Monster Hunter Wilds

The most exhilarating and refined Monster Hunter yet, even if its attempts to balance the old and new don't always quite coalesce in its ongoing quest to please all audiences. Monster Hunter Wilds goes further than any previous entry in paring back accumulated legacy systems in the name of modernisation. Nothing feels like it's escaped scrutiny this time around, with countless core systems either being whittled down to their fundamentals, jettisoned entirely, or expanded to their ultimate form....

It has issues, but Monster Hunter Wilds iterates on a winning formula with another captivating collection of monsters to slay. I thought I would miss the Wirebug from 2021's Monster Hunter Rise. Not just because of the verticality and fluidity it introduced to traversal, but also because of its vital role in combat--whether you were incorporating Silkbind attacks into combos or using the Wire-dash to avoid certain death by the skin of your teeth. The Wirebug was a fantastic addition, and yet it...

Monster Hunter Wilds Review Monster Hunter Wilds continues to smooth off the rougher corners of the series in smart ways, making for some extremely fun fights but also lacking any real challenge. After Monster Hunter: World blew the doors wide open in 2018 and Rise gave high-flying Wirebugs in 2021, Wilds smooths out the already excellent process of turning big scary dragons into silly little hats to be faster, more flexible, and less fiddly than ever before. The other side is that Wilds is li...

Monster Hunter Wilds is both a return to meat-and-potatoes monster combat and a dramatic revision of the hunting format. It's a more approachable lizard-slaying sandbox, and it's a tangle of multiplayer quirks that still feels like something out of 2007. It's the cleanest Monster Hunter has ever played, and it's a temperamental piece of software that might crash if you tab back in at the wrong time. More than anything, Wilds is an action game in a class without contenders. It's a new height for...