While Capcom’s Monster Hunter series has always had its fans, 2020’s Monster Hunter: World sent it mainstream. Now, Monster Hunter Wilds is the next game in Capcom’s long-running action combat franchise, bringing latest-gen console improvements to big creature fights.
As players get their hands on the new game when it releases on Feb.28, they’ll find Monster Hunter Wilds faithfully preserving the core appeal of the series: set out with weapons, hunt big monsters, harvest their parts and forge them into new weapons and armor. But while the game looks like an expansion of Monster Hunter: World, it has a host of quality-of-life upgrades that ease the experience.
Some of these changes are obvious once you start playing, like a seamless transition from camp to the creature-filled regions around it. The Seikret mounts ferry you around (even automatically routing you to your hunt if you’d like), carry supplies and hold a second weapon that you can swap to mid-fight. And the wound system has been greatly expanded, making fights more interactive.
There’s plenty more to discover in the full game, but here are some beginner tips to help you out in your first hours of Monster Hunter Wilds.
Put time in the training range to find your favorite weapon
For new and returning players, the most important decision to make is choosing which weapons to use. New to Monster Hunter Wilds is a short questionnaire right out the gate that offers suggestions for which of the game’s 14 weapons would best suit your preferred playstyle. But nothing replaces hands-on experience, so jump into the training range, where you can try out every weapon and run through their various combos and unique mechanics.
If you’re new to the series, it’s worth playing with most (if not all) of them to understand what each weapon does and doesn’t do. If you’re a veteran of the series, it’s helpful to know what’s changed from previous games. You can also find a few tips for each weapon in the start menu: go to the Info tab > Play Guide > Tutorial List for a couple of pointers on each weapon. You can also find a full move list and some suggested combos in Info tab > Play Guide > Weapon Controls, which is handy to have when away from the training range.
Always eat before a hunt
As in previous Monster Hunter games, cooking and eating a meal provides various stat bonuses depending on the dish. While you won’t have many options in the early game, even the most basic meal provides bonus health which makes a difference, especially in the early game. Meals don’t expire at the end of a hunt, instead lasting a certain period of time, so check to make sure your meal effect is still active after successive hunts.
Once the support team has arrived at the camp in the first area, check in with them occasionally to get free rations, which are used to make basic meals. You’ll also want to collect ingredients on your travels, including fishing in pools of water using the fishing pole tool. Use these ingredients to cook in the field with your Portable BBQ Grill.
Armor crafting screen at the smithy NPC Gemma’s forge.
Forge armor and weapons to the highest rarity available
You’ll generally get access to new equipment to make after killing large monsters (as opposed to the small monsters roaming around), so when you return from a hunt, check in on equipment trees in Gemma’s forge. Craft weapons and armor of the highest-numbered rarity tier to get the best stuff, keeping in mind that there are differences in skills and damage (for weapons) or resistances (for armor) between equipment at the same level. This applies to your Palico as well, so keep them equipped with the best equipment you can.
Don’t worry about using up all your materials, as you’ll keep getting them as you go on hunts. Some materials drop more often than others, even from the same monster, so you may have to kill several to get a full set of armor or craft multiple weapons using the same components. More importantly, even if it seems like a weapon is a dead end, you’ll unlock more progression trees as you encounter additional large monsters.
The menu screens for equipment are dense, but they contain a lot of information.
Inspect weapons and armor to understand what their skills do
So-called equipment skills are perks that apply bonuses in a wide variety of aspects, from better healing to increasing defense to resisting certain types of damage. Some are very situational, like improving attack after conditions are met or boosting special ammo of ranged weapons. You’ll get skills from your active weapon, each piece of armor and equipped talisman, racking up half a dozen or more that are active at the same time, and multiple of the same skill will stack.
To see what each skill does, open the main menu (Start on PS5) > Items and Equipment tab > Equipment Info and click the Skill Info button (square on PS5). You can also look at them in the weapon/armor forge menu by tapping the Submenu button (triangle on PS5) > Skill Info. This is another way equipped weapons and armor can suit your playstyle, so consider skills when deciding which weapons and armor to craft.
The intel pages have a lot of information about how best to take down big monsters.
Look up monster weak points, weaknesses and more intel
Each monster has its own strengths and weaknesses, which can help you prepare equipment resistances and elemental attacks to best take them on. You can look up this intel after you’ve defeated monsters once, though this remains important if you’re hunting components to make weapons or armor out of them.
To get detailed monster-specific info, go to the in-game menu (click Start on console) > Info tab > Monster Field Guide > Large Monster Field Guide. The dense intel for each monster shows where to find them, which parts are weak or breakable and what kind of damage works best on each part. It also recommends elemental attacks, status effects and items to use — but most importantly, for repeat hunts, it shows the frequency drop rates for materials and which parts to target for them.
Go for wounds when attacking to stagger monsters
Though not the first Monster Hunter game with wounds, now any weapon can inflict them on a monster. When you repeatedly attack an area, a wound will form, which may be visible externally but which pops up clearly as orange-red sections when in Focus Mode (L2 on PS5). Keep attacking wounds and you’ll do bonus damage until destroying them, after which you may stagger the monster — which is a great opportunity to get in easily-interrupted combo damage.
Don’t worry about dying once or twice on a hunt
Dying while on a hunt is a pain, but you can still come back to finish it afterward (albeit with a financial reward penalty at the end). You’ll revive either in the area’s main town or, if you’ve set up a camp, the nearest one of those. This gives you the opportunity to replenish supplies, cook another meal or swap out your equipment for something better suited to your prey. Dying once or twice is OK, but you’ll fail the mission if you die a third time.
Watch this: I Played Capcom’s Upcoming Game Monster Hunter Wilds at Gamescom
