I was pretty late to the party when it came to the Monster Hunter series. For years, it just didn’t grab my attention as it was mostly available on handheld consoles I wasn’t too fond of. Plus, let’s be honest, the games didn’t exactly look like they ran smoothly.
Everything changed when I got my hands on Monster Hunter World, which instantly hooked me and turned me into a fan. Now, here I am, a good couple of dozen hours into Wilds. I’ve been diving straight into the campaign, putting those sideline quests on hold for now. And, oh man, I have to say, what a letdown that was.
Truth be told, Monster Hunter campaigns aren’t celebrated for their storytelling prowess. They’re more like elaborate orientations designed to equip you with the skills needed for long hours of gameplay. Think of them as a guided tour through the series’ universe.
Here’s the usual plot line: your team is on the hunt for an enigmatic monster that’s messing with various territories. Along the way, you’re constantly sidetracked by other beastly encounters until you finally unearth the big mystery behind your original target. You face off with the big baddie, and once you’ve conquered it, it’s game over for the campaign. That’s when you’re thrust into what the series calls High Rank, where the real action begins.
When you look at it broadly, Wilds follows this formula – much like World did. But it’s in the nitty-gritty details where one campaign captures your imagination and the other just feels like a checklist.
What I adored about World’s campaign was its drive. Zorah Magdaros was not just another monster; it was a behemoth that required a battalion to merely slow it. This monster was so massive that battling several creatures on its back wasn’t even a stretch.
It was ambitious for sure—a daring move to change up the Monster Hunter experience. Admittedly, many players didn’t enjoy it. Taking down Zorah involved building defenses, loading cannons, and generally doing things that broke away from the typical Monster Hunter routine.
But for me, that’s what made it so special. Those moments shook up any monotony from dealing with one monster after the next. Plus, Zorah’s migratory path became a narrative tool, pushing the story forward.
Each time it reached a new area on the map, that spot unlocked for exploration, giving players a direct view of its environmental impact. Up until nearly the end, you were left guessing about Zorah’s true purpose, making the pursuit intense and intriguing.
On the flip side, Wilds kinda dropped the ball. There’s no Zorah-caliber monster or looming peril. Arkveld, the flagship monster, does make the occasional cameo—getting up to mysterious antics before promptly disappearing. But it never builds up to anything significant, nor is it the climactic showdown. That spot goes to a colossal snoozer of a giant revealed just one mission before the end.
There’s no grand alliance of factions rallying against a shared threat here. In fact, some monsters appear as if Capcom ran out of creative ways to introduce them, just randomly throwing them into missions for you to tackle.
It feels like there might’ve been a thread to connect the diverse cast of characters, but somehow, it got lost in the shuffle. Some NPC interactions, along with a few cinematic dialogues, hint at deeper happenings, but those threads remain perpetually unexplored.
Even the tantalizing tale of the precursor civilization and their weather-control tech—a saga foretold in sporadic cutscenes—ends up feeling like a story that would be more fitting in a lore catalogue.
The Wilds campaign could serve as a microcosm of the game’s broader issues. In trying to polish it for broader appeal, some of the series’ beloved quirks got sanded away. And I’m not convinced those were the right changes.
Soon, the Wilds campaign might fade into obscurity as its highs and lows become more evident. But I can’t shake off the curiosity about how a genuine follow-up to the World campaign might have turned out.
