Monster Hunter Wilds - A Caged Beast (Review)
- James Stephanie Sterling
- Mar 7
- 11 min read
Monster Hunter Wilds
Released: February 28th, 2025
Developer: Capcom
Publisher: Capcom
Systems: PC, PS5 (reviewed), Xbox X/S
You can dress up like an inflatable plague doctor in this one. I’m not sure who at Capcom has my dream diary, but I’d like to thank them. Oh, and a warning before we go on too far... spider pictures coming!
Monster Hunter is many things - quite a few of them good - but to me it’s all about dressing up. Sure, tracking down huge creatures and wailing on them with hilariously gigantic weapons is great fun, and I’m not here to diminish it. Does it compare to taking that creature’s remains to a cute blacksmith who’ll make you a Bloodborne-ass suit of armor and a weaponized paintbrush flower?
I love to hunt all the things, I love to cook all the meats, I love to catch all the little lizards in my wrist-mounted net, and most crucially, I adore wearing all the deliriously ostentatious fits.
This love lies at the heart of my biggest frustration with Monster Hunter Wilds - it is absolutely superb, but it won’t just shut the fuck up and let me have fun.
Before I spend time whining about that, let me praise the quality content lying behind the ceaseless jabbering. All the classic Monster Hunter stuff works as well as it always has - you’ll have plenty of beasts to batter the crap out of with your fellow animal botherers, with a ton of exploration offered after you've put the time in. Oh, and your prey is deeply weird this time around.
Don’t let the initial desert setting fool you. The diverse environments include such places as creepy blood-red nests that make rivers look like blood and a cave network full of thick natural oil glooping around all over the place. You've still got traditional sandy lands, forest hovels, and snowy ice realms, but they're joined by all sorts of neat new places.
Wilds’ homegrown monsters resemble things you’d see in science fiction more than fantasy. While they run the risk of being too outlandish for some players, I’ve reveled in their strangeness and I was continually wondering what messed up delights were coming next.
Capcom has such sights to show you - a big pink hippopotamus ape, a spider with a giant rose for an abdomen, a rubber reptilian crow that looks like Vertigo from Primal Rage fucked a bouncy castle, and so many things with tentacles. Not only are Wilds’ monsters remarkably freaky, a few are quite beautiful in their own grotesque way.
Those who loved their canine mounts in Monster Hunter: Rise may be sad to see the beloved Palamutes go, but in return Wilds gives you a Seikrit - basically a store brand Chocobo. They’re not as lovable as the doggies, but they’re cute enough.
Your mount’s set to automatic movement by default, which is helpful when trying to track down targets in complex environments. Such help is somewhat offset by the bird’s dumbass tendencies. It seems to get stupider over time, failing to respond to calls, trying to go through walls, and sometimes running around randomly in a confused state. For something designed explicitly to find optimal paths, it can’t pathfind very well.
One of the big changes this time around is the ability to take not just one, but two different weapons out in the field. While you only ever need your favorite, it’s a great feature for someone like me who indecisively cycles through several. It’s also useful for taking on multiple roles - I usually keep a Hunting Horn around so I can become a support player on the fly, or take both a melee and ranged weapon for flexibility. It’s a good way to let players safely experiment with new gear in a combat situation, too.
Of course, this is Monster Hunter, where everything has to be a process, so you need to call and mount your chocobo whenever you want to switch a weapon out. I suppose it’s “realistic” - if you ignore how you don’t need to ride something to take a weapon from it - but it definitely dissuaded me from swapping gear a bit more than I would have.
Weapons themselves have seen some overhauling, with new features and improvements. I mentioned my use of the Hunting Horn, and god lord is it better than ever. Every Horn can use the Echo Bubble, which lays down a lasting area of effect that buffs or heals party members. On top of that, said healing and buffing is much more effective than in previous games.
I’ve currently got a Horn with strong heal melodies while my Rompopolo outfit lets me share the effects of my consumables with allies. I’m rocking a bonafide healer and I look fantastic. I couldn’t be happier with just how much more effective I feel in this installment, and it’s been that way for every weapon I’ve used - they all offer a richer usability now.
New to Wilds is the Focus Mode, allowing for a special attack that players manually aim. The primary use of Focus Mode is to target a monster’s wounds, which glow red when focusing. It’s a nice idea, but monsters move fast and hunter attacks are nothing if not methodical. Some weapons fare better than others, with the bow and bowguns obviously excelling, but many weapons’ focused attacks are really unwieldy. A great mechanic conceptually, it could use a little more work.
