This is it, hunters: it’s been a long, long wait for Monster Hunter Wilds, with five years somehow passing since we played the great World expansion Iceborne on PC. Sure we had a little hunting detour with 2022’s Monster Hunter Rise, but Monster Hunter: World’s successor is here at long last, and it’s pretty great. It’s also the first-ever Monster Hunter to debut on Steam at the same time it arrives on consoles, which means us PC gamers no longer have to walk around kicking rocks and staring longingly through the windows of our Xbox and PlayStation pals. We’re here too!
Monster Hunter Wilds is a massive game, and we have so much to talk about based on our experience playing in the lead-up to release: We’ve been hard at work putting together guides, a performance analysis, PSAs, and breakdowns of some of Wilds’ most complex features. We’ll be sharing all that here, along with live coverage of how Wilds’ launch plays out.
Keep checking back here for the latest on Steam concurrent records, amazing player feats, potential performance and server issues, and a mix of tips and series trivia from PC Gamer’s veteran hunters.
*taps mic* Is this thing on?
As I write this we’re exactly nine hours away from Monster Hunter Wilds’ release time on PC. A few lucky console players in futuristic timezones like “New Zealand”—questionably a real place—are already playing while the rest of us stare at Steam waiting for that beautiful green Play button to light up.
As consolation, I offer up a picture of some Palicos. And meat.
Our Monster Hunter Wilds review: ‘Best in class monster combat makes up for a wilderness that’s a touch too streamlined’
Capcom’s latest makes some big changes from its predecessors—and most of them pay off, as reviewer Lincoln Carpenter dives into in loads of detail in his 85% Monster Hunter Wilds review. With a decade of experience with the series under his belt, Lincoln came into Wilds ready to feel out how it’s evolved from past games. Here’s the topline takeaway:
“If there’s a word for Wilds, it’s streamlined. Sword fighting with tyrannosaurs and stitching their bits into belts is no longer chopped up between quest-sized chunks. Following a more straightforward, cinematic story, Wilds gives way to a seamless wilderness of rotating seasons and roaming beasts, where any hunting prep can be done in the moment and on the fly. It can feel like a wonder, but it’s not a wonder without a cost. In providing as much monster hunting as possible, Wilds has given up some of Monster Hunter’s charm.
But god, it feels good to fight those lizards. Throughout my almost 70 hours with Wilds, I could feel the 20 years of iteration behind its combat design. Hunting, as a rule, is a well fed occupation, but the latest round of tinkering with Monster Hunter’s 14 weapon types is a feast for every style of wyvern-slayer. Next to the flashy new attacks, fundamental bow and bowgun revisions, and Focus Strike finishers, there’s a subtler artistry in design here that’s easy to overlook. Small, considered tweaks—like new windows for adjusting your footing at the tail end of attack animations—make Wilds the smoothest Monster Hunter fighting has ever felt without sacrificing its meaty texture.”
The rest of our review breaks down where Wilds’ streamlining helps and hinders it, the impressive strides Capcom’s made in its storytelling, and what we make of the new environmental systems. Lincoln couldn’t tear himself away from Monster Hunter over the last couple weeks—except when the game forced him to take a break by crashing, an issue he encountered disappointingly often (seemingly due to DLSS Multi Frame Generation). Fortunately for other members of the team crashes were much less common, and disabling Frame Gen seemed to clear up his issue.
