Monster Hunter Wilds Beta Impressions (and maybe a full-release thread)

[FakeSympathy]

Alright, here we go with beta impressions. Also hoping to turn this into a thread to discuss the game post-launch. I am playing this on PC, with a RTX 3080, i5-13600k, 32 GB RAM.

Let's start off with some good stuff; The graphics are awesome! The environment looks very beautiful. While I do miss MH: World's saturated colors, I think this gritty color tone works really well. There are some texture glitches which can be distracting, which I assume will be addressed at the fulll release

The character creation is great, although I do think the options weren't as detailed as compared to Dragon's Dogma 2. Don't get me wrong, I loved the process of re-creating my horrible face virtually, but I feel like there were some options that would've benefitted to fully express myself.

For Palicos, you have options to give them either the classic felyne voice or human voice. I personally would advice against the human voice. This is something that I knew I was gonna do since the gameplay reveal; Because goddamn, I am not listening to a squeaky voice that makes cat puns for hours on end.

Your Hunter also gets a voice during cutscenes, but their dialogs are kept to a minimum. Very simple responses and all. It's probably for the best, as it certainly beats the protagonist with crappy dialogs and voice line deliveries (I'm looking at you, Ubisoft!)

As for the gameplay of hunting monsters, there are three major things that will impact the gameplay;

• You know have seikret, a bird-velocitraptor creature you can mount to quickly get around. You can switch between two weapons when you are on seikret, use weapons while riding, perform attacks mounting off of them, heal, or sharpen your weapon. I think they are rather an excellent addition, because they also double as auto-tracker for the monsters and means of escape in a tricky situation
• There is now a thing called focus mode, which let's to see monsters' wounds and injuries. There are certain moves that are specifically for focus mode, which deals extra damage when you hit the said wounds and injuries.
• Finally, there is now changing weather. In the beta you have access to a desert area, which sometimes have thunderstorm going on. The lightnings, if positioned correctly, can damage either the monsters or you.

The NPCs now have actual names. Your Handler is called Alma, and I can already tell she has better personality than the MH World's Handler.

Cooking means in the camp..... HOLY SHIT, did they put lots of effort into it. Not only are the animation crisp as fuck, but there are also details on the ingredients you put into the dish. It's currently 10:11 pm as of this post, and looking at these meals makes me hungry. Goddamn it.

I'd say this game will definitely be one of my earliest purchases of 2025. It looks so good so far!

 

[Dreiko]

I'm kinda swamped with Strive and Granblue getting new chars back to back and nearly beating Metaphor so I just skipped the beta but I'm super excited about this game. Gonna be playing on ps5 so not worried about the requirements and so on. I heard you even get some little trinkets for having a MHW/iceborn save on your system which is hype. I may boot it up again for a bit to warm up my longsword arm.

Also if I got the release date right (feb 28) it's coming out 1 day after my birthday, so it's gonna be the perfect present!

 

[Bob_McMillan]

The game looks so amazing, to the point that I'm almost sure my PC won't be able to satisfactorily run it. Same for my girlfriend's Steam Deck. Not to mention the new 70 dollar price tag, which is much uncomfortably higher than the last game I bought brand nee. Which sucks, because I really loved World.

We're playing Rise right now, and man, it just falls so incredibly short of our experience with World. Really want to get Wilds, but I think we're gonna have to wait a year or two.

 

[Dreiko]

The game looks so amazing, to the point that I'm almost sure my PC won't be able to satisfactorily run it. Same for my girlfriend's Steam Deck. Not to mention the new 70 dollar price tag, which is much uncomfortably higher than the last game I bought brand nee. Which sucks, because I really loved World.

We're playing Rise right now, and man, it just falls so incredibly short of our experience with World. Really want to get Wilds, but I think we're gonna have to wait a year or two.

Rising is more on par with the older monhun games which were primarily made for handheld consoles like the 3ds or the psp, especially in Japan back in the day it was by far the most played thing on psp and it sold a ton of that system. MHW was the new experiment taking it into a new direction with regards to scope and it had a much larger budget for that. Rising was a switch game originally so it was limited due to that but this game is going for that larger than ever scope again and yeah it shows.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Rising is more on par with the older monhun games which were primarily made for handheld consoles like the 3ds or the psp, especially in Japan back in the day it was by far the most played thing on psp and it sold a ton of that system. MHW was the new experiment taking it into a new direction with regards to scope and it had a much larger budget for that. Rising was a switch game originally so it was limited due to that but this game is going for that larger than ever scope again and yeah it shows.

I'm aware of that World isn't exactly representative of the series as a whole, and that Rise is more or less a Switch port. But man, I was just not ready for how much of a step down Rise felt in comparison. I was expecting worse graphics, but just the feel of the game in general feels worse.

