Monster Hunter Wilds Review: A victory lap for Capcom’s golden age

In recent years, many have proclaimed this the ‘golden age’ of Capcom – and with good reason. The Japanese publisher’s impressive run of form arguably began in 2018 with the release of Monster Hunter World, a game that is now Capcom’s best-selling game ever. Now Capcom is back with its sequel, Monster Hunter Wilds.

Wilds is a game that’s not only an absolutely first-rate action experience, it’s also the most approachable the series has been while achieving a spectacle not yet seen in the two-decade-old franchise. Monster Hunter Wilds is frictionless. At least, it’s frictionless for Monster Hunter. It’s probably apocryphal at this point to say that “back in my day” everyone was playing Monster Hunter by clawing their hand around a PSP, but it’s illustrative of just how far the series has come.

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One issue that has always plagued the series was how the player was supposed to juggle items, weapon selections, traps, and other accessories while a monster the size of a semi-detached house was bearing down on it. In Monster Hunter Wilds, many of World’s lessons have been learned and refined. Item management is simple. The game allows you to once again auto-craft essential items. It feels like a concerted effort not to annoy the player, something unthinkable for the series a decade ago.

There is some fiddliness when it comes to grouping up with friends, as myself and The Guardian’s Keza MacDonald found out as we ran around in circles wrestling with menus and shouts of “I’ll invite you,” “Okay, have you got that invite?” “are we in the same world?”. But, once we fought past that networking monster, what was waiting for us were some of the best creatures the series has ever thrown up.

In classic Monster Hunter tradition, there are returning favorites that receive fancy modern makeovers, as well as new headline monsters. The Arkveld, Rey Dau, and more make for a roster that will certainly called upon in future entries. While the huge fight between Akrveld and Rey Dau has been routinely teased in promotional material, that’s just a taste of what Monster Hunter Wilds offers in sheer spectacle.

This is, of course, aided by the wide open spaces, with this strand of the series fully divorcing itself from the old, segmented maps of previous entries. Fights can seamlessly transition across vast areas, with Monster Hunter Wilds featuring far more verticality than their Worlds counterparts. There is occasionally the sense that some of these more protracted fights are somewhat scripted to make sure you see more of the world, but it’s an effective trick.

When this system really comes into its own is when monsters face off against themselves out on the battlefield. Your hunter quickly becomes a spectator as two screen-filling beasts smack lumps out of each other. Of course, cunning hunters can use this as an opportunity to gang up on your target, but in our experience, it was also the quickest possible way to be squashed between the pair like the afterthought we are.

“Monster Hunter Wild’s greatest strength is that it never feels arduous. After every hunt, I always had it in me to go on another.”

There were some minor technical issues during our early sessions that appeared to resolve themselves via a patch. On PS5 Pro, the game runs incredibly smoothly and offers three modes: one prioritizing framerate, a balanced option, and one prioritizing resolution. For those of you with a 120 Hz-supported monitor, the PS5 Pro offers a 40FPS mode, which enables ray-tracing and makes for a great blend of blockbuster visuals and responsive combat.

The game is a visual treat, especially when some of the game’s biggest monsters decide to battle it out. Dynamic weather effects, a swelling score, and incredibly detailed models make for a presentationally stellar game. You may find it difficult to glean this during your first few rounds with the bigger beasts, but when you’re running it back to grind for armor, you’ll have time to stop and smell the 70-foot roses.

Monster Hunter Wild’s greatest strength is that it never feels arduous. After every hunt, I always had it in me to go on another. The moreishness comes from how easy the game makes it for you to get in and out of hunts, as well as the investigation system, meaning if you want to go and roam the plains without a mission and just take down whatever you please, you can. Even when you wish to return to base, there’s no loading screen. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to find a break in the action outside of being killed by a monster, or one of the game’s cutscenes.

Capcom even answered years of fan demands and now allows players to end the 60-second countdown at the end of a hunt. If you’re playing on a TV you can make the whole UI, which can be tricky to read during the action, absolutely huge. The one screen-filing list of stats and equipment buffs has been refined so that players who haven’t been loyal to the series for 20 years can know what’s going on. There are dozens and dozens of control options and customizable HUD elements so that players can make Monster Hunter Wilds their own. Convenience, convenience, convenience.

Even when approaching the game’s conclusion, it was still a considerable amount of fun to return to the game’s opening areas and experiment with a few of my weaker weapons. One issue fans may have is that the game doesn’t add a new weapon to the mix, but it does add new attacks to old classics, so while there won’t be an entirely new weapon to master, your favorite has probably been refreshed.

Monster Hunter World earned its place as Capcom’s best-selling title. Monster Hunter Wilds is a better game in virtually every way. Building on the leaps forward in playability and presentation, this feels like a real victory lap for Capcom. It’s very difficult for me to find much fault in it at all as a game.