Monster Hunter Wilds Final Preview

thesixthaxis.com:

It’s no Seikret that we love Monster Hunter here at TSA. There probably isn’t a Monster Hunter title that we haven’t poured hundreds of hours into between us, and it’s probably best we don’t think about the upper limit of that number… Much better to think about all the exciting and fun times that await in Monster Hunter Wilds.

And so, when our friends at Capcom offered us a chance to come play the first four hours of the game — completely uninterrupted — along with two special hunts from later in the game, we seized the opportunity with both hands.

This, naturally, came with the same kind of caveats that any pre-release game build has. The multiplayer aspect was still a little sticky and the lip sync wasn’t quite, well, synced. They’re minor issues that are sure to be rounded off in the final weeks and months of development, and the amount of polish that is on show throughout the game is already impressive.

We picked up the game after the opening sequence we last played in our first Monster Hunter Wilds preview last September. We escorted Y’sai back to his Kunafa village, taking in the scenery and meeting some colourful new characters along the way. One of our colleagues at the base asked us to keep an eye out for some honey so Y’sai pointed it out for us along the way.

But, as much as I love honey – and hot honey is, of course, very trendy right now – what I was really waiting for was a mission, and it didn’t take long before we were asked to kill a Quematrice — a Brute Wyvern new to Monster Hunter Wilds.

It’s always exciting to come across new beasties, and the Quematrice did not disappoint. This greenish-brown brute with red and blue scales has a large comb atop its head, and a wattle on its throat, giving it the appearance of a cockatrice — unsurprising perhaps given its name. It also has a very large tail that sprays oil on the ground, which it then strikes to ignite.

Aggressive though it was, we dispatched it and moved on, meeting up with Y’sai to continue the dual