Monster Hunter Wilds live launch coverage: Server status, hunting tips, and all the latest release day news

Can you guess Monster Hunter's longest-serving weapons?

Without looking it up, which of Monster Hunter Wilds' 14 weapons do you think debuted in the original PlayStation 2 game released in 2004?

I'll give you a hint: There were seven weapons in the original, and two of them were ranged.

Answers in the next post!

Life's different without a personal cat chef

Wilds makes some interesting (and overall good!) changes to cooking: It's quicker and more convenient than ever, letting you whip up a meal while you're out in the world looking for your next prey. The new ingredient system also makes you think a bit more about what items you're using to get specific buffs, and when.

But as Morgan wrote about this week, having to cook his own meals left a Meowscular Chef-shaped hole in his heart:

"The magic of the Meowscular Chef was the ritual: He was the last stop before starting a quest, dutifully feeding his hunters like a parent waiting by the front door with a lunchbox. The solo cooking of Wilds is practical, convenient, and serves Wilds' new sandbox approach to hunting. But it's not warm, fun, or social."

The first big Monster Hunter Wilds update is coming in early April, with harder monsters

Capcom has clearly noticed people debating whether Wilds is too easy, because today's announcement that the first title update is coming in early April included this tidbit:

"A New Level of Challenge! Prepare your gear, and resolve, hunters! TU1 will bring with it a monster of formidable strength at a level above Tempered! Another challenging monster will also await you!"

As we noted on our Monster Hunter Wilds roadmap, Capcom had already promised to deliver the new monster Mitzutsune in the first free update. Could the wording above mean there's another new monster on the way, too, or should we just expect a powered-up version of one of the existing Wilds fights? Sounds like it'll be a punishing beast, whatever it is.

If you're on an RTX card, time to update your drivers

Would you look at that: Nvidia released a new Game Ready driver today, and called out Monster Hunter Wilds launching with "DLSS Frame Generation, DLSS Super Resolution, and ray-traced reflections." Unfortunately we don't get any details on whether this driver release includes any optimizations or fixes specific to Wilds, but you're probably better off installing it than not.

If you wait until after launch to update drivers you'll end up sitting through shader recompilation all over again, and those are precious minutes you could spend hunting instead.

Our Monster Hunter Wilds review: 'Best in class monster combat makes up for a wilderness that's a touch too streamlined'

Capcom's latest makes some big changes from its predecessors—and most of them pay off, as reviewer Lincoln Carpenter dives into in loads of detail in his 85% Monster Hunter Wilds review. With a decade of experience with the series under his belt, Lincoln came into Wilds ready to feel out how it's evolved from past games. Here's the topline takeaway:

"If there's a word for Wilds, it's streamlined. Sword fighting with tyrannosaurs and stitching their bits into belts is no longer chopped up between quest-sized chunks. Following a more straightforward, cinematic story, Wilds gives way to a seamless wilderness of rotating seasons and roaming beasts, where any hunting prep can be done in the moment and on the fly. It can feel like a wonder, but it's not a wonder without a cost. In providing as much monster hunting as possible, Wilds has given up some of Monster Hunter's charm.

But god, it feels good to fight those lizards. Throughout my almost 70 hours with Wilds, I could feel the 20 years of iteration behind its combat design. Hunting, as a rule, is a well fed occupation, but the latest round of tinkering with Monster Hunter's 14 weapon types is a feast for every style of wyvern-slayer. Next to the flashy new attacks, fundamental bow and bowgun revisions, and Focus Strike finishers, there's a subtler artistry in design here that's easy to overlook. Small, considered tweaks—like new windows for adjusting your footing at the tail end of attack animations—make Wilds the smoothest Monster Hunter fighting has ever felt without sacrificing its meaty texture."

The rest of our review breaks down where Wilds' streamlining helps and hinders it, the impressive strides Capcom's made in its storytelling, and what we make of the new environmental systems. Lincoln couldn't tear himself away from Monster Hunter over the last couple weeks—except when the game forced him to take a break by crashing, an issue he encountered disappointingly often (seemingly due to DLSS Multi Frame Generation). Fortunately for other members of the team crashes were much less common, and disabling Frame Gen seemed to clear up his issue.

*taps mic* Is this thing on?

As I write this we're exactly nine hours away from Monster Hunter Wilds' release time on PC. A few lucky console players in futuristic timezones like "New Zealand"—questionably a real place—are already playing while the rest of us stare at Steam waiting for that beautiful green Play button to light up.

As consolation, I offer up a picture of some Palicos. And meat.