Monster Hunter Wilds: The First Preview

ign.com:

If Monster Hunter World was the first huge, noticeable evolution of the long-running series, Wilds is shaping up to be a clear, exciting progression that takes many of World’s surprising change-ups a step further. Where World disposed of individual zones in each region, Wilds removes loading screens between each region and its home-base town, now located right on the map itself; where World allowed you to eat and change equipment at camp, Wilds additionally lets you pop up a portable tent; and where World introduced voiceovers to its human companions, Wilds gives voices to the Felyne Palicos. I learned all of this and more in a closed-door, hands-off demo and interview with the Monster Hunter Wilds developers at Summer Game Fest.

As is tradition, the hunt I watched started off in town, where you can eat, manage your inventory, and craft weapons and armor with the encouraging new smithy, Gemma. However, this village was established within the Windswept Plains hunting locale with no loading screens separating it from the action. In fact, the entire 30-minute demo, from preparing in town to taking down a monster and exploring, was completely seamless.

While still in town, the hunter mounted their Seikret – a new small bird wyvern type mount that the presenter mentioned is especially useful because the maps in Wilds are two times the size compared to previous games. Considering how vast the locales in World felt, this sounds massive to me.
The hunter then headed off to another small settlement in the Plains. The people here specialized in cultivating cheese and raising herbivores for livestock, and among them was a cheesemonger. After purchasing some of her wares, the NPC said “This will see gouda use.” Personally, I’m happy to see classic Monster Hunter puns still in the dialogue rotation, though I understand some may find it a bit cheesy.

Ingredients in hand, next up was to find the monster to hunt. The map in the menu now shows the area's elevation in a sort-of 3D