If you’ve reached the end of Monster Hunter Wilds already, you were probably surprised that it, well, ends. Monster Hunter games are known for having a long tail that continues long after the credits roll, with plenty of endgame challenges to take on, armor to collect, and weapons to craft, but that isn’t really the case with Wilds. There’s a short post-game story about frenzied monsters and a new crafting system that ties into tempered monsters, but if you’re expecting a long grind like the one we got in World and Rise, you won’t find one here.
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Monster Hunter Wilds Isn’t Too Easy, It’s Too Forgiving
The problem with Monster Hunter Wilds isn’t that it’s too easy, it’s that the way it’s been streamlined compromises the series’ identity.
It’s been six years since the release of Monster Hunter World, and I have to admit, I was expecting more from Wilds. I had a blast with my time in the Forbidden Lands, but I didn’t expect that time to be over so soon. The only conclusion I can come to is that Capcom is holding a lot of content back for post-launch updates. While that’s always the case with Monster Hunter games, this is the first time I’ve ever felt like a Monster Hunter game launched incomplete.
A Monster Hunter Launch is Just The Beginning
To be as fair as possible to Wilds, we have to remember that the game Monster Hunter World is today isn’t the game it was when it first launched in 2016. Years of patches, updates, and crossovers, as well as the massively game-changing expansion Iceborne, grew World into the game we all know and love.
But that change didn’t start out with Iceborne. It didn’t come with the Witcher mission, the Horizon Zero Dawn gear, or the Behemoth raid from Final Fantasy 14. Heck, it didn’t even have Deviljho! It’s definitely not fair to compare Wilds to the World of today, and I’m hopeful Wilds will have just as much amazing post-launch support as World did, if not more.
Both World and Rise took a year to come to PC after the initial console launch and came with a year’s worth of post-launch support, so PC players may feel especially underwhelmed by Wild’s reduced scale at launch.
But even when adjusting for inflation, Wilds simply has less to offer than World did. The most glaring omission are the elder dragons. Once you’ve completed the campaign through Chapter 6-1, you’ve seen all of the monsters in Wilds, and none of them are classified as Elder Dragons. Meanwhile, World’s big end-game challenge was centered around hunting tempered elder dragons for decorations and crafting materials, which were significantly harder than anything Wilds has to offer. There isn’t anything in particular to aspire to once you’ve finished Wilds story, other than collecting gear for the sake of it.
With just 29 monsters, Wilds has less than both World (37) and Rise (46) at launch. Not only is there less variety, but there are fewer big moments to get excited about. Few World players could forget the moment Bazelgeuse first introduced itself by carpet bombing them in the middle of a hunt, or the first time they saw Teostra majestically wandering across the dunes of the Wildspire Waste. Wilds doesn’t give us a lot of moments like that – at least, not yet.
What’s Next For Monster Hunter Wilds
In a tweet announcing that Wilds sold eight million copies in the first three days, the official Monster Hunter account made it clear that the launch is just the beginning of the next generation of Monster Hunter. In the short term, we have some idea of what’s to come. We already have our first two event quests, which bring them some new gear, and we know April’s Title Update 1 will introduce the monster Mizutsune at a new difficulty level above tempered, as well as a gathering hub. Those are big additions that may indicate there’s a lot more coming to Wilds this year, and while it hasn’t been officially announced, we can likely expect an Iceborne or Sunbreak-sized DLC sometime in 2026 too.
The question is whether players will stick around to see it. The Monster Hunter series has a notoriously slow update schedule, and having to wait an entire month for a single new monster is already asking a lot. The gaming landscape has changed significantly since World launched in 2016, and if Capcom isn’t able to update Wilds at a live-service pace, it will likely see a significant fall off in players, despite breaking sales record in the first weekend.
For most players, that’s no big deal. A lot of the people who will play, love, and move on from Monster Hunter Wilds in a week will be happy to come back for another adventure when the expansion drops. But for those of us who crave the grind, I worry Wilds is going to end up being a bit of a disappointment in the long run, at least compared to the content feast that was Monster Hunter World.
- Released
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February 28, 2025
- ESRB
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T For Teen // Violence, Blood, Crude Humor