Capcom had two playable demos of Monster Hunter: Wilds at Tokyo Game Show 2024: A multiplayer demo focused on multiplayer combat, and a story demo focused on the start of the game and its new systems (while still having combat).
Due to various constraints, we only managed to try out the story demo.
Official website (EN): https://www.monsterhunter.com/wilds/en-us/
The story demo starts the player at the beginning of the game, which includes character creation (both for the player character and their companion Palico), with multiple premade characters also available; as there was a hard 30 minute time limit on the demo, we went with a premade character. We did not go with the default, instead choosing the elderly gentleman version, and were surprised to see that the players on both sides of us had coincidentally also chosen the same premade character.
There was also a prompt to select the tutorial level, with one for new players who have not touched Monster Hunter before, and an advanced one for series fans which focuses mainly on new features.
The game starts with the player character on a landship traveling across a desert, meeting some of the story’s characters on the deck, before transitioning to a flashback in which they are given a mission to go on an expedition to the Forbidden Lands. It is very noteworthy that the player character actually speaks in this cutscene, and in a gruff older voice that clearly matched the premade character we chose too – This writer was especially happy about this because some Japanese games with character creator have a tendency to just assume that your character is young, resulting in wildly dissonant body language and voice acting when one chooses to make an older-looking character.
Back in the present, the characters spot an unconscious girl riding on top of a bird-like Seikret pursued by a pack of Balahara, monsters that seem to be a cross between lizards and sandworms from Dune which effortlessly swim through the desert sands like water. The player character jumps onto a Seikret and intervenes to save the girl, with the player taking control to steer the Seikret to some degree, learning how to collect slinger ammo by targeting certain flying monsters with their grappling hook, and trying to deter the Balahara by shooting them with their slinger shots. That being said, the chase sequence is highly scripted, with this writer keeping only one hand on the controller (holding up on the left stick) while using the other to take photos of the screen several times with no problems.
The girl wakes up and tells the hunters that her brother served as a decoy to let her escape, and the player character sets off to find him; the girl’s Seikret is familiar with her brother’s scent, and simply mounting it with the up button on the D-pad automatically sets the player on a path to the objective. The player can take full control of the Seikret at any time, and then go back to automatically moving to the objective by hitting up on the D-pad again while mounted. One thing we did not like about the Seikret, however, is how in order to keep it running at maximum speed, the player has to hold down the R1 button; we would have preferred it if it were a toggle. It is also quite odd that R2 is used instead to slow down the Seikret, when R2 is usually assigned to the accelerate button in so many games.
Before getting onto the Seikret, though, the player gets to choose their first weapon (the player character is shown with a greatsword in the chase sequence, but the player does not get to actually fight yet at this point); we stuck with the greatsword.
The Seikret easily tracks down the girl’s brother, who is being attacked by a Chatacabra: A big bullfrog/horned toad-like monster with huge arms that also acts a bit like a gorilla. The player character of course jumps in to save him and engages the monster, and the fight against the Chatacabra serves as a tutorial to introduce several new mechanics and QOL upgrades.
The Chatacabra itself did not do anything particularly notable: Its attacks primarily consist of huge swings and charges that are easily dodged even with a greatsword out.
The biggest new addition to the game’s system is Wounds: Repeatedly attacking the same part of a monster results in a Wound to open on that part, which becomes a weak point which the monster takes more damage from. Hitting the wound enough times will “break” it, taking it away, but also staggering the monster.
While wounds are not especially prominent in regular gameplay, the new Focus Mode, activated by holding L2, highlights them so that the player cannot miss them. Focus Mode also allows the player to aim their attacks or guards, and also activate a Focus Strike (pressing R1 while holding L2) which instantly breaks Wounds.
Another feature introduced in the tutorial is a deflect move, activated by pressing the triangle and circle buttons at the same time: It was not clear if this is a universal system addition or a new move just for the greatsword, and in any case the timing for it was unclear and we were unable to land a successful deflect: The game slowed down to a stop to pop up the tutorial, and we hit triangle and circle at this point, only to have the deflect not work. We failed to land a deflect a few times before the fight just progressed to the next phase.
The fight also has tutorial prompts for QOL improvements and features, such as using the Seikret to automatically track the monster when it runs away, sharpening your weapon while mounted, and easily using an optimal heal item from the radial menu.
The final phase of the fight has the player send out an SOS flare despite it being in single player mode, and having the NPC hunters from the landship show up to help, something which is acknowledged in the cutscene after the Chatacabra is defeated. This seems to be a universal change and not a one-time occurrence, as the tutorial sheets handed out read “When playing single player, you can fire an SOS flare to call NPC Support Hunters”.
Overall, Monster Hunter: Wilds feels like a solid step forward from both Monster Hunter: World and Monster Hunter: Rise. While the sheer mobility of Rise’s wirebug is gone, being able to deflect attacks and aim your guards in the right direction with Focus Mode seem like they might be huge if pulled off right; the Wound system seems like a great addition; and having mounts return is of course fantastic. A talking player character probably means that the narrative can be less weird about having the ostensible protagonist be completely silent with other people talking for them all the time, and having NPC hunters to help out in single player seems great for the people who just want to chill out on their own and not deal with other human players.
Check out more of our TGS2024 coverage here:
