Monster Hunter Wilds

Monster Hunter Wilds is the best Monster Hunter game we’ve ever had. The best storyline, the best visuals, and changes to the combat that revolutionise the way the game plays. That said, striving for the widest audience yet has dulled some of the series difficulty, and you may have to wait for the toughest parts of Wilds to fully reveal themselves.

Monster Hunter Wilds suffers from some performance issues, the environments are often bland, and the story feels superfluous, but when you're face-to-face with a fearsome monster, few situations are quite as riveting. Monster Hunter Wilds may only make iterative improvements to further refine the formula, but that's all it really needed to do.

Monster Hunter Wilds is a fun experience and has all the staples that make the series so enjoyable. Unfortunately, some choices make it hard to enjoy yourself for a significant amount of time while making your way to the portion of the game that you’re trying to experience. The main story aims to provide players with a more immersive experience, but ends up getting in the way of the fighting monsters at a reliable pace, forcing you from point A to B frequently before allowing you to engage with these newly-added monsters.

Monster Hunter Wilds is the most sophisticated Monster Hunter game, ever. It is absolutely teeming with stuff to do, it has been streamlined in a smart, player-friendly way, and it layers on so many little boons and boosts compared to Worlds that it’s impossible to see where Capcom could possibly go next.

But taking a step back, Wilds remains an exhilarating piece of work - so refined, so alive, so giddily, chaotically joyful when it all comes together that it feels like the ultimate culmination of everything the series has been working toward over the last two decades.

Capcom went a little too far in its effort to make the game more accessible to the masses, to the point where it risks alienating its most hardcore fans. Even so, what's here is a meaty experience that scratches that Monster Hunter itch, as long as you don't rely too much on the SOS flare support hunters.

With the best combat and narrative in a 20-year series of action RPGs, Monster Hunter Wilds is the new peak of Monster Hunter, only further enlivened by a colorful cast of monsters that defies longtime design conventions.

Monster Hunter Wilds is a beautiful and addictive entry into the series that brings along polish and clears up some oldschool clutter. An excellent entry point for newcomers to the franchise, its superb gameplay and multiplayer experience will keep veterans entertained for many months to come