Monster Hunter Wilds Dynamic Weather Blew Me Away

The Monster Hunter series, in recent times, has become one of my favorite to play. I got my introduction to the games with Monster Hunter: World and spent a ludicrous amount of time playing Monster Hunter Rise when it launched on the Nintendo Switch. It’s not just me who enjoys the games, though.

The series is now one of Capcom’s most lucrative, with the company’s two best-selling titles of all time being those I just mentioned. So, with Rise now over three years old, it was only natural that Capcom had the franchise’s next entry up its sleeves. At Summer Game Fest this year, I got a first look at a behind-closed-doors presentation of the next game, Monster Hunter Wilds, and it looks set to take the series to a whole new height.

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A common complaint about the Monster Hunter series is that the games can feel quite fragmented. You head to the quest board, accept a quest, head to the restaurant area, eat, head out on a hunt, kill the monster, and then automatically get returned to base. Wilds does away with a lot of this.

Instead of heading to the quest board, you’re free to head out straight into the game’s open world. From there, you’ll be able to set up a basecamp, which serves as a fast-travel point, and figure out which monsters are roaming the area. You’ll then head off deeper into the wilderness, choose your target and begin the hunt, which will only officially begin once you’ve wailed on a monster for long enough. After defeating your foe, rather than a countdown timer that threatens to return you to the hub, you’re free to carve the monster and then continue the hunt.

All of this means there’s less back and forward between hunts and the hub, and it gives the game a level of fluidity that’s unparalleled when compared to other titles in the series.

The environment I got to see during the presentation looked stereotypically Monster Hunter. Quoted as being double the size of many other locations in the series, the area was a giant desert, filled with flora and fauna, various pathways and cliffs and dirt mounds for added verticality. Before reaching the main environment, however, our hunter had to pass through a small village full of people, here, they could purchase specific local items and pick up sidequests from the inhabitants.

While the environment itself didn’t blow me away, there are only so many times a desert can be exciting, the sheer scale of things, coupled with its new quirks and dynamic features only served to raise my enthusiasm.

A Dynamic Experience

Although Monster Hunter Wilds’ new flow impressed me, it was the game’s dynamic weather that got me most excited.

During my preview, while our hunter was exploring, a giant sandstorm whipped up, causing massive changes to the area. This sandstorm caused certain endemic life to appear and others disappear, dangerous flash fires to materialize, monsters to become more aggressive, and most importantly, the appearance of the region’s “Apex Monster”. This new monster, an electric-using wyvern, was extremely combative, using the lightning caused by the sandstorm to power up its attacks and damage everything in its path.

After a chaotic few minutes, which saw a turf war between the Apex and the Doshaguma we were hunting, the sandstorm passed, the Apex disappeared, endemic life reemerged and normality was restored to the area.

Now, dynamic weather is nothing new in games. It’s been around for years, but I’ve never seen it have so much of an impact as I did in my time watching somebody play Monster Hunter Wilds. One small change to the weather made it seem like the game was being played in a whole new region, and that’s exciting.

It’s Still Monster Hunter, And That’s Good

Monster Hunter Wilds looks like it’s going to usher in a new era for the series. It makes some drastic changes to the flow of the game, including allowing you to carry multiple weapons on your hunt, but it never loses sight of what it is.

The game’s core loop remains fundamentally the same, hunt monsters to craft better equipment, rinse and repeat. Capcom clearly had a vision of what they wanted from the next Monster Hunter title, and from the short piece of gameplay I’ve seen, it looks like it’s been executed perfectly. The changes are going to be more than enough to delight long-term fans, it just remains to be seen whether it makes the game even more daunting for beginners to jump into.

You can check out all of our coverage from this year’s Summer Game Fest right here.