Monster Hunter Wilds BETA Gameplay REVIEW - IT'S ABSOLUTE FIRE!! (PS5)
Nov. 4, 2024Monster Hunter Wilds BETA Gameplay REVIEW – IT’S ABSOLUTE FIRE!! (PS5)
Monster Hunter Wildsis absolute fire. In this gameplay review, we’re going to be talking a little bit about the Monster Hunter Wilds beta that’s going on right now. If you guys haven’t played yet, you should absolutely play this weekend. This is easily, so far, from what I’ve played, the best Monster Hunter game yet. And let’s get into why that is.
So the beginning of Monster Hunter Wilds has a bit of a story mission that you go on that introduces you to some basic mechanics. And it’s done in this over-the-top Monster Hunter fashion that a typical Monster Hunter game would have. It acclimates you to the game. It builds a bit of tension. And it’s pretty much par for the course for what you’ve seen in a Monster Hunting game. I don’t think most people play Monster Hunter for the story. It’s lighthearted and fun, generally, and it’s always good to see it through to conclusion. But it’s by no means the biggest part of the game. And I think it’s par for the course with what you’ve seen with other Monster Hunter games here. So that’s the first thing.
But after this part of the game, I feel this is where Monster Hunter Wilds goes in a different direction than previous Monster Hunter titles. I think the thing that you notice almost immediately while playing the beta is the fluidity of the game. The interactions within the game itself, between cutscene to combat, between being in a settlement or a town, and going out on the landscape, are so much more fluid. You feel so much more part of the world than you did previously. This is actually true next-generation Monster Hunter in this regard. With redesigns to not only quest tracking, quest acceptance, and completion, the whole general world design leans far more to open world than any previous version of Monster Hunter. And I think about the only thing you can compare it to, potentially, is the guiding lands from Monster Hunter World.
In previous Monster Hunter games, you’d go to your camp or your town and they felt very separated from the monster locales and the environments of the game. They weren’t connected in the way they are in Monster Hunter Wilds. You’d usually pick up your quest from a quest board in town and then tackle that one monster inside your instance that gets generated either alone or with other players. And you might farm that monster for a while in there. But generally speaking, even though you could break off and farm other monsters, it just didn’t make a lot of sense to. You would come back if you wanted to do them and take out another quest or expedition on that monster. It made more sense to do it that way.
But in Wilds, things are so much more seamless as your interactions with your environment are right outside of the town that you’re sitting in. You can see the landscape outside changing as the weather changes. You can see what’s happening in the game world around you and just head out and start doing a quest by clicking on a monster and setting a quest to do it. Because the quest person follows along with you. And so you’re able to do everything on the fly. You can make decisions about what you want to do while you’re interacting with the game world without having to return and waste time doing that.
When you played Monster Hunter World, it felt like you were going on missions until you got to the Guiding Lands part at endgame. And Wilds is an evolution of that part of Monster Hunter World into its own full-blown game idea, whatever you want to call it, which is just genius in my opinion. They took what is easily the best part of Monster Hunter World and made it into its own game by just blowing up its size and making it larger than life. Monster Hunter Wilds is essentially Capcom flirting with the Monster Hunter MMO that I’ve always wanted.
When you go out now, you used to have mobs and things and endemic life and stuff like that in Monster Hunter World, Monster Hunter Rise, etc. But now the density and the entire scale, including monster density, is so much larger. And it feels like an ecosystem on its own that exists outside of the player that you just get to interact with and be a part of. It feels like it was designed independently of the player and you get dropped into it to make what you will of it.
The environmental design at Monster Hunter Wilds looks the best yet. World felt like a theme park or Jurassic Park where everything was larger than life. The trees were huge, the tankards were huge, the food was huge. Everything was overblown in a humorous and cute way. Whereas Wilds looks a bit more on the realism side. It has less of a gamey look to it, and it’s more comparable to Rise in its visuals, although I think it’s even more realistic and on a much larger scale than Rise.
I think this is an intelligent move by Capcom, particularly with Western players. I feel Western players are going to identify more with Monster Hunter Wilds than maybe Monster Hunter World. Even though a lot more Western players played that game than they did previous Monster Hunter titles. I think Wilds brings more of an aesthetic that is maybe something you would expect more in a Western game than previous Monster Hunter titles had. So I think there will be a lot more players that look at the gameplay footage of this, play the demo for this, this weekend, and see it and go, wow, this is a lot more my speed than I realized.
