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Monster Hunter Wilds is the most streamlined game in Capcom’s long-running action-RPG series. Worried that juggling menus and harvesting laundry lists of arcane animal parts sounds too overwhelming and boring? Fear not! Monster Hunter Wilds lets you (mostly) make the experience as simple or as complicated as you want. Dive in deep and get your hands dirty with the game’s myriad interlocking crafting and skill systems, or just hop onto your Seikret steed, bee-line for the next boss, and have a fun time whacking it until it falls over. The choice is yours. But no matter how you decide to play, here are a bunch of helpful tips for getting started in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Choose your first weapon and learn it like a fighting game character
Monster Hunter Wilds will start you off with the Great Sword, one of its most powerful but also clunkiest weapons. I have been using it ever since, and love how heavy it feels and seeing those big damage numbers it puts up with each hit. But you might hate it. There are 14 weapons and it’s worth playing around with a few of them to see which actually feels best for you and your playstyle.
Each weapon is its own character in Monster Hunter Wilds, and learning all of its advantages, weaknesses, and quirks is a massive part of the game, like the difference between picking Ryu or Blanka in Street Fighter. I recommend against the Sword and Shield because blocking is boring. The Dual Blades, on the other hand, are lightning-quick and make fights feel like you’re shredding cabbage. Plus, they have a really cool Focus Strike animation.
Make your secondary weapon a long-range one to start
You can equip a second weapon and pull it out of your saddlebag mid-fight whenever you want. While the sky’s the limit for what kind of synergies come from this in the end game, it never hurts to make your secondary weapon long-range in case you need to shift up tactics or play more conservatively late into a fight. I like the Heavy Bowgun. It’s like shooting a rifle and has a nice burst option.
Never hunt on an empty stomach
Meals in Monster Hunter Wilds don’t give you bonuses so much as necessary buffs that become the foundation for each hunt you go on. There’s a handy list that will show you what stats your current ingredients will give you, with the main ones being health and stamina recovery. The great thing about cooking in the latest entry is that you can do it wherever you want, including right next to other monsters. Buy ingredients from vendors in your camp or pick them up on your way to the next hunt.
Don’t worry too much about exploring until you’ve rolled credits
Monster Hunter Wilds is one of those games that doesn’t really get started until after it’s over. “Rolling credits” will happen at the end of the main campaign, but there are still more story quests that follow after that. This is the “late game,” which includes high-rank monsters and gear. This is when the game really opens up and exploration feels more natural and rewarding. Plus, all the rewards you get for your troubles are much more worthwhile. And personally, I think Monster Hunter Wilds’ base campaign is best played in as much of a straight shot as possible. The pacing is pretty breakneck with one big fight after another, culminating in some neat narrative reveals and a cool “final” boss fight.
Make the SOS flare automatic if you’re tired of fighting alone
SOS flares are what let other characters join your hunt. Shooting one up can either be manual or you can change the settings in the multiplayer menu to make it automatic at the start of each new hunt. While it can be fun and challenging to fight alone, it’s also good, and often much faster, to fight with a full squad of four. And if you don’t want to play with other humans, you can keep that party solely consisting of AI-controlled NPCs from the main story. They’ll heal you and do a decent job of taking aggro from monsters.
Your Seikret is you most powerful secret weapon
The new mounts in Monster Hunter Wilds are called Seikrets. They don’t fight, but they will rapidly autopilot you through dense and confusing environments by simply pressing up on the D-pad. Normally, the end destination is whatever monster you’re hunting, but you can also select icons from the map and set them as waypoints to give the Seikret new directions.
They’re also extremely useful in fights. You can whistle for them to pick you up after getting knocked down. They’re a great way to build distance between you and a monster, or get out of the way of a big attack. Their saddlebags are also full of items to restock your supplies (left on the D-pad), including your secondary weapon (right on the D-pad). Most importantly, you can spring and then lunge off their back and press your heavy attack to hit monsters with aerial attacks, which is super fun.
Make inventory shortcuts for potions and traps
One of the biggest pitfalls of Monster Hunter remains its cumbersome item menus. There’s nothing like getting stomped while trying to tab over from your first aid kids to your antidotes. Luckily, you can pick a handful of the most useful items, like your whetstone (gotta keep those weapons sharp!), electric traps, and potions, to equip as shortcuts in a radial menu. It’s still not the best, but a heck of a lot faster and easier than the regular inventory menu.
Focus your attacks and pop wounds for maximum damage
Monster Hunter Wilds introduces a system called Focus that lets you hold down the left trigger to aim attacks or stab wounds to initiate Focus Strikes. These do lots of damage and are really satisfying to watch. They all break off extra monster parts for crafting that immediate get added to your inventory. To open up wounds you need to hit the same spots on a monster repeatedly. Once open, don’t waste time closing ’em up. The resulting Focus Strikes also knock the monster off balance, turning the best offense into a great defense as well.
Always be climbing on those monsters’ backs
Jumping off a higher platform or lunging from your Seikret and doing an aerial attack will occasionally pop you onto a monster’s back. Once there, you can stab to open a wound and move up and down its back to avoid being shaken off as your stamina depletes. When the screen starts to go dark you should hold the right trigger to hold on. Once you’ve got a few wounds opened up you can do a Focus Strike before getting thrown off. You’ll have to keep doing more aerial attacks to build up an invisible gauge before you can hop back on again.
Don’t bother with crafting low ranking armor and weapons
The natural loop of Monster Hunter is kill stuff to make stuff, and the pull of crafting new gear is strong. However, the actual stuff you can craft early on in Wilds is not. You can get through much of the first 15 hours of the game with just a couple sets of new armor and one or two upgrades to your main weapon. I’d recommend saving the rest of your resources for crafting high-rank gear once you’re in the late game. But definitely treat yourself once or twice over the main campaign to some cool looking armor which will then make you look extra ridiculous in all of the bespoke cutscenes.
Capturing monsters instead of killing them can save time
You don’t actually have to kill everything in Monster Hunter Wilds. You can capture your quarry instead. You’ll get basically the same items for doing so and while more complex, it can actually save time. That’s because you can capture a monster and subdue long before it’s actually dead. To do that, you just have to wait until it’s damaged enough that a skull icon appears next to it, at which point you can temporarily disable it with a shock or pitfall trap and then put it to sleep with a couple of tranquilizer bombs. This can be especially useful if you’ve already died a few times and are at risk of losing the entire hunt.
Learn how to pause the game
Hitting the options button doesn’t pause Monster Hunter Wilds, but that doesn’t mean the game can’t be paused. Instead, the pause button is hidden on a separate set of menus. Fortunately, you can select it and equip it to your quick action radial menu making it easy to pause without your character being left vulnerable. And don’t worry if you have to leave the game for a while. Instead of kicking you back to the main menu, you’ll simply be taken offline but your game will remain uninterrupted (which is great for suspended games and quick resume). What a novel idea!
That glowing red line means the monster is about to kill you
You might notice that when you’re health gets low a bright red glowing line appears between you and the monster that you’re hunting. That’s the game’s way of telling you that it’s next attack, if it hits, will “cart you,” i.e. sent you back to camp. When this happens you should a) get the hell out of the way, and b) heal up as fast as possible.
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Kurt Indovina
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