The trusty Slinger returns, a grappling slingshot now capable of snatching many more Pods from the environment to use as makeshift ammunition. You can find things that slice, things that explode, pretty much any effect can be found and fired in limited quantities, and ammo is everywhere. If you’re a habitual item grabber, be aware that the expansion of Slinger Pods means plenty of opportunities to accidentally swap your ammo out.
Some quality-of-life tweaks round things out, with more options on radial wheels, a command that automatically uses optimal healing items, and NPC hunters who can squad up with you in lieu of humans. That last feature is particularly good, especially since the Support Hunters provided are quite efficient, or at the very least keep a monsters’ attention relatively divided. They tag out if an online player joins up, and it’s great to have backup while you wait for one.
Wilds’ selection of armor this time around takes flamboyance to a new level. Big hats with huge feathers on them, gothic gear that screams Bloodborne, suits of plating that could have been stripped off a Gundam, the togs are as brazen as the creatures they’re made from. As much as I love my main outfit, I’ve made others to slip into as befits my flighty whims.
Armor is no longer handcuffed to gender, allowing you to mix and match between two versions of each piece with the same stats. Generally, it means you have a choice between heavy looking gear and sleeker alternatives. This is a much needed change, and it’s not even about the gender thing - most outfits simply benefit from a combination of heavy and light parts, and two players with the same set can still look unique.
Oh, and they really took the piss with your Felyne partner’s gear, in the best way possible. If you don’t fancy being accompanied by a regular ol’ bipedal cat, you can put them in stuff that alters their appearance to the point of body horror. Do you want a cat-shaped brain in a jar, or would you prefer to replace their limbs with tentacles? It isn’t an “or” question, because you can have both at once.
This latest Monster Hunter is a lovely time when it’s at its best. The gameplay updates are enough to improve several elements without taking away from the expected experience, the creatures are simply fantastic to fight, and combat feels richer thanks to an improved arsenal. A lot of work went into it all, and it shows.
I also want to say the world is great fun to simply explore, but I can’t without a major caveat - it takes hours and hours of playing to reach a version of the game that offers a world you'd want to explore, with a wildness worthy of the game’s name. In fact, it takes the length of a whole other game.
Yeah, we have to talk about the story. It sure as hell loves to talk about itself.
Monster Hunter’s core premise has been practically unchanged since the series started - you roll into town as a proud hunter and some shit goes down with the big animals who are all freaking out. It’s a basic excuse plot that needs to be nothing more, but for some reason Wilds treats it like the main attraction, insistently imposing it upon audiences as if Monster Hunter’s played for the writing at the expense of the actual monster hunting.
Even if that were true, this installment is so pushy, and the story is so undeserving of being punched down your throat like it is, I’ve developed a deep enmity relating to the narrative.
Story missions are bloody awful, consisting mostly of being glued to your chocobo’s back so it can walk very slowly while NPCs talk boring garbage for long stretches of time. If you decide to take manual control in these sections, straying just a little sees you violently swung back onto the predetermined path. If there‘s a desirable item just beyond the reach of this tight leash, fuck you I guess.
It feels plain wrong for a Monster Hunter game to be on rails this much - last I checked, it wasn’t made by Ubisoft - but you’ll need to get on that beaten track if you want to unlock any good stuff. Wilds intellectually pummels you into following the main missions, to such a degree that it keeps new monsters on a disappointing drip feed and makes freedom as unappealing as possible until you engage with them.
I’m not sure I’ve seen a game go this far out of its way to be a pain in the ass on purpose, and I’ve played Quantic Dream’s shit.
The lack of a quest board is a perfect example, as you now have to talk to your handler Alma for everything and she doesn’t stop talking, ever. Frequently she’ll repeat dialogue upon your return from optional quests, unable to be interacted with until she’s finished running her mouth. It’s unbelievable how often she hassles you with malicious inconvenience, yammering on until you do what she says in the exasperated hope of shutting her fucking trap.
All this harassment in aid of a one-track story with a one-track mind.
It’s the same old conceit with a bunch of added bloviation trying to convince you Monster Hunter’s a story-driven RPG. There’s so much unwarranted waffle wedged between the audience and the entertainment, with boring characters saying nothing of note, lengthy sections of filler dialogue, and cutscenes that go on forever. I’m so sick of it I refuse to intellectually engage anymore, such is my contempt.
