A first-look at Monster Hunter: Wilds sets it up to be the best instalment yet

Monster Hunter: Wilds looks like the franchise’s best entry yet, and I was blown away by the sheer details of its open world gameplay.

The Monster Hunter series has seemingly always pushed its own limits with every new release, the next game is the series seems to be doing that in spades.

Check out Monster Hunter: Wilds below

During my time at Summer Game Fest Capcom treated me to an exclusive look at the game, including a bit of open-world exploration, highlighting some new mechanics, and witnessing an exhilarating battle with one of the game’s new monsters.

The first thing I noticed was the sheer amount of detail the game boasted, both in its visuals and the way the game performed. Vendors in the village aren’t just standing around waiting for you to talk to them, they’re on the move performing the daily duties as any normal person would be, so it’s up to the player to find them if they need anything.

After a quick look around one of the villagers, the gameplay shifted to the wider open world, where we bore witness to an ever-changing environment housing an endless amount of opportunities to the player.

Something Capcom really wanted to show off was the cooking, and I’ve got to admit the visual quality of the cheese covered steak the player’s character made actually had my stomach rumbling for a second. It’s probably some of the best looking food I’ve seen in a video game before. Food can be prepared just about anywhere, and not only heals you but also provides stat buffs for combat.

Capcom

Next up was combat with some of the game’s monsters, with hunts being initiated purely from attacking the monster you want to take down, no quest accepting or loading screens required.

As players damage monsters, wounds will open up. These are a bit like the weakspots in Bloodborne and allow the player to deal even more damage if they attack the open wounds. You can fight monsters up close with hand-to-hand weapons, or blast them from afar with cannons and other ranged weapons.

However the part that really blew me away was when the player led a herd of monsters, including the alpha they were trying to hunt, to a large patch of sand out in the desert. Turns out this was a trap set by an enormous sand worm, which thinned the herd and allowed the player to focus solely on the alpha without wasting resources or health. Apparently there are loads of environmental tricks to take advantage of, inclduing making rocks and boulders drop onto beasts, as well as leading them to other alphas and letting them duke it out on your behalf.

Capcom

The open world is just as dynamic during exploration too, with a constant day and night cycle, as well as varying weather patterns that change the environment in several ways. One aspect that was shown off during the demo was the aftermath of a desert storm, which revealed a lush grassy field hidden beneath the sands, as well as migrating birds landing, building nests and feeding their offspring with insects living in the same area.

My first-look at Monster Hunter: Wilds completely blew me away, and I can’t wait to see more as the game approaches its 2025 release date.