The Monster Hunter Wilds open world is different, but during the open beta it turns out to be a real treasure trove.
Monster Hunter Wilds is an interesting case. The open world is different, unconventionaland hardly comparable to what characterizes Assassin’s Creed or Red Dead Redemption.
The closest comparison is perhaps Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but instead of exploring, the game world invites you to use it much more.
Since Monster Hunter Wilds is a hunting game at its core, you see the world through the lens of a hunter. Only by learning to read it, adapting and being clever will it become a powerful tool full of surprises.
That’s exactly what I experience during the open beta when I plunge into the successor to Monster Hunter World for the first time and explore the first area freely.
This world is made for Monster Hunter fansand tries to pick up newcomers with a lot of comfort – but whether it really succeeds depends entirely on your curiosity.
What did we play?
From October 29 to 30, the open beta was already playable on the PS5 for PlayStation Plus customers. The same beta starts on November 1 for everyone on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series.
Off to new hunting grounds
At the beginning of the game, I first create my character and experience the prelude to Monster Hunter Wilds, which uses stylish cutscenes to explain how I ended up in my hunting ground in the first place. My colleague Fabiano was able to experience these scenes during gamescom.
Although the epic hunting sequence builds up a lot of atmosphere, it remains to be seen how much the story of Wilds can inspire – at least in Worlds, it was often more of a vehicle to take you from one monster to the next. Prior knowledge from the predecessor is therefore unnecessary.
During the first mission, you’ll defeat a chatacabra (a giant toad-like monster) and learn the basics of hunting and get your first weapon. Monster Hunter Wilds is basically a series of boss fights in which you beat or shoot beasts with one of 14 weapons and reel off combos until the creatures go down.
If you use the right attacks, buffs, traps, bombs and your surroundings, you’ll be able to take down the creatures much more easily. You can then use your loot to craft ever better weapons and armor.
After the first successful hunt, the game releases you into the expansive desert area, where you are free to move around and hunt other monsters independently
These cover how you can fully enjoy the beta gameplay. In this preview, however, I want to focus primarily on what the game world of Monster Hunter Wilds can do and whether it is worthwhile for open-world fans.
What does the open world of Monster Hunter Wilds have to offer?
Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t have one big open world, but ratherseveral (but very expansive) areaswith different monsters and biomes. Wind Flat is characterized by prairie grass, sand dunes and dangerous thunderstorms that whip across the rough land at regular intervals, kicking up a lot of dust.
Unlike other open worlds, you won’t find treasure chests or quest givers among the jagged stones. Instead, the experience is designed entirely for hunting: you can either accept a quest in your main camp and let your Saikrii mount take you directly to it, or you can explore on your own.
On the way, you set up camp at predetermined locations. In the tents, you can change your equipment, get supplies from your storage chest, or cook a meal for bonuses and buffs. The world is also full of resources for gathering and crafting – ores, beetles, herbs, and more, from which you can make potions, traps, bombs, or projectiles.
Compared to other open worlds, this may not sound particularly appealing, as if the world were merely a means to an end.
When the game world and gameplay are one
The veins of this open world pulsate with life, which often only reveals itself when you look closely. When a storm is approaching and lightning flashes down from the sky, the female ceratonoths, for example, hide around the males, who function like living lightning rods with their huge spines on their backs. This is how they protect their herd.
When large monsters meet, territorial conflicts suddenly break out, as we already know from the prequel. Recently, however, smaller packs of monsters have also been added, and they latch onto the opponent that is inferior. Eat or be eaten.
Be careful: flying wyverns sometimes get struck by lightning when they fly too high, and I have to be careful when riding across an open area. If I fight with a weapon that produces fire (such as the spark-spraying gun lance), it can start a prairie fire.
The world of Monster Hunter Wilds is a gameplay sandbox that I can use for my own purposes. Why not drive a herd in a certain direction with fire, then isolate the Alpha using a Dunggalobe and then make a boulder fall from the ceiling?
Everywhere there are natural traps or terrain that makes hunting easier for me, for example by allowing me to attack from above. Or I provoke a territorial fight to finish off the loser monster.
Monster Hunter has a world to try out and think about. Everywhere I go, I find winding paths, cave systems, open plains or oases, and I immediately think about whether and how I can use them for myself in battle.
Who is the open world suitable for?
Whether you can give this game world a chance depends on how much fun you have with the game mechanics.The core discipline of Monster Hunter is and remains the fights, some of which can last almost an hour.
You must enjoy constantly optimizing, crafting new equipment, and tirelessly practicing combos until they are mastered and you can playfully dance around the huge beasts. This is extremely satisfying, but also hard work.
If you see the world as an opportunity to make fights easier for yourself – be it through crafting materials or clever environmental effects – you will have a lot of fun with it. Even in the open beta, curious and fascinating details await you at almost every corner, either making the animal world more credible or giving you real advantages in gameplay.
Alone: Apart from that, there is little to discover in . Perhaps the final game will offer one or two quests or surprises that reveal themselves in the open world away from combat. However, you will almost certainly look in vain for a sophisticated subplot including missions and hidden challenges.
In addition, while the world is visually appealing and diverse, it can’t keep up with the breathtaking scenery of some of the open worlds out there. A Red Dead Redemption 2, with its bustling cities and fog-shrouded swamps, creates a completely different atmosphere, as does a Horizon Zero Dawn. When playing the remaster, I currently want to hit the screenshot button every two minutes, while the warm spring light reaches out for me through a dense canopy of leaves and the snow slowly melts between the red grasses.
Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t primarily want to offer such an organic virtual landscape, but rather create an optimal hunting ground for you and the monsters that live in it.
The editorial team’s conclusion
I not only love Monster Hunter, but also open worlds. So I really like the new direction Wilds is taking, especially since the developers are putting so much emphasis on details to make hunting even more creative and versatile. Although I keep hunting the same beasts, no two missions feel the same – simply because so much can happen that I hadn’t anticipated. On top of that, I can always change my equipment or bring in additional players, so my own variables are always changing too.
At the same time, however, it’s important to adjust your own expectations of the gaming experience. Monster Hunter Wilds won’t become a classic open-world game with a story focus, quests, and side activities like the ones you’d find in Horizon, Witcher, and the like overnight.
Those who have never been able to get into the Monster Hunter formula will probably not be happy with Wilds either. The fights are and remain the centerpiece of the series, as does the loot spiral à la Diablo, which ideally motivates you to slay monsters multiple times and become stronger and more efficient in the process.
Nevertheless, I believe that Wilds could convince some people who were still unsure about MH World to join the series with this installment. After all, the worlds look even better and there are many additional comfort features such as the mount, the automatic potion selection or AI helpers that make the experience even more accessible for new hunters.