If it were as good as it thinks it is, the writing wouldn’t feel a need to force itself onto me with such unbecoming desperation.
It’s not until you throw off the shackles of the main questline that Wilds picks up the pace and feels like a proper Monster Hunter game. After the “end” credits roll, the world opens up, new monsters appear in abundance instead of stingily, and you get to have some real fun.
Now that I’m free, my wonderful outfit can be recolored and the weapon options have only improved. I look like I belong in that neon gang from Batman & Robin, my Hunting Horn is a giant bell, life is good. Environments, once constrained and lifeless, are now unpredictable and worth exploring. The difference is genuinely astounding.
It’s a bold move to bury the best of Wilds under so much guff, but when you finally get to the lauded open map gameplay, it works fantastically. Wandering around each area, discovering creatures on your own, and launching investigations based on what you find makes the game feel so much more surprising. You really never know what you’ll find, and starting a quest simply by battering a monster adds a sense of dynamism and fluidity to questing.
Amazing how a game quite specifically about letting you off your chain strangles you with a collar for so long.
The real game is so good it retroactively makes everything that came beforehand even worse by comparison. More than previous games is it advisable to rush through the campaign. Skip cutscenes if you have to, you won’t be missing a thing, just get past the credits as soon as you can. Everyone else clearly did, because it got progressively harder to find online teammates until I reached the promised land.
Monster Hunter always does this to some degree, treating the campaign almost like a prologue before ramping everything up, introducing new features dozens of hours in. If the difference has ever been this much of a gulf, however, it will have been long before I got into the series.
Hell, even the story gets better after the credits, featuring better pacing and an increased focus on the hunting of monsters. Cutscenes are more exciting, missions are better paced, and it’s far less intrusive on your fun.
Well, almost.
Sadly, even when Wilds becomes great, it remains hamstrung by its very worst feature. I don’t know if I’ll catch heat for this, I’m sure she’s already the “waifu” of a bunch of nerds or whatever, but I have to say it - I fucking hate Alma.
I utterly resent her, and it’s not the fault of the character per se, it’s the terrible way she’s been implemented. A constant barrier between you and the gameplay, pestering you for attention like a needy child, an unwarranted middle manager for content you should be able to just access. All the while, she's talking. On and on it goes.
Naturally, she accompanies you in the field to continue her reign of terror. Like a limpet, she’s always clinging on to repeat stock voice lines, parade around in front of the camera or the water while you fish, and generally just act like a dickhead nuisance. Don't come at me with "but it's convenient to have a mobile quest board." It's better to have a board that doesn't wander off like a prick.
The final insult? She’s deliberately programmed to photobomb you in Photo Mode. She will barge in while you’re getting the perfect shot together, going so far as to slide the player character out of frame with her goddamn mount so she can gawp at the camera and wave like a gormless tool. The best I can say of this behavior is that it encapsulates Wilds’ love of self-indulgent obstructiveness.
Of all the ways they could have handled missions and online features, they went with one that makes me detest an otherwise inoffensive NPC.
Almost as if to reinforce a theme, Wilds’ visuals significantly improve as soon as the game does, the “season of plenty” that arrives causing every map to flourish with color. That said, a desaturated look persists through the whole game so colors are somewhat washed out no matter how vibrant they are. Luckily the animations are great as ever, with monsters moving in all sorts of weirdly wonderful ways and hunter attacks looking especially cool. I mean, the Hunting Horn has a solo riff when it hits a wound, what’s not to love?
Music is nice, voice acting is fine for how much it bangs on, though since it’s a Capcom RPG you can expect to hear the blacksmith repeat phrases constantly while you navigate her forging menu. Gemma is cute though, and one of the few characters with a bit of personality to her.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen such a good game committed so strongly to getting in its own way.
Monster Hunter Wilds isn’t so much a game of two halves as two distinctly different games connected end-to-end. The first is a disappointment for how dreary it is and how intrusively it pushes a mediocre narrative. The second is a true Monster Hunter experience, one that’s worth experiencing but in no way should have been locked behind hours of glorified on-rails sections.
A great game that would have been almost perfect if Capcom had gouged out the first thirty hours and put a plug in the pernicious verbal diarrhoea of a quest board masquerading as an NPC.
Alma is the true monster.
8/10
