Monster Hunter Wilds review: "The new peak of the series and an early contender for game of the year"

A "somebody pinch me" moment came early in Monster Hunter Wilds. The beginner decorations I received made it clear that Capcom has been paying attention. The first batch of gear-enhancing gems to bless my hunter were all for coveted skills – together, a fistful of riches that you'd be nervous to carry in your pocket around Monster Hunter World, lest you end up hunted by players driven to violence by decoration RNG.

Good and plentiful decorations are a small demonstration of what makes Monster Hunter Wilds great. This is a game made with a clear understanding of how it will be played and what it's about, with almost all barriers to the core experience removed or minimized, and with that core elevated to an all-time high. The timeless loop of fighting monsters and crafting gear has never been stronger.

In the 47 hours I've played, Monster Hunter Wilds has become a gallery of favorites. That was enough time to hit Hunter Rank 86, make some baseline endgame gear, and clear every quest and side mission barring one gathering quest. It's also just a sample of what I'll play once I can hunt with friends and experiment with weapons and endgame content without a review embargo sitting on my shoulders like a loaded barbell.

Guild dues

Wilds opens with Capcom's finest character creator, already beloved for its depth and detail after two beta tests, and swiftly hurls you off a sandship into the richest narrative in the (mainline) series. Monster Hunter storytelling has often felt like an excuse for all the hunting, but Wilds is a more thoughtful consideration of it, even if it still can't shake some dissonance. You are a respected hunter chosen to investigate the impossible: an extinct monster and human civilization reported in the Forbidden Lands, an area long avoided by the Hunter's Guild on account of the lands being, well, forbidden. So begins a decidedly more structured journey of chapters and missions and many lovely cutscenes.

The keystone for this expedition is a young boy named Nata, one of the Keepers among that civilization, and a victim of that strange monster's attacks. Your initial goal is to find Nata's people while helping the locals with their monster problems. You're joined by allies such as Gemma the smith and your assistant-like handler Alma. Longtime players will enjoy nods to older games, especially Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate and its Ace Lancer, now the Guild veteran Fabius. Even if they do inexplicably vibrate in several scenes due to apparent camera or model issues, I love these characters. (Playing on a base PS5, this was the only technical issue I noticed. Monster Hunter Wilds ran great and never crashed in performance mode, nor did I get FPS dips.)

It's important to have companions for support when tackling big questions. Where do humans fit into this untamed world? What is a hunter's purpose? And most importantly, how did these civilizations become so advanced without someone, somewhere considering that making weapons might be a good idea when actual dragons show up more frequently than door-to-door salesmen in my neighborhood? The mountain of praise that the locals pile on your godly ability to wield pointy and heavy things is historically and contextually ridiculous, especially when I know they just saw a wyvern's claws tie my guts like a balloon animal. Even so, the guiding themes of Monster Hunter Wilds – protecting the ecosystem, and whether our vision of that ecosystem is just – resonate well enough, and the extra effort put into presentation pays off as the story gets heavier and headier.

A Hunter's paradise

The characters are good, but the monsters are better. Monster Hunter Wilds presents a fantastic mix of nearly three dozen monsters to hunt, with more on the way (my beloved Mizutsune is coming in the free spring update). Retouched fan-favorites are flanked by exciting newcomers who are now some of the best bosses in the series. The diversity is immense. Far from the same-y wyvern fests of some games, Wilds avoids overplayed monsters without missing the classics. Monster sounds, soundtracks, and silhouettes are positively dreamy, with a healthy balance of nimble freaks and hulking behemoths. A pirouetting Lala Barina for every musclebound Doshaguma, and a truly disturbing pile of teeth to contrast the big pink ape that farts on you.

There are at most two monsters that I don't love fighting, and even those troublemakers are perfectly comfortable once you know what you're doing or call in some real-life, matchmade, or NPC backup. Hunts can be surprisingly quick. I played solo and was able to clear most monsters in under four or five minutes. Even endgame beasts went down in six or seven minutes on decent runs with suboptimal gear. Fortunately there's a range of combinations and modifiers that liven up the loot and difficulty of hunts to give monsters more life. Tempered monsters are back with more health, damage, and special weak points to exploit, and they felt good – not tedious or spongey – to fight. Oppositely, Frenzied monsters provide a different kind of intensity.

Some hunts could actually stand to be shorter. A few monsters spend a long time running around the map. For three minutes of a nine-minute hunt, I'm just waiting around seething as this stupid thing waddles between areas. Capturing monsters can be nice just to spare you the headache of fully killing them. I get the near-death escapes, but I still don't understand what monsters running away is supposed to add to the experience, and I always want to see less of it.

The monsters are great, but the weapons are better still. This is the most satisfying combat sandbox in Monster Hunter's 20-year history. I played through Wilds with lance, great sword, and hammer, partly because big weapons provide a large canvas for weapon designs, which are universally stellar here. This was the best that lance and great sword have ever felt across several thousand total hours of Monster Hunter gameplay. I love the Wilds hammer, too, but I also adored it in Monster Hunter Rise, so competition is tougher. Nothing seemed underpowered and I was instantly smitten with the new version of my true main weapon, lance, which is almost unrecognizable compared to the Wilds beta.

