Monster Hunter Wilds Review
Cloaked in high-level parts carved from many, many fallen creatures, there’s a point in Monster Hunter Wilds, as in all Monster Hunter games, where you start to feel sorry for the monsters. Your character and skills have evolved to such a point that you can wade through the less powerful amongst them in moments and, as they flail before you, parts pinging off them like sparks from a fire, you wonder whether it’s you that’s the bad guy. Then, you’ll do it again. And again. And again.
This is the unalterable loop of Monster Hunter. You hunt monsters. You kill or capture those monsters. You use their bones, webbing and tails to make yourself fancy new gear with better statistics, and then off you trot to murder another victim. Monster Hunter Wilds is the current culmination of years of perfecting that loop.
Where early games were obtuse, with control schemes that felt like playing an Ocarina and gameplay mechanics that had players crying into their strategy guides, the series has come on leaps and bounds in recent years, with Monster Hunter World the game that truly brought it to the masses with a much smoother, more accessible experience. Wilds is fundamentally a direct continuation of that game, though at least one or two of Monster Hunter Rise’s best tricks have also made it along for the ride.
The storytelling is one of those key improvements. Monster Hunter stories have either centred on enemy creatures entering the wrong habitat, spreading a disease, or a combination of the two. Wilds tells a similar tale, but the way it is told is easily best directed in the series’ canon.
Your created hunter is fully voiced, lending an immediacy to every cutscene, while the cast here – also fully voiced, with an excellent dub in both Japanese and English – are endearing and memorable. The only misstep has been to grant your feline Palico companion full voice acting, when they’ve always made cat sounds in the past. Thankfully you can revert to the original cat sounds in the menu,
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