Monster Hunter Wilds Review: Gameplay Impressions, Videos and Top Features

Monster Hunter Wilds from Capcom is by far one of the most anticipated releases of 2025 and a clear attempt at embracing the newfound gigantic audience for the series. 

A sequel to the wildly successful Monster Hunter: World from 2018, Wilds has an incredibly tough task in front of it—one-upping that game and incredible Iceborne expansion and Rise successes while streamlining the experience and ramping up the fun. 

No easy task. Due to its triumphs of late, Monster Hunter is no longer a niche series where hardcore difficulty and deep RPG systems with little handholding tucked in a confusing UI will get a pass. 

Wilds, then, attacks this task on all fronts not unlike how players attack giant monsters—piece by piece. There are big gameplay upgrades, technical feats abound, a more focused story and some very necessary smoothing to the systems.

Graphics and Gameplay

The Forbidden Lands have never looked better. 

Where Monster Hunter World sort of left out certain environments so that the Iceborne expansion felt unique, Wilds just throws everything at players. We’re talking lava in one place, snowy mountains in another, plus just a few mount rides away, deserts that feature lighting storms. It goes on and on.

The wildly diverse number of open-world biomes really leans into the new hardware behind consoles, too, permitting seamless transitions from one biome to another for the first time. That sounds like a little thing all games should have by now, but it’s truly impressive here when experiencing just how big and different the areas can be.

It all looks good and sounds great. There are some smudged pixels here and there, but the sense of scale when controlling a littler hunter against a monster the size of a skyscraper really sells the whole experience. Battle sounds, ambient noise and sheer density and sightlines of the locales really bring things together in a way that pops. 

It's a fluid, organic-feeling world that drives immersion. Like in World, players could stumble upon an unscripted battle between two of the massive monsters, stumble upon one of them preying on a herd of animals, or other similar details. 

Naturally occurring weather helps, too. Maybe best described as mini-seasons, each one will cycle through different statuses that impact gameplay and how monsters behave or even appear. 

Wilds offers up 14 weapon types this time out, though some notably have new moves and small tweaks. All the fan favorites like the insect glaive are here again and feel great. Combat is punchy and responsive. And even all these years later, it’s nice to just enjoy little modernizations like, say, not needing to stand completely still near a monster the size of a moon to maybe drink a potion. 

Rather than go wild (get it?) on the number of weapon types, Wilds chooses to mix up the formula in an almost unexpected way—players can carry two different weapons into the field and kit out as they see fit on the fly between the two.

Aiding in this loadout management is a new Seikret rideable mount, which comes with the expected clunky menus. But it’s nice to get around the world with and much, much nicer to simply have the option to mix things up. 

Players can use a “focus” mode to target monster weak points or amplify damage on wounded parts of monsters. This new wounds system feels like the entire crux of the combat loop now—identifying these damaged bits of monsters and keying attacks on those lead to big bonuses. 

Other evolutions in combat include new wrinkles to manage when guarding against monster attacks and even sneak attacks, enabling players to use a bit of stealth when engaging. 

These tweaks, new systems and gradual modernization do create some friction with overall difficulty, though. For veteran players of the series, the game just isn’t that hard. This isn’t a terrible thing. But a lack of challenge could mean less need to lean into the super-deep RPG elements and buildcrafting, too. 

Still, it’s a mileage-may-vary moment because skill gaps between players are so, so different. And the steady rollout of endgame additions after launch, as always, will address this. 

Story and More

Easily the best character creator in the series to date leads to some predictable story beats—the player’s character is a special hunter chosen to look into extinct monsters and a supposedly lost human settlement in the Forbidden Lands. 

The narrative is heartfelt in some areas, completely ridiculous in others. Members of the supporting cast are memorable, at least, which should keep players interested enough to see where things go. 

Wilds will get some deserved backlash for on-rails segments. It’s extremely frustrating to go into what is obviously an open-world sequence and attempt to walk off the intended path during a segment, only to get rubber-banded back to where the game wants players. 

Still, the story does its job, even if it’s on the shorter side now. Again, this is something longtime fans of the series might bemoan. But allowing newer players to “beat” the game quickly has its benefits and getting them in the endgame quicker might create a new generation of hardcore series fans. And the endgame is the goal, right? Endgame grinders haven’t been buying the series for its engaging campaigns in the past, anyway. 

The game does go to some interesting and possibly polarizing directions with progression and skill points. Weapons now strictly house specialist and damage skills, while armor boasts utility skills and the rest. 

It’s a welcome change once accustomed to it, though, because it means no longer needing to recraft an entire kit of armor just to try a new weapon. And it also must be a necessary one, because how else could players now switch to a completely different weapon type at their mount while out in the world? 

Wilds will perhaps get some backlash for streamlining the buildcrafting a little in this manner. But it feels like a sleek modernization of the formula, too. 

The game smooths out other problematic, grindy aspects from prior games, too. Cooking is the best example—finding resources out in the wild and brewing them together for buffs and whatnot is still a must. But now the consumed item creates a timer that doesn’t expire and even pauses while in towns. 

The result? Less menu slogging across vendors for notable chunks of time between every single hunt. That means more time out in the world exploring and hunting monsters which, in a game literally called monster hunter, is a pretty great development. 

Like its predecessors, the real meat of Wilds feels like the endgame loop after the main story has been completed. There, players can attack High Rank missions and dig even deeper into the world. 

Multiplayer gets handled in much of the same fashion as before. Players can launch an SOS flair to request help from other players in their own game instance. Otherwise, they can play solo or with AI-controlled hunters in parties of up to four.

It would’ve been nice if some of the jank from prior games had been addressed. The radial menu is still a pain and the UI cluttered. Bringing up the map can lag. Like games such as Elden Ring, stunning menu jank and lack of explanations shouldn’t go ignored simply because everything else is so engaging. 

Wilds does attempt to dish out tutorials, at least. There is a strong suite of options and even some surprising control over customizing the radial menu and even what appears on the UI—but actually figuring out how to tweak these things in the layers upon layers of menus could use a tutorial of its own. 

Performance, at least on PC, is very hit or miss, too, but unlike the menu issues, could get smoothed out or outright fixed in post-launch updates. 

Conclusion

Wilds is easily the best game in Monster Hunter’s long-running, successful history. 

No action RPG continues to nail down this amount of depth, scale and world immersion. Even better, the attempt to be as accessible as possible should have the intended effect and some important streamlining makes the whole experience less tedious. 

Luckily for Wilds, some of its bigger shortcomings are easily addressed. Veteran players shouldn’t necessarily have to wait for deep endgame or even post-launch additions for serious challenges, but there’s something to be said for enjoying the ride these games so often present. 

Wilds is refreshing for its modernizations, though one has to hope the nightmare UI is the next monster the series slays. Until then, it’s the best entry yet and impressively manages the gap between newcomers and veterans, even if the latter need to seek out the endgame in a hurry.