Monster Hunter Wilds It's a blast. As someone who's been around since the PSP days of the series, I think it's a little 'too easy', but combat never felt better And there's a serious commitment to telling a fun story before getting into the endgame grind. That said, if these games are becoming more wordy, the series' key creatives should sit down and discuss what they really want to say about nature and hunting. 🌲🎮
After a much better start and several hours focused on history Before the credits roll and the narrative continues with the HR and Tempered hunts, Monster Hunter Wilds fully embraces what it's all about: bashing wyverns over the head with massive hammers and ripping apart beasts with extreme determination. Despite the beautifully rendered environments, the Monster Hunter series has always been quite violent. How do we reconcile that with a progressive environmental message? Uh, you don't really.
I'll be the first to admit it's a tricky river to navigate. On one hand, you need to deliver on the basic premise of chasing a ton of monsters to craft cool hats and giant swords. On the other, you want to communicate important things, because expensive video games that only run on good vibes are a dying breed. Plus, you want to attract more players to push the revenue figures even higher, and people like stories. It's all a gimmick, of course; the ultimate goal is to get players focused on the solid hunting-loot-crafting loop that is Monster Hunter's core identity. 💰✨
Looking at the data for the first month, it seems Capcom has had a great success in one way or another. Was a cinematic-heavy main quest the secret sauce the series was missing to capture more people's attention? Uh, probably not, especially when you consider that Wilds' narrative is a mess once you reflect on it for a while. 🤔
Monster Hunter Wilds review: "The new peak of the series and an early contender for Game of the Year"
Monster Hunter pre-World was largely devoid of plot. You only had a short description for each quest and a bit of thin narrative about why you needed to eradicate a large animal. It was possible to learn more about the world, the lore, and the role of the hunters if you put in the time, but the general assumption was that they were a defensive force, protecting towns, villages, and small settlements from overly aggressive giant animals.
In 2018, Monster Hunter World came to tell us a much more serious and exciting story, with cinematics and surprising twists 🎬🐉. This is where the first challenges began to appear. The New World is being altered by the Elder Dragons, and there is also a thorny beast called Nergigante which is causing problems between them 🦇⚔️.
It all becomes a big chain of anomalous events, though every now and then we're reminded that they're natural phenomena, just very rare 🌿🌪️. The relationship between humans, Wyverians, Troverians, and Lynians (the four sentient races of this world) with nature has always been sustainable 🌎🤝, so you can already imagine where this story is going.
The expedition that arrives in the New World isn't looking to build cities or exploit resources to the point of razing the land, so at least that's a point in its favor 👍🏽🏞️.
Because World needed big narrative moments and even bigger threats, such natural cycles were treated as impending catastrophes that needed to be stopped, essentially turning hunters into superheroes. Humanity began interfering in its own way, oblivious to the natural order of a newly discovered continent and fabricating excuses to take down creatures that were just doing their own thing. Oops. 😬
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(Image credit: Capcom)
By putting a greater emphasis on story and answering the whys and hows that were generally avoided in the past, Monster Hunter could have written itself into a corner.
After Rise took things in a more classic direction, Monster Hunter Wilds enters the angle of 'saving nature from nature' 🌿, with more cinematics and slow-paced sections this time around. After several terrifying encounters with monsters 🐉 and investigations to learn about the beast 'White Wrath', there's a perfect twist that blames the ancient Wyverian civilization and a power source that caused the ruin ⚡.
Although he could not retroactively fix the friction found in the history of World, was the perfect way to make Wilds had both high stakes and justified the continued slaughter of every monster doing monster things throughout the Forbidden Lands 🏞️.
“Habitats are in bad shape; we need to correct the mistakes of the past.”
Enough. 👍
The problem is… the plot just keeps going after the credits. With the previously 'broken' environments now restored to their former richness and ancient species returning, the hunters can return to their normal activities. Fabius, a prominent figure in the Hunters' Guild, makes a grand statement to his assistant about how hunters will always fix what's broken and such. How do you properly decide what needs fixing (killing), though? Look, this wouldn't be a problem if Monster Hunter humanity was more like ours (we're bad at preserving the environment), but that's not the case.
(Image credit: Capcom)
After that, Gore Magala shows up to ruin everyone's week with her virus and other surprises to put more pressure on the hunters. The story also continues to veer violently between Nata, who's sad about having to kill monsters that have gotten out of hand, and every change in the environments is treated as something that needs fixing by Fabius. Why can't we just have forgettable excuses like protecting roads or livestock again after we've wrapped up the 'one civilization screwed up, really' thing that sort of works? 🤷♂️
By placing a greater emphasis on story and answering the whys and hows that have generally been avoided in the past, Monster Hunter could have written itself into a corner. If the series "needs" to evolve and become more serious because the powers that be want to make ambitious attempts, having a narrative with something coherent to say would be a good starting point. As it stands, Wilds' discourse on nature is confusing and can't rise above the real needs of the game.
In conclusion, Monster Hunter Wilds represents an interesting evolution for the series 🎮, attempting to combine a deeper narrative 📖 with its iconic hunting and crafting cycle 🐉. However, this effort to tackle environmental themes 🌿 and give weight to the story ends up being a double-edged sword ⚔️: while the game offers memorable moments ✨ and a visually stunning world 🌍, its message about nature and conservation often feels contradictory and incoherent.
The tension between the violence inherent in hunting 🦌 and the attempt to convey an ecological discourse 🌱 reflects the difficulties of balancing entertainment 🎉 and message in a title of this magnitude.
Ultimately, Wilds It shows that while storytelling can add interesting layers 🧩, the heart of Monster Hunter remains the hunting experience itself 🎯, and that for future installments, a clearer and more consistent focus on what to communicate could further strengthen the connection between story and player 🤝.
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After a much better start and several hours focused on history Before the credits roll and the narrative continues with the HR and Tempered hunts, Monster Hunter Wilds fully embraces what it's all about: bashing wyverns over the head with massive hammers and ripping apart beasts with extreme determination. Despite the beautifully rendered environments, the Monster Hunter series has always been quite violent. How do we reconcile that with a progressive environmental message? Uh, you don't really.
