I’ve played the first 5 hours of Monster Hunter Wilds and can’t wait to see more

I played the first five hours Monster Hunter Wilds and can’t wait to play more. This is a huge change from what I normally felt after playing previous games in the series.

Although I tried to get into games like Monster Hunter 4, Monster Hunter WorldAnd Rise of the Monster HuntersI quickly abandoned every game. Hunts are very stressful and complex. Although people love this formula, I haven’t been able to overcome the initial learning curve in any Monster Hunter game I’ve played. That changed when I was allowed to lend a hand Monster Hunter Wilds’ Opening hours.

While players were able to experience some of this portion of the game in the open beta earlier this year, Capcom Digital Trends flew to its headquarters in Osaka, Japan last month to play the launch hours of Monster Hunter Wilds on PlayStation 5 continuously and talk to the developers. I was worried I wouldn’t enjoy what I played, but a combination of improvements to the narrative, gameplay, and flow Monster Hunter Wilds I feel like the entry that will finally captivate me.

Well, bad story

Monster Hunter WildsThe story is captivating from the first moments. I quickly meet Nata, a human boy whose tribe is seemingly being wiped out by the White Spirit, a powerful monster that lives in the Forbidden Lands. A hunting expedition exploring the Forbidden Lands finds Nata, and players are sent there to explore this new region, meet its inhabitants, and get to the bottom of the mystery of Nata’s origins and the White Spirit.

It’s a smart decision to give the player-created hunter a voice and a more active role in the story. This made me feel much more involved in what was happening, as if I was building personal relationships with everyone on the expedition. According to director Yuya Tokuda, it made sense to establish Nata as the central character as a thematic guide for Monster Hunter Wilds’ Story.

“We wanted to illustrate human interaction with nature Monster Hunter WildsTokuda tells Digital Trends. “In Monster Hunter WorldThe hunters explored and interacted with nature. But to show how humans interact with nature, not with the hunters, we wanted a human who is not a hunter to be the focus of the story to show what exactly hunters are in the story and how humans in live in the world and coexist with nature and monsters.”

A game like Monster Hunter Wilds I need to think about why I’m hunting these creatures. The opening section of the narrative had a greater impact on it than in any other Monster Hunter game I’ve played, which is why I can’t wait to return to the Forbidden Lands and see the five hour mark behind me stopped playing.

Small, welcome improvements

While the story initially drew me in, smart gameplay improvements will likely keep me playing Monster Hunter Wilds. Capcom has completely retained the formula that made this series popular in the first place. Hunting monsters is still a complicated process that requires players to use clever strategies and the environment to their advantage. If you are not prepared for the hunt and do not take into consideration how you approach a huge monster, then that is the case will die.

The approach has already captivated over 100 million players, but I found it difficult to get into it. The tutorials in previous Monster Hunter games have been overwhelming. I found experimenting with different weapons cumbersome and felt like I needed a wiki to understand the best way to defeat a particular monster. Fortunately, Monster Hunter Wilds is making a concerted effort to address all of these issues.

Over the course of the first five hours of Monster Hunter WildsI hunted seven different monsters: Chatacabra, Quematrice, Lala Barina, Congalala, Balahara, Alpha Doshaguma and Uth Duna. Each of these varies greatly from one another (the spider-like Lala Barina is my favorite) and is therefore good at teaching players everything they need to know in a natural way. The game also distributes tutorial pop-ups gradually throughout these fights, so learning the mechanics never becomes overwhelming.

There’s also the new Focus gameplay system, which makes it easier to lock on to enemies and identify their weak points. This meant that even though I enjoyed the extended hunts, I always knew what I needed to do to take down a monster as effectively as possible. It is also now possible to take two weapons hunting with you (one remains on your Seikret mount), which encourages experimentation and allows me to get a feel for a wider range of weapons than I had in the same time period would have done in another Monster Hunter game. I was particularly a fan of the Heavy Bowgun.

Seamless hunting

Monster Hunter Wilds is the most accessible Monster Hunter game yet, but in a way that shouldn’t deter the series’ most die-hard fans. Instead, these gameplay improvements, smart tutorials and a strong narrative work together to keep players hooked. The fact that players can freely explore the regions of the Forbidden Lands is twice as great as in Monster Hunter WorldSeeing large herds of monsters and starting hunting mid-exploration also makes the game feel like a more engaging open-world game.

The developers I spoke to consistently highlighted what they wanted Monster Hunter Wilds to feel like a seamless experience. Capcom has done this consciously from character creation to the start of the game, from the cutscene to the gameplay and how it makes players feel equipped to take on any monster they face early on.

“Before you know it, you can hunt better without even realizing it,” Tokuda says. “We focused on finding the right balance of teaching players at a very natural pace without affecting their progress through the story.”

I think this focus works Monster Hunter Wilds’ Advantage, because this is the first Monster Hunter game that I really want to play again. I now understand what makes the show so great and believe in it Monster Hunter Wilds will help others who have had difficulty finding their way to come to the same realization. If you’re like me and have been turned off by previous Monster Hunter titles, keep an eye on it Monster Hunter Wilds when it launches next February.

Monster Hunter Wilds will be released on February 28, 2024 for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.