Monster Hunter Wilds is probably the most seamless, sprawling open world Capcom has crafted for the sequence… not that you just’d discover. The introduction of the Seikret—Wilds’ trusty chocobo-adjacent mount—has been each a blessing and a curse throughout my 100 hours playtime.
Getting from camp to monster has by no means been so painless: Seikrets are speedy, by no means get misplaced (till they get caught within the odd pathing loop), and even allow you to go completely hands-off when you do not feel like pushing an analog stick for 2 minutes—although I positively suggest you tweak a few of these Seikret settings to make the controls just a little extra direct. Hell, there’s hardly a useful resource node I’ve to dismount to gather, both, with nearly every part gatherable with a fast zap of my Hook Slinger or by grabbing it as my fowl zooms shut sufficient to a herb or honey hive.
However with nice pace comes a surprising lack of spatial consciousness. It means I am usually blitzing previous Wilds’ zones, barely taking any time to scent the roses—or inhale approach an excessive amount of sand mud, reasonably. It is a disgrace, too, as a result of every distinct biome in Wilds is plagued by beautiful spots. There’s the cascading waters of Scarlet Forest, the massive sand dunes of Windward Plains and the spitting, spluttering puddles of crude oil in Oilwell Basin. Attractive stuff that is principally only a blur on my Seikret.
The gameplay loop has been plucked and pruned like a 2000s eyebrow, going only a tad overboard with streamlining
Monster Hunter Wilds is a recreation obsessive about transferring you alongside: No investigating tracks like World, nearly each monster is instantly marked on the map even once they have not been found but, and a lot of the story is spent driving you from one hunt to a different. The gameplay loop has been plucked and pruned like a 2000s eyebrow, going only a tad overboard with streamlining the entire means of prepping, monitoring and ultimately searching my foe.
All of meaning there’s not often a second the place you want to cease. It took me till I might hunted nearly each monster and accomplished each aspect quest to say to myself: “Hey, I might simply get off this rattling factor and journey the quaint approach.”
Was I making issues tougher for myself? Certain, I assume, but it surely was an opportunity to intentionally decelerate and recognize what the Forbidden Lands has to supply.
Sadly there isn’t any strategy to straight-up steady your Seikret—it will comply with you round like a misplaced pet wherever you go—however making the hassle to hop off and have a wander round my surroundings did give me that little little bit of eager for the extra leisurely tempo of Monster Hunter: World. I am not seeking to get misplaced within the Historical Forest for 20 minutes and run round in circles looking for some huge outdated monster footprint. However to me, the lulls between hunts are simply as necessary because the grand fights themselves. They’re moments to take a step again: examine my stock, observe the endemic life, possibly even do a spot of fishing earlier than taking my Searching Horn to a Doshaguma cranium.
Having my very own two toes trekking alongside areas reasonably than scaly wyvern claws opened my eyes to the sheer scope of Wilds’ world. It isn’t fairly as densely embellished and node-filled as World—it is kind of like when MMOs add flying and have to artificially plump up a map’s actual property so you are not bouncing off the invisible partitions—however these big sand pits look an entire lot larger when it was simply little outdated me sinking straight into ’em.
The largest bummer is that I could not go for doing this full-time. In the end my finger was always twitching over that d-pad, in search of the simpler journey, and every space is scattered with Seikret-exclusive paths that require you to hop in your fowl to achieve in any other case inaccessible nooks. We’ll at all times finally select comfort when it is supplied to us, however I feel it is nicely value taking 5 minutes once in a while to get your steps in and hunt down the prettiest, quietest spots every biome has to supply.