And the next massive and important change that changes the way you play Monster Hunter Wilds is the map. The map is outstanding. And the map allows you to literally see everything in the entire biome that you’re in, in real time. You can see where the monsters are, what monsters there are, what their strength is, what their threat level is, what they drop you. You can literally see where all the resources are, how long until the monster departs, and when other monsters will be available.
And you can literally make decisions in real time about what your next move in the game is going to be without having to return to a hub or go to a camp or anything like that and depart on an expedition. All that information is readily available to you. So you can go, OK, I’m planning to do X. You look at your map and realize, oh, that monster that I was going to hunt, well, he’s going to leave in five minutes. So maybe I should do something else so I’m not wasting my time. Oh, wait, there’s another one spawning in a couple of minutes. I’m going to go over to this ore over here and harvest it. Set a waypoint on your map. Your mount rides right over to that for you. Pick it up, maybe go set another one, get a couple more, and then that monster spawns in. And you can go do that. You can shoot a flare, summon people into your game world, and go tackle it together instantly. It’s all seamless, which is something I was referring to earlier. And it just feels good. It’s like, why haven’t we been doing this the whole time? This is definitely the best iteration of Monster Hunter in that regard. And you’re not going to want to go back to the style that they had previously once you start playing it.
And something that I enjoy about Monster Hunter Wilds, too, is the seasons they have to the game. If you didn’t know, there are actually three seasons inside the game that allow for different monster spawns. And there are apex predators in each area and they spawn at specific times and specific seasons. So you’re not going to be able to hunt any monster at the same time. You’re going to have to catch the windows in which these monsters spawn. I think what this does is it allows for the game to feel like a living, breathing world where you don’t have to load out and load in and load out and load in order to populate the monster that you want to hunt. It gives it more of an organic feel where those monsters are spawning in all the time. And what you’re doing is determined by what events are happening in the game, what monsters are available. So you’re hanging out and just playing the game as the game comes to you.
You’ll be able to wield two weapons inMonster Hunter Wilds, which is something we’ve covered before, and it’s a well-known feature by now. This change is huge, though. Mastering even one weapon is challenging enough, especially now that most weapons have different moves from what you might remember. When I tried the hammer again—after testing it earlier at Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show—I noticed that the combos and moves had changed quite a bit. A few staple moves remain, but the overall feel of the weapon is different. For example, now you can dodge without losing your charge, something that wasn’t possible before. It’s a nice update, as it lets you keep up the pressure without having to restart your charge. You can also interrupt attacks and chain into new combos with the hammer, which adds a fresh layer to its gameplay. But be prepared to relearn your weapon moves if you’re coming back fromMonster Hunter WorldorRise.
The skill floor for each weapon feels higher, while the skill ceiling has also increased, giving you a bit more to master. You might find it takes longer to get used to your weapon, but pulling off these moves feels rewarding. Because of this, I think a lot of players may stick to one weapon initially and delay using the second weapon to its full potential. Getting used to one weapon is already a challenge, so switching between two and adjusting your muscle memory could feel daunting. I imagine most players will experiment with both weapons but take their time before switching frequently, adapting to different situations based on the monsters they face. This complexity adds depth to the game, which is always welcome as long as it’s understandable. The concept of using two weapons is simple enough, but executing it effectively is a different story.
The only real downside I noticed in theMonster Hunter Wildsbeta, and something that stood out to me at both Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show, is the game’s performance. With large open worlds, expansive draw distances, numerous monsters, and weather effects, there’s a noticeable hit to performance, even in performance mode. While this doesn’t negatively impact the gameplay for me, I expect some players may find it a bit lacking. This might not be an issue if you’re playing on a high-powered PC, but console players may not get the level of performance they’re used to. Luckily, the gameplay isn’t so fast-paced that this impacts it too much, though it’s something that might be a sticking point for some.
So that wraps up my thoughts on theMonster Hunter Wildsbeta. What’s your take? Have you tried it yet, or are you waiting for the weekend? And what weapons are you planning to test out? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll see you next time!
Megidola
