In its first dozen hours, Monster Hunter Wilds felt like a new friend anxious about showing their true, weirder colors. Throughout Low Rank Wilds seemed convinced it had to curb its own character, throwing up guard rails in an effort to keep its dinosaur swordfights pleasantly agreeable. Even before selling eight million copies in three days, it was clear that Wilds would attract Monster Hunter's widest audience yet. Maybe that attention made Capcom nervous.
Like a real friendship—the kind that won't shame you for a 1 am text about whatever Wikipedia hole you just fell down—Monster Hunter is at its best once it gets to the sicko stuff. Wilds eventually finds its confidence, but it takes until after credits roll to get there.
In Low Rank, Wilds breaks from Monster Hunter tradition, where progression meant hunting at one difficulty tier until you unlock a Priority Quest that bumps you to the next Hunter Rank. It's much more story-focused, scattering a few tutorials between on-rails Seikret-riding sequences that give you a taste of a new region on your way to the next cutscene. This compressed structure does a serviceable job of laying out the fundamentals of hunting: eat a meal, kill a monster, turn its parts into pants. But while the story delivers some satisfying hype in cinematics, I chafed against its fenced-off structure because it stifles what makes Monster Hunter so singular.
Playing in the space
It's strange to say about the web of mechanics and systems that still refuse to explain themselves in Wilds, but I've been spoiled by the Monster Hunters I played in the 2010s. Between the points where Priority Quests narrowed your attention, hunting was self-directed, and that self-direction left room to experiment. I might've hunted a few Arzuros—a blue, plated bear with dagger-length claws—to make an early-game helmet. Afterwards, I might've realized I had the leftover bear bits to craft a weapon I hadn't tried before.
Testing out that strange new switch axe against something at my current difficulty tier may have been too daunting, so I might've ventured to a different region to fight easier prey. There I might've discovered a mining spot I hadn't known about, or learned what that switch axe's meters meant, or felt how much a weapon's sharpness matters.
However baffling it could be, Monster Hunter pulled me in a decade ago because building familiarity with its systems always folded back into something I could put to use. Armor sets with seemingly-useless stamina skills became invaluable once I knew how hungrily bows and dual blades eat up the stamina bar. After understanding I could steadily craft lifesaving max potions, every hidden nook with mandragora mushrooms became a sacred grove.
Wilds instead offers a much more linear path. The story beats hit for me every time Alma gave me permission to merc a creature, but I finished every cutscene hoping the next objective would be "Alright, now just hunt some of this stuff for a while." I spent every Seikret walk-and-talk yearning to see what I could find just beyond my slinger's yoinking range.
Railroaded
Monster Hunter might have needed some additional direction. On Steam, less than half of Monster Hunter: World players have earned the Sapphire Star achievement for completing World's Low Rank story after more than six years. But if the mercifully righted wrong of Wilds' once-missing hitstop tells us anything, it's that Capcom can be overzealous in its anticipation of player feedback.
Wilds' narrowed attention in Low Rank felt almost skittish, like it was convinced I'd run for the hills if it let me linger too long with the blacksmith tree. It was less like hunting and more like being fired from a plot cannon. As a result, setting aside my next story quest for some side hunts didn't feel like I was taking time to learn and explore. It felt like stalling out.
Wilds' Low Rank leaves less space to trace Monster Hunter's constellation of systems.
As I rolled through the story I only did the bare minimum of weapon upgrades and armor crafting. I hardly experimented. I knew High Rank was on the horizon—it always is—but a Monster Hunter with an on-rails story doesn't just discourage learning the intricacies of the game. It makes less sense.
In bouncing players from one monster to the next, Wilds' Low Rank leaves less space to trace Monster Hunter's constellation of systems. It's harder to place armor skills and weapon mechanics in context. It's harder to understand why you should care when caring enough to understand is the juice that Monster Hunter's been running on for 20 years.
Meanwhile, that narrowed attention doesn't linger long enough in places where it should. I'm all for self-directed exploration, but figuring out whether you need a lobby or a link party to play with friends shouldn't require the 2200 words of our Wilds multiplayer guide. Likewise for sourcing cooking ingredients, the implications of weapon sharpness, and what affinity even means—all left to new players to bumble through.
High Ranking
Even if basic clarity might always be beyond Monster Hunter's purview, Wilds thankfully still has all the sicko stuff. It just refuses to share way too much of it until after the credits.
Low Rank ends with a killer climax fight, but High Rank is, unequivocally, where Wilds sings. The traditional Monster Hunter progression returns. Armor sets offer a greater variety of skills. Weapons gain more decoration slots for build customization. Better still, High Rank rips off the limiters on the new season cycle and seamless hunting, providing a wide field of rotating, repeatable quest targets.
With more room to breathe, I was willing to stow my hammer to rediscover my old love of the switch axe and find a new infatuation with the sword and shield. I delved into the depths of the Oilwell Basin, finding promising new crannies for campsites to streamline my inevitable Nu Udra farming. God help me, I spent two hours angling for swordfish to make a fish sword.
I was willing to grit my teeth through the Wilds story because I expected Low Rank to only make up a fraction of my playtime. The math has borne that out: At time of writing, I've spent almost 140 hours in Wilds. Not every hunter will spend less than a tenth of their time in the push to High Rank, though. I never thought Monster Hunter's problem could be that it offers too little complexity up front, but some new players have probably already finished Low Rank, shrugged, and figured they'd experienced most of what Monster Hunter has to offer.
High Rank provides more toys to play with and—crucially—it provides space in the sandbox for figuring out how those toys, with all their inscrutable shapes and moving pieces, fit together. It's where Wilds is willing to let Monster Hunter be Monster Hunter. The more Capcom allows it, the better.
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