 

[Worgen]

Seems neat, but I'm not really into its type of game anymore. The essence of the gameplay loop still kinda comes down to ganging up on an animal enough till it limps off and you have to chase it down and kill it. Lizard bird makes it tempting, but... ehh.

 

[Dreiko]

Seems neat, but I'm not really into its type of game anymore. The essence of the gameplay loop still kinda comes down to ganging up on an animal enough till it limps off and you have to chase it down and kill it. Lizard bird makes it tempting, but... ehh.

I always play it single player where it's more challenging so maybe try that, it feels like souls boss fights, though not all of these will run away to their nest, there's a lot of new behaviors now. Some just get angry, some call for help, there's prolly other stuff I don't know of either.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Seems neat, but I'm not really into its type of game anymore. The essence of the gameplay loop still kinda comes down to ganging up on an animal enough till it limps off and you have to chase it down and kill it. Lizard bird makes it tempting, but... ehh.

Yes, the prime focus of the gameplay loop is basically "group up and hit it till it dies!" The mounts makes following the monsters much more easier, because you can easily catch up to them in matter of seconds. It's something that I had gripes with in MH Worlds. Something that I would love is to easily jump off from the lizard brid and mount the monster, which currently feels awkward to pull off.

It should also be noted that the maps are now bigger to compensate for how fast you can move around. Normally this seem to mean a big empty field, but in this game something always seem to be going on.

But it looks like the story and the characters might be shallow as how they always have been, despite the improved character design of your handler

 

[Bob_McMillan]

Yes, the prime focus of the gameplay loop is basically "group up and hit it till it dies!" The mounts makes following the monsters much more easier, because you can easily catch up to them in matter of seconds. It's something that I had gripes with in MH Worlds. Something that I would love is to easily jump off from the lizard brid and mount the monster, which currently feels awkward to pull off.

It should also be noted that the maps are now bigger to compensate for how fast you can move around. Normally this seem to mean a big empty field, but in this game something always seem to be going on.

But it looks like the story and the characters might be shallow as how they always have been, despite the improved character design of your handler

Now that I'm playing Rise, I am worried about the maps in Wilds. They gave you a mount in Rise as well, and while it feels super convenient, the bigger but very empty maps felt so lifeless. Did they increase the number of smaller monsters in Wilds?

 

[Worgen]

But it looks like the story and the characters might be shallow as how they always have been, despite the improved character design of your handler

Monster hunter has always had stories that exist. Thats the best you can say about them. But the rpg side game Monster Hunter stories 2 had a really good interesting one.

I always play it single player where it's more challenging so maybe try that, it feels like souls boss fights, though not all of these will run away to their nest, there's a lot of new behaviors now. Some just get angry, some call for help, there's prolly other stuff I don't know of either.

Ehh. Kinda the same thing, really at this point I would rather more 'Monster Hunter Stories' series. They have all these awesome monster designs and mostly you just end up killing them. I would rather be pals since they are so damn cool.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Now that I'm playing Rise, I am worried about the maps in Wilds. They gave you a mount in Rise as well, and while it feels super convenient, the bigger but very empty maps felt so lifeless. Did they increase the number of smaller monsters in Wilds?

Well, the current area in the beta seems to be savannah-inspired, which seem to be culmination of grasslands and desert. And I guess they were going for a "realistic" ecosystem here, because the smaller, non-hostile monsters are gathered in the grassland, while the desert area seems to be reserved for toughest of the monsters.

The number of smaller monsters at least seems bigger than MH World, but it's not to the point of the area being saturated with them; the way they group up in a herd seem to make sense.

Also, while the bird velociraptors are fun to ride, you can't jump with them. If you try to jump, your character will jump off from the mount, which I guess can be used for jump attacks or to mount monsters. the mounts only seem to jump during scripted scenarios while traversing the map.

MORE on beta:

So I just realized Alma the Handler actually COMES WITH YOU during the hunts instead of sitting on her ass at the camp. Right now her only purpose seems to be to accept quests and look for hunt lobbies to join other players, but I am hoping more options will be added. The word "teamwork" makes so much more sense now.

Speaking of lobbies, everyone seems to log in to the same lobby, which can create lags and frame rate drops for some of you. Right now, there is no option to create your own lobby. I think I preferred the World's style of you being the only player character in the main hub. Because it feels really crowded right now.

Not to mention, the many shops and services that you'd expect from the hub area are currently unavailable. I mean you can tell what they are supposed to be, and I guess because it's beta I shouldn't expect much, I would've loved to see at least one tier of weapon upgrades. Gathering ores and scavenging for monster parts are still there, but they feel meaningless without the ability to upgrade.

Gathering materials in the overworld are still there. They seem awfully generous with herbs and honey to make mega potions, and plants and bugs that insta-heals you.

 

[Worgen]