Monster Hunter Wilds Hands-on Preview: Exactly What I Hoped For

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The first thing that jumped out to me as I began Monster Hunter Wilds’ introductory mission was how quickly I got invested in its story now that both my character and my Palico companion had voice acting of their own. The second thing, sadly, was how poorly this early preview build ran once I took control. Wilds is exceptionally exciting to me, recapturing what I love about Monster Hunter World while learning from the joy that came from Monster Hunter Rise’s enhanced mobility, finding a balance of both that felt great across the handful of missions I tried. It’s unfortunate that its rough, in-development performance put a little bit of a damper on my demo time, but if Capcom can sort those issues out by launch next year, Wilds could be exactly what I was dreaming of from the next Monster Hunter.

What’s immediately clear is that Wilds has continued to put a priority on smoothing out some of the traditionally rougher edges of this series. For instance, rideable monster mounts make a return after first being introduced as an automated option in World’s Iceborne expansion and then expanded into full control in Rise. This iteration leans more toward the latter, defaulting to follow a target but allowing you to take the reins directly anytime. Your dino-bird, called a Seikret, can scamper across special paths, glide, and give you time to use or collect items, which makes travel engaging in a way that feels less artificial than Rise’s Spiribird busywork.

But it’s not just a matter of convenience, as your mount also stores a second weapon option that you can swap to while riding. As a lifelong Insect Glaive main, this didn’t really appeal to me at first… until I realized that you can also use ranged weapons like Bowguns while mounted. That fully recontextualized this system, letting me pepper a retreating monster with bullets while my Seikret automatically chased it down, then swap back to my Glaive when it was time to hop off. I guess we’re all learning ranged weapons now,