Monster Hunter World is going to be big. After months of trailers, teasers and Hands off look at itthe upcoming title made its grand entrance, complete with a playable Gamescom demo and a round of previews that I was invited to. After about 90 minutes of some of the game’s opening chases, I’m pretty confident Monster Hunter World will set the world on fire.
Wildernesswhich follows in the footsteps of 2018 Monster Hunter Worldis a return to the lively and reactive ecosystem of its predecessor. World– which later became Capcom’s best-selling game– was praised for creating densely layered environments with their own endemic life. As the hunter trudged through labyrinthine jungles or arid deserts, he would come across creatures that fit these biomes, which formed the hierarchy of monsters in a given region. Everything from the lowest creature at the bottom of the food chain to the apex predator at the top was accounted for, and seeing these monsters interact with and even fight each other was (and still is) exciting.
Monster Hunter World doubles to many of these functionsparticularly the focus on living ecosystems, and expands or refines pretty much everything else about the experience to make it the most razor-sharp entry in the series yet. It refreshes the Slinger – the hunter’s slingshot – into a much more dynamic tool in their repertoire and even offers a mount (a feature that was introduced in Monster Hunter Rise) to ensure that the game is full of life from the start.
Monster Hunter World practical
After a few cutscenes wilderness ‘Main characters, I was almost immediately catapulted into the action-packed opening, which saw me hop on a Seikret mount and chase a child being chased through the desert by a pack of sandworms. The heavily rail-based section does a pretty good job of introducing and highlighting many of the basic moves that players will get used to, like collecting sling ammo from small enemies, using the new grapple feature to rip apart parts of the environment, and using the mount to navigate difficult terrain. That it manages to convey these mechanics while keeping things exciting is key to Monster Hunter World. The Monster Hunter The series is known for its complexity, and the faster it can demystify that concept and dive right into the top-notch combat, the better.
Speaking of which, after you manage to save the child, you’ll be sent on the first real hunt of the game, against the Chatacabara, a large amphibious monster that covers its weak spots with protective stone armor. At this point, I grabbed my insect glaive (my weapon of choice for the last few Monster Hunter games) and immediately fell back into my old rhythm. For fans of the series who have played several games, don’t expect wilderness to be a massive departure from the norm. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, you know? Capcom has reworked some of the weapons – and it breaks my heart that you can no longer bounce off the end of an airstrike with the glaive – but some time with this, the pickaxe and the light bowgun proves that the developers aren’t abandoning the solid foundation built over the series’ history.
Instead, wilderness attempts to streamline the often tedious process of monster hunting to ensure that everyone who tackles the game feels like they are having the best experience. You still have to track down monsters with the help of scout flies that leave a glowing trail, and combat is functionally the same as it always has been, with parties of up to four players taking down massive creatures using the series’ 14 core weapons and a ton of other tools and traps. There are some new things in wilderness However, it should make the player feel much more effective, for example with the new focus function.
With Focus, the player can make his attacks more targeted by holding down the left trigger and calling up a crosshair that Is a significant change for people using melee weapons. Focusing now allows attacks to be more precise than ever, which is good for finding weak spots and inflicting wounds on monsters that glow red while in Focus mode. While Focusing makes little change to your moveset, it does provide a Focus Strike that is tied to the right bumper, and each weapon has its own. These powerful moves are essential for targeting wounds and maximizing damage, which can speed up the hunt, break off parts of the monster, and even stagger it.
Monster Hunter Players have been able to get by without such a tool, but I think it is a game-changer. For beginners, it will be handy to be able to attack with more precision than is normally the case. I spent my first few hours Monster Hunter World I used to mess up my attacks before I learned to read opponents’ patterns and choose my moments. For players of any level, Focus now tells you exactly where to aim by highlighting wounds, and it does so subtly. Any feature that conveys important information without overwhelming the player with a billion tooltips (or worse, a garish new piece of UI or overlay) is a win in my eyes, and I see no reason why everyone shouldn’t use Focus by default in wilderness.
The thrill of the hunt
The hunt itself went smoothly. The Chatacabra is a great first monster because it’s just threatening enough that it could sneak up on you if you don’t take it too seriously, but it’s also incredibly slow. This means it announces its movements well in advance, giving even the most nervous hunters enough time to get out of the way. The Seikret mount will pick you up and run immediately when called, which is incredibly handy for getting out of such a predicament, and its ability to carry a second weapon – which needs to be unlocked later – will make advanced hunts a lot easier.
Soon after completing the first hunt, we were transported to a later point where more features were unlocked, such as a mount with a second weapon, and we got to hunt the Doshaguma, which featured prominently in most of the game’s pre-release releases. In an interesting change, the Doshaguma is actually a herd monster, and is surrounded by a pack of smaller versions of itself that are just as combative as the Alpha. In what would turn out to be my favorite part of the preview, we actually got to fire large crap pods (yes, shit) from our slingshot, which exploded on impact and sent the smaller Doshagumas fleeing, isolating the leader. It’s a small but incredible touch that makes it feel like wilderness ecosystems are really as dense as they are portrayed, and that every bit of it, including animal feces, actually flows back into these interconnected environments.
With the Doshaguma cornered, a tooltip suggested I fire off an SOS flare, a mechanic that prompts players to join you in a multiplayer hunt, and team up against the poor thing. Since my session was offline, I was instead immediately greeted by a whole squad of AI companions who held their own admirably, using their weapons and traps fantastically to help me. In the midst of this truly one-sided battle, the sky darkened, lightning began to strike, and the Doshaguma fled, weakened, into the darkness, where it probably hoped to avoid further hardship. Instead, it fled into the desert, where it was greeted by a Rey Dau, a lightning-spewing wyvern that adroitly completed the task of weakening the Doshaguma for me. After narrowly surviving an encounter with the region’s largest predator, the Doshaguma eventually fell victim to several more blows as I followed it back into a small cave.
All the time, wilderness was also the smoothest time I’ve had in any of these titles. A new dynamic healing option in the radial menu meant I didn’t have to dig through my item bag for the right potion while the Doshaguma treated me like a chew toy. After completing my second hunt, which more or less ended the planned portion of the preview, all the materials I’d collected were sent to my camp and I was sent to the Windward Plains instead of being sent back to the village. I tracked down a second Chatacabra, switched from my mount to the light bowgun, and picked it up, just to see how quickly I could get used to a weapon I don’t normally use. The transition was buttery smooth, and I triumphed over the monster in no time. I did so well that I even had time to track down the sandworm monster that had plagued the boy in the opening of the game, known as Balahara, and although I couldn’t finish the fight, it was fun to watch it in another Rey Dau. This thing just can’t stop digging into beef!
I’m dying to return to those windswept dunes and see what other monster interactions I can find and exploit. I can’t wait to spend more time with Focus Mode on all weapons and figure out what the best loadouts are based on the monster I’m hunting. I’m excited at the prospect of seemingly seamless multiplayer (and in the absence of that, competent AI companions) in Monster Hunter Worldespecially since the renewed visit World reminded me recently how annoying this can be. I have rarely left a preview so effusive, but Monster Hunter World really impressed me on almost every level. Sure, it had some technical issues, but given its ambitions, I don’t see how a work-in-progress version of the game wouldn’t have some minor issues. On almost every other level, however, wilderness is more than solid, it’s huge. It can’t get here fast enough.
