My Weekend Lost to Monster Hunter Wilds

My weekend was well and truly spent no-lifing Monster Hunter Wilds. I had been looking forward to it for ages but initially planned to hold off, especially after reading about the performance issues and the less-than-ideal experience on the standard PS5. But come release day, my self-restraint crumbled. I placed a click-and-collect order at Argos and rushed to pick it up as soon as work finished that afternoon.

Performance on PS5

Honestly, I don’t think the performance on the standard PS5 has been that bad. I’m running it in performance mode, prioritizing frame rate. The other modes, even the one targeting 40fps, just feel rough to me. There are some weird FSR quirks, but I can live with them for a smooth gaming experience.

Occasionally, I’ll notice some lower-quality textures, but considering the struggles reported on PC, I’m really happy with how it runs. Plus, playing on the big screen with full 5.1 Dolby Atmos support is a great experience.

Storyline (Or Rather, the Tutorial)

The storyline isn’t overly long - there are three chapters in total before you wrap up the main arc. It took me about 25 hours to complete, including time spent exploring and tackling optional hunts and side quests. Once that’s done, you start progressing through Hunter Ranks (HR) and moving on to High Rank hunts. It's more of a hand held tutorial than a full blow story line with a lot of mechanics of the game locked behind the side missions that become available. So I recommend doing it all!

For the most part, Low Rank has felt easier compared to previous Monster Hunter games, and I don’t think I’m alone in that opinion. That said, it’s a great way to ease new players into the series.

Personally, I wasn’t a huge fan of Monster Hunter: World’s storyline and preferred Rise, which brought things back to the classic formula - some light questing but ultimately all about the hunts and grinding. That’s where the real fun is for me: teaming up with friends (or even randoms) to take down epic monsters. The story in Wilds is definitely better than World’s - still cheesy, but nothing unbearable.

The Locations

This is probably the best part of Monster Hunter Wilds - the locations are incredible. So much detail has gone into each zone, and they look and feel amazing to explore. There are even more monsters roaming around the world now, so it’s common to get sidetracked and hunt something totally unrelated to your current quest. You’ll also stumble upon some massive monster-on-monster battles, which really help bring the world to life.

There are five regions in total, each with its own unique theme, special areas, and secrets to uncover. If you’re looking for specific materials or locations, there’s an excellent interactive map available, which works in both 2D and 3D modes with a search function - an incredibly useful tool!

Wrapping Up

This isn’t really a review - just a look at what I’m playing at the moment because Monster Hunter Wilds has me completely hooked. Now that I have access to High Rank hunts, the real game is beginning, and I can already tell I’m going to sink a ridiculous number of hours into it.

Over the weekend, aside from hitting the gym and going out for lunch, I spent all my free time grinding Monster Hunter while my fiancée was deep into Hello Kitty Island Adventure. I guess that DIY I’ve been putting off will have to wait until next weekend...