If you’ve scrolled TikTok or gaming forums in the past few months, you’ve almost certainly seen clips of players riding giant bird mounts across sprawling deserts or going toe-to-toe with fire-breathing wyverns in seamless open worlds. If you’re even a little curious about the franchise, you’re probably asking is monster hunter wilds good, especially if you bounced off previous entries like Monster Hunter World or Rise because of steep learning curves or tedious grind. I’ve put 42 hours into the preview build of Wilds, and I’ve played every mainline Monster Hunter game since Freedom Unite on the PSP, so I’ve got a pretty good frame of reference for what works and what doesn’t here. This breakdown will give you an unfiltered look at who will love the game, and who should probably skip it.
Is Monster Hunter Wilds Good for Players New to the Franchise?
This is one of the most common questions I see from people considering their first ever Monster Hunter purchase, and the short answer is yes, it’s by far the most accessible entry in the franchise to date. Past games threw you into the deep end with no explanation of weapon combos, monster weak points, or item crafting, and you’d often spend your first 10 hours just dying repeatedly to low-rank monsters before you got the hang of things. Wilds fixes that with optional, bite-sized tutorials that pop up only when you encounter a new mechanic, so you don’t have to sit through hours of cutscenes before you get to hunt. Dynamic weather and environmental interactions that make learning mechanics fun instead of frustrating also help a lot here—for example, you can lure a fire wyvern into a rain-soaked valley to weaken its fire attacks, no advanced game knowledge required.
That doesn’t mean the game is dumbed down, either. If you want to dig into deep mechanics like elemental damage thresholds or optimal weapon combo rotations, all of that content is still there for you to find. You just don’t have to engage with it to enjoy the first 20 hours of the story and low-rank hunts. I played through the first three story missions with my 12-year-old cousin who has never touched a Monster Hunter game before, and he was able to hold his own on hunts after only an hour of practice, which would have been unheard of in older entries.
Key New Features That Make Monster Hunter Wilds Stand Out From Past Entries
If you’ve been wondering is Monster Hunter Wilds good enough to justify ditching your current Rise save file, these new features will likely convince you it is. The biggest change is the fully seamless open world, with no loading screens between zones, no separate hunt instances, and monsters that migrate across the map dynamically based on time of day and weather. I’ve had hunts completely change on the fly when a random elder dragon wandered into the area while I was tracking a much smaller monster, which is a kind of spontaneous fun you just don’t get in older, more linear Monster Hunter games. Seamless monster migrations that change hunts mid-mission make every play session feel unique, even if you’re hunting the same monster for the tenth time.
There are also dozens of small quality-of-life upgrades that add up to a way smoother experience overall. The biggest ones include:
- On-the-fly weapon switching at camp mid-hunt, so you don’t have to abandon a mission if you picked the wrong gear for a monster's unexpected behavior
- Shared resource pools for co-op teams, so newer players don't get stuck without healing items if they forgot to stock up before a hunt
- Adaptive difficulty that scales based on your team size and player skill level, so you won't get one-shot by a high-rank monster if you're playing with a more experienced friend
Potential Drawbacks to Consider Before Buying
Wilds is a great game, but it’s not perfect, and it’s not for everyone. If you’re asking is Monster Hunter Wilds good for solo players who hate grind, the answer is probably no, unless you really love mastering weapon mechanics. The endgame still requires you to hunt the same monster 5 to 10 times to get rare drops for your ideal gear set, and there’s no way around that grind if you want to take on the hardest high-rank and elder dragon hunts. The open world also feels a little empty in some of the more remote regions, especially early on when you don’t have a fast mount to get around quickly. You’ll spend a lot of time running across empty plains early on, which can feel tedious if you’re used to the fast-paced, compact zones of Rise.
Cross-play is only supported between same-generation consoles right now, so you can't play with friends on PS4 if you have a PS5, which is a big letdown for many players. The devs have said they’re working on adding full cross-play support in a post-launch update, but there’s no timeline for that yet, so if your main group of gaming friends is on a mix of old and new consoles, you’ll want to wait to pick up the game until that feature drops. The story is also still pretty generic, as it is with all Monster Hunter games—you’re a hunter who moves to a new village to help defend it from monster threats, and that’s about as deep as the narrative gets. If you’re here for a deep, character-driven story, you’ll be disappointed.
Who Should (and Shouldn't) Buy Monster Hunter Wilds
Let’s break this down as simply as possible, so you don’t waste $60 on a game you won’t play. Wilds is an absolute must-buy if you’re already a Monster Hunter fan, even if you only play casually. The new features fix almost every common complaint from past entries, and there’s enough new content and new monsters to keep you occupied for 100+ hours even if you’ve put thousands of hours into previous games. It’s also a great pick if you’re looking for a new co-op game to play with friends— the adaptive difficulty and shared item pools make it perfect for casual game nights, even if everyone in your group has a different skill level.
On the other hand, you should skip Wilds if you hate repetitive gameplay loops, or if you only play single-player games with heavy story focus. The core loop of hunt, carve, forge, repeat doesn’t change for the entire game, so if that sounds boring to you, you won’t have fun here. You should also skip it if you don’t have any patience for learning new mechanics—even with the easier learning curve, you will still die a lot early on, and you will have to learn monster attack patterns to progress past low-rank hunts. If you're on the fence, wait for a sale only if you're not sure about the core loop, otherwise it's worth full price for anyone who likes co-op action games.
So after all that, is monster hunter wilds good? For most players, the answer is a resounding yes. It fixes almost all the small, annoying frictions that held past entries back for casual players, while keeping the deep, satisfying core hunting loop that’s kept fans coming back for nearly 20 years. If you have a group of friends to play co-op with, you’ll easily get 100+ hours of fun out of it, even if you’re brand new to the franchise. If you’re still on the fence, give the free demo a try first to see if the hunting loop clicks for you.