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 have surely been rounded off in the final stretch 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 mission of reuniting Nata with The Keepers and hunting down the White Wraith.
What was doubly exciting is that, unlike the old days of Monster Hunters past, we weren’t sitting around watching load screens. Instead we could just run out the base and leg it to where the monster waited, battle it and then simply move towards our next target in this large open biome.
We soon wind up in a forest, meet some new characters and stumble across what was easily my favourite monster of the day, a Lala Barina. This temnoceran (a monster type that covers arachnid-likes) is also new to Wilds, and is also pretty cool. Well, so long as you like spiders that are red, white and fluffy all over, and have spikey legs. When enraged, its abdomen opens up into what looks like a large rose, and this is where it gets really cool. It shoots out ‘florets’ — neuroleptics that float in the air ready to ensnare and paralyse you.
Naturally, we killed that and moved on, setting up a pop-up base in the Forest along the way. This is a great new mechanic in that, unlike in Worlds, the base can be destroyed by local monsters. In this case it was ransacked by some Wudwuds. These are basically Monster Hunter’s version of the Ewoks, if they were taught English by a surfer from the 60s. It’s a little jarring at first, but unlike your Felyne’s English voice (I quickly changed the setting to Felyne language), it quickly becomes endearing.
A bout with the farting gorilla monster of a Congalala brought back some misty memories of the first time I battled one back in 2006, but the next treat in this area was another brand-new monster, the Uth Duna.
In testament to its strength, we didn’t have to kill this one, just repel it. This leviathan was impressive, coating itself with a veil of water that repels attacks and moving with incredible speed and agility in terrain that you struggle to just walk in. While it was a nightmare to fight, it was gorgeous to look at.
And that’s where our story preview ended. The opening hours had us facing off against three new monsters — a fire, paralysis and water type — and have a crack at an old favourite that hasn’t been seen in a main-series game since 2014. We got to see a few new biomes, meet some new characters, and see the quality of life updates that will be very exciting for long-term fans, and even just those wanting a true sequel to World.
But that wasn’t where our time with the game ended, with two more new monsters and two more biomes from later in the game to see. First was the Rompopolo in the Oilwell Basin.
This monster has a fascinating design. Rather than the typical Brute Wyvern build, it has an insectile head with a mosquito-like nose, scythe-like hands, a forked tongue and a stinger. It uses these appendages not only to jab and slash, but to either shoot jets of poison or inject it into the ground, causing explosion of oil and tar.
All this made for a pretty exciting fight — despite its aggressive nature, we still took it down inside of 10 minutes, like everything else today.
Which brings us to our final monster — the temnoceran Nerscylla in the Iceshard Cliffs.
It was really exciting to get a chance to try another new temnoceran that attacks in a very different way. Instead of paralysis, this one uses poison to attack. It also flings itself across the room like Spider-Man, occasionally dangling from the ceiling as it watches its tiny spider spawn try to rush you. Fortunately, it can be shot down from its cocky little perch with a well-placed shot.
Perhaps the coolest thing about this monster is that if offers a unique insight into the ecology of Monster Hunter. Look carefully and you’ll see that it is wearing a Gypceros hide. That’s some Silence of the Lambs-level nonsense right there.
Our key takeaways from this final preview hands on are that the game is shaping up incredibly well. Combat is smooth and slick, and feels even better than it did in our first preview. The addition of wound damage in Wilds is excellent, adding another dimension to gameplay.
The new monsters we fought are all unique in their own ways, and the biomes we visited are both vast and exciting, underpinning that sense of adventure that comes with each new game. While the weapons and mechanics are familiar, as are some of the monsters that you fight, Wilds feels like a brand new adventure, and that is incredibly exciting.
Monster Hunter Wilds comes out in just a few short weeks, on 28th February, but I am itching to get my hands on it once again. And if you’re a fan of either the franchise or the genre, you should be too.