Beating up monsters and turning them into pants: A “Monster Hunter Wilds” review
Colby Craig, Staff Writer
On Friday, 28 of Feb. 2025, “Monster Hunter Wilds” was released to the public. When it was announced back in 2023, many people were instantly excited about what was to come for the franchise that dates back all the way to 2004 for North America. The long-running franchise has undergone many ups and downs, but it has been in a stable spot since the most recent release.
I started Wilds the Monday after its release so that I could experience the game with friends. In my time playing the game, I have had a blast.
For starters, I absolutely love all the new monster designs and new mechanics attached to each weapon in the game. Power clashes, focus mode and even the ability to bring two weapons with you on a quest all make the game a completely new experience than the others. My personal favorite monster that I have fought so far has been the Black Flame, but that may change as I progress. I cannot speak for the other weapons, but Insect Glaive feels just as good as it always has if not better. On the word of my friend “Kohsta,” Switch Axe feels better than it ever has too.
One big addition that came with Wilds was the new wound mechanic. To pair with focus mode, the wound mechanic provides a way to dish out more damage while keeping the fluidity of combat. When you deal damage to a specific part of the monster, you make a wound on it. When the wound appears, you can keep attacking it for increased damage until the wound breaks. It helps with keeping the monster staggered for you or your team to keep the damage coming. Everything about combat feels great but the wound mechanic makes it feel even better.
With that being said, I do think there are things that could be better. As I understand, Wilds took a very different approach to the game by focusing more on the story than the previous games. This is a good thing in my opinion, but some choices that were made to focus more on the story have been a little questionable.
One of my biggest problems with my experience has been being forced into a “railroad” cutscene every time that I want to progress the story. Things like not being able to move on my own during a “walk and talk” cutscene, being forced to look at the environment instead of exploring it for myself, and the recurring problem of not being able to have my friends join me on a quest until I’ve seen the cutscene attached to that quest, all make the game feel a little difficult to enjoy at times.
Even though these things have been somewhat annoying, the biggest problem that I have is not exactly with Wilds specifically, but the gaming industry as a whole. There have been many instances of games being poorly optimized at launch, and the problem has not gotten better. Modern games boast their visual appeal more than anything else, and poor game optimization makes that appeal a problem.
I personally have not run into any problems with performance because I have a pretty high-end computer, but many of my friends have been having trouble. The community feels as though the problem could be alleviated with a little fine tuning, but it hasn’t stopped them from playing the game.
In my 18.1 total hours playing Wilds, I would give the game an 8/10 and wish I could take more time to play. With more content updates, I will hopefully be bumping that up in the future. There is a strong future for the Monster Hunter franchise, and I’m glad to be a part of it.
My computer specs for those who can interpret them:
Motherboard: Gigabyte B650 X AX V2
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7900x
RAM: 32 GB 6000 MHz DDR5 Corsair Vengeance
GPU: GeForce RTX 4060 TI Ventus 2x Black 16 GDDR6 OC