The lance fantasy – yes I'm about to give it a whole paragraph – of defense fueling offense manifests with instant-guards, satisfying shield slams, gap closers, and fierce combos with an elegant thrust for every occasion. I love the game within a game of timing a counterattack with an incoming monster attack to pull off a double hit. I love the focus on positioning – determining if I need to instant-guard, full guard, counter, or heavy guard based on the angle and type of attack or where I am in my combo.

I also love the literal focus of Focus Mode, a new way to orient your attacks and unleash special moves which deal bonus damage by popping wounds that appear on monsters. Wounds are a great addition overall, bringing dynamic targets and new damage openings to fights, and without warping combat the way Monster Hunter World: Iceborne's clutch claw did. Focus Mode is always nice to have, and it's transformational for some weapons. I'm eager to try them all.

The pointy end

I can't say enough good things about how weapons feel in your hands. I will play Monster Hunter Wilds for hours upon hours just to savor the combat and practice matchups. But I am somewhat less emphatic about how weapons fit into your build.

Monster Hunter Wilds introduces a hard divide between weapon skills and armor skills. Specialized and damage-oriented skills are directly attached to weapons while armor mostly boasts generalist, utility, and defensive skills. The same is true of decorations, which are weapon- or armor-exclusive.

I'm divided on this system. It has its upsides. When a lot of your build is on your weapon, it's easier to try a new weapon since you don't have to make a whole armor set for it. Set bonuses also feel more impactful, which I like. And where buildcrafting in Monster Hunter World became an unhinged cocktail of 50 DPS skills, Wilds does a better job balancing power and diversity, and it's nice to see comfy skills shine more. These make the game smoother, which is better for most people than speedrun optimization. But even for the limitations of High Rank gear – I realize I am spoiled by Master Rank – buildcrafting is tight.

You'll usually pick a handful of offensive skills to invest in depending on what comes with each individual weapon. High-level gear helps fit in more but there's a relatively low ceiling. Weapons have stronger identities as a result, but this system can also make many craftable weapons totally undesirable based on their attached skills. One benefit is that this does make room for the new custom-designed Artian weapons, which are forged from Tempered materials and can be strengthened further using additional items that form a long endgame grind.

All that being said, I don't feel underpowered. Monsters are most definitely dying. Would Wilds be more fun if monsters were harder and builds allowed for more skills? I think so, but I suppose that's what the inevitable Master Rank expansion is for.

It does help that decorations are largely deterministic and easy to come by. I already have what I'd consider a near-complete collection, though I'll keep doing Tempered hunts in search of ideal multi-skill decorations. Charm accessories round out your loadout with a few precious points in a range of armor skills, and you craft these directly just like in Monster Hunter World. It's fun and fairly straightforward to create a good build, especially with some quests offering smart workarounds to loot RNG. Investigation quests can guarantee rare rewards from specific monsters once you encounter them randomly in the world. That said, it often feels like I'm missing some skills. This does create compelling opportunity costs, but it can make High Rank gear feel even more underwhelming.

Sometimes too wild

This skill system was implemented partly to support the ability to change weapons mid-hunt via your Seikret, an incredible avian mount that can scoop you up after a monster flattens you, or ferry you around maps while only occasionally bricking the auto-pathing and running into a wall. You can bring two weapons with you on a hunt now, but to director Yuya Tokuda's dismay, this wasn't a feature I touched very much.

I usually bring a specific weapon and strategy for a hunt, and I'd rather just stick to it. You can do some interesting things with status effects, and I do think this feature will have more use in multiplayer, but it can feel like a solution looking for a problem. If there was a way to swap weapons without awkwardly mounting and then dismounting my Seikret, I'd probably be more interested.

The biggest problem I had with Monster Hunter Wilds is just how fiddly it can be. This is a cyclical game, so UI and UX jank can grate when it comes up every other cycle. When everything goes wrong at once, it can be frustrating.

The radial menu feels unresponsive. Sometimes your Seikret takes much longer to answer your call. Important NPCs can walk around, so they randomly won't be where you want them. Map notifications can delay your ability to open the freakin' map. The game randomly forgot that I've already encountered some monsters and replayed their unskippable intro shots. A few large monsters are prone to camera or environment hitches that make it impossible to see what's happening. Some monster spawns are a boring 60-second run from the closest camp, even with your handy temporary camps customized. The cooldowns on the wearable mantles with temporary bonuses don't reset after each hunt, so sometimes they just aren't available.

But Monster Hunter Wilds remains an incredible action RPG with the sharpest game feel in its series, albeit slightly blunted by small recurring snags and a few meandering features. I can easily see some of these problems being addressed in future patches, and I'm willing to give Wilds that optimism because what's here is ultimately sublime. I see myself putting several hundred hours into this game. It's my new favorite Monster Hunter and an early contender for game of the year.

It's set to be a stacked year, and Monster Hunter wilds is easily one of the best new games 2025 (check out our list for what to look forwards to next), and one of the best Monster Hunter games period.