People really love Monster Hunter. No, you don’t get it. People really love Monster Hunter.
The open beta for Monster Hunter Wilds arrived on PS5 and PC yesterday and the latter has already reached a concurrent player count of almost 400,000. That isn’t counting consoles, so it isn’t unusual to think that millions are already playing a very small slice of the game. When a glorified demo for something that isn’t out until February is eclipsing the numbers of Black Ops 6, the “biggest Call of Duty release ever”, you know it’s a big deal. Monster Hunter Wilds is going to take over the world.
There Is Nothing Else Quite Like Monster Hunter
If you’ve been engaged with Monster Hunter on the regular, or at the very least, watching it curiously from a distance, this won’t come as a surprise. The series began as a niche effort on the PS2 that was huge in Japan, but only ever attracted a passionate cult following in the rest of the world.
It was deliberately opaque in explaining its gameplay mechanics and asked the player to learn complicated controls, labyrinthine level design, and deal with its gameplay systems that, to put it bluntly, did not care about your feelings.
You either met Monster Hunter on its level or walked away, and that’s what I and millions of others did for two whole console generations. We were too scared to embrace everything Monster Hunter offered, partly because it was asking too much of us. But throughout the years and with each new entry, the formula has become more and more approachable.
I watched it from afar for a long time after bouncing off the PS2 original, partly because I was too young and too impatient to realise I wasn’t cooking meat right or firing paintballs at every foe in order to track them. It was too complicated, and I was a simple little gamer girl.
Monster Hunter World Changed Everything For The Franchise
Then Monster Hunter World came along to show me and millions of others exactly what we were missing. Capcom clearly intended this game to be its play at a global audience, given it launched across PS4, Xbox One, and PC with larger open zones, cinematic battles, and the simplification of certain gameplay mechanics that once stopped us from getting stuck in.
Now don’t get me wrong, Monster Hunter World is still a complicated and challenging game, one where the hardest battles can take almost an hour as you team up with friends to best a roster of varied monsters. Each one had a different strategy, and you could either go it alone or team up with people from across the world to emerge victorious. I played it for 40+ hours when it first launched, and did it again when the PC version and Iceborne expansion came along years later. Capcom was successful in its mission to bring Monster Hunter to a global audience without sacrificing the depth and sophistication that defines it.
This formula was evolved upon again in Monster Hunter Rise, albeit on a smaller scale on Nintendo Switch before it would debut on PC and other consoles. It took the advancement seen in World and refined it for a handheld system, a middle-man of sorts between where it all began and how Monster Hunter was a PSP staple in Japan for years.
World and Rise are both regularly played to this day, with fans anxious for a new entry to take their place, who are eager to build upon both of them in the most innovative of ways. Wilds is that game, and you can tell it’s already a very big deal.
Monster Hunter Wilds Is Going To Take Over The World
Our appetite for Monster Hunter Wilds is insatiable, something that becomes very obvious if you take one glance at the current player numbers. Even if the beta only provides a glimpse of the full game’s narrative and a handful of hunts and weapons to familiarise yourself with, it is enough for thousands of players to spend dozens of hours mastering. To understand how the game looks, feels, and plays on a granular level so they can hit the ground running next year. But unlike other triple-A blockbusters nowadays, Wilds will not be a shot in the pan.
Capcom is aware of the behemoth it has on its hands, and the long tail Monster Hunter titles of the modern era has when it comes to regular updates, massive expansions, and ensuring its audience sticks around and remains invested. It’s a different kind of live service, where we are in it for the love of the game, not seasonal updates and battle passes. I missed the boat on Rise somewhat, likely because I just don’t vibe with my Switch and didn’t bother with the ports that followed in its wake, but Wilds will be different. I’m ready for it to take over my life.
Monster Hunter Wilds introduces a dynamic, living world with changing climates, along with the usual variety of giant monsters, weapons, and characters. A new mount, the Seikret, helps you get around more quickly and easily.