that “Monster Hunter It is too complicated, ”they will surely appreciate them, but I feel that the friction level that these games had before was part of their charm. The way in which Seikret (the new mount) can automatically lead us to the location of the monster without having to do anything removes the need to familiarize ourselves with the maps, which removes another important element of the previous games. In addition, trying to control yourself that mount is not fun because it feels heavy. The Canyne de Monster Hunter Rise They were much better.

I don't think the saga is losing your personality, but I fear that you can be clinging too much to some ideas that make it stagnate. I insist that it is still deeply fun, it still offers combat challenges that demand to think about the team we are going to carry, the movements we are going to do and the new monsters have excellent designs and ideas. It is an excellent game, but there was a great space to innovate or at least try interesting ideas that is not used in the least.

If what matters to them is the technical section, they can be calm because this game looks and sounds incredible. The new scenarios are huge, very detailed, have interesting variations under climate changes and everything looks beautiful. The animations, especially those of the monsters, are fluid and very colorful. The only problem is that presents 'frames' falls when entering certain placesbut fortunately this problem of loss of performance never happened to me during moments of action that would affect my experience. There are also some objects that 'clipe' – it is very common to see hair going through armor, for example – but that is nothing important.

This is the Monster Hunter In what faster we can see the credits. Depending on the time we dedicate to exploring optional missions, We can defeat the final boss in about 15 – 18 hours after having known about 20 monsters. But obviously things do not end there. A new chapter begins immediately in which we find even more monsters, new systems and unlock the high range and combat sand.

For many, It is here that the real game begins. The monsters become more difficult, the semi -open world becomes more important in the game structure (we must find the monsters during field studies to unlock them in missions) and we begin the real 'farmeo' of parts to create the equipment we want. In that we are going hundreds of hours and the variety of monsters, weapons and the possibilities of the game online are more than enough to make all that time flying. In addition, Capcom already announced that will constantly add event missions, new monsters and surprises to keep the game interesting. If it weren't because more games come out that attract my attention this year, I would spend all the time playing Monster Hunter Wilds And it would be very happy.

But that happiness is not complete. As I said, the lack of innovation worries me a lot and there were even times when I was tempted to reinstall Monster Hunter Rise o Wild Hearts To try something more “fresh.” Capcom has created another work of art, but the brushstrokes are too similar to those of their previous work.

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Review made with a digital copy of Monster Hunter Wilds for PS5 provided by Capcom. This game will be available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X | S and for PC as of February 28, 2025.