Monster Hunter Wilds, the next major entry in Capcom’s now best-selling series, is set to launch on PC, PlayStation, and Xbox on February 28t.Monster Hunter Worldwas a truly evolutionary game in the franchise, setting the path for yet another major success inWilds.While Capcom is no stranger to breaking its formula, as seen withWorld’s transition to open environments, many staples of the franchise have persisted throughout its lifespan. The vast majority of these time-tested features build a list of positive acclaim,but there are a few remaining choices that add an asterisk to each new entry.
WhileMonster Hunter’s expansions are often fantastic chunks of content in their own right, the cycle of their release has created a crutch that does not need to continue. Often, the endgame of a baseMonster Huntergame, such asWorldorRise, is left quite barren in anticipation of the game’s major expansion, with the creation of some half-baked, artificial grind to hold players over until its eventual release.Monster Hunter Wildshas seen no updates related to its endgame content,with the game potentially repeating the same trap as nearly every otherMonster Hunterrelease.
How Monster Hunter Expansions Work
New Content Has Always Increased Difficulty
Monster Hunterexpansions have had a relatively stable structurethroughout the franchise’s long history. Typically, a major expansion will release around one or two years after the base game launches. For the DS games, the released expansion would be sold as a standalone product, with theUltimatesuffix added to the game’s title. These stand-alone products would include all the content from the base game, with the primary addition of a heightened difficulty, or rank, of monsters and hunts.
Of course, these re-releasedUltimategames would also feature the standard new content one would expect: new maps, monsters, and features. In total,theUltimateversion could be seen, as the name implies, as the definitive edition of the game.
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WorldandRisebroke some of these conventions.MH World: IceborneandRise’s challeningSunbreakexpansionwere not standalone games, but rather, more traditional expansions. This was a step in the right direction, as having to repurchase the base game to gain access to the fresh content the Ultimate version provided felt like a rather antiquated release system.More than likely,Wildswill more closelyfollow the recent games, with an additive expansion releasing within a one-to-two-year timeframe.
WithIceborneandSunbreak, the higher difficulty, previously G rank, was renamed to Master Rank, and it serves as the base difficulty for all content within the expansion. Beyond higher monster stats,Master Rank also affects monster movesets, creating much more deadly hunts. Along with the increased difficulty, a new endgame system is often added.Iceborne, for instance, introduced the Guiding Lands, an endlessly replayable zone that morphed in design and content based on the players' interactions within it.Sunbreakadded anomaly monsters, which would increase in difficulty based on their level, and would grant extra, challenging behaviors to affected monsters.
Wilds Will Likely Draw The Same Criticism As Previous Titles
Expected Expansions Leave The Endgame Barren
These expansions have been consistently amazing –Iceborneis especially brutal yet satisfying– offering an immense amount of content and value for their price. The glaring issue they cause has less to do with the expansions themselves, but rather, how they interact with the base game they add onto.Monster Hunterfans have come to expect the lack of a Master Rank and endgame systems, as these features are relegated to the expansion. While a one-year turnaround for expansions is quite fair, that’s an entire year whenthe content of the base game can quickly grow stale at the endgame.
Capcom does do a good job at continuing updates, adding additional monsters and crossover events, such asWorld’sinclusion of Geralt and the iconic Leshen fromThe Witcher 3. There are goals to strive for too, such as felling Elder Dragons and other difficult hunts. However, the system surrounding this content is slim, typically being a band-aid mechanic added in. ForWorld,this was decoration farming,a tedious and RNG-heavy systemthat players could sink hundreds of hunts' worth of loot into to chase the best-in-slot decorations, gems that slot into equipped gear.
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Decorations don’t provide the same appeal as upgrading gear. There is no visual indicator of their existence, and a B.I.S. decoration often just provides flat stats. It does take quite a while to reach this point of the endgame, and also assumes that hundreds of hours have already been sunk into the game. Yet, the fact that proper endgame systems do exist, but thatplayers will have to wait for the expansion to gain access to them, does sting.
This is without mentioning the lack of Master Rank. Knowing that every monster available is a lesser version of their master rank counterpart can also diminish the endgame in some ways. While everyMonster Huntergame thus far has been a masterclass in content and variety,the expansion cycle feels like one of the last major thorns for the franchise.
How MH Wilds Could Lessen The Severity Of An Absent Master Rank
Progression Needs To Feel Worthwhile Even Before An Expansion
It’s a shame that players will have to wait for a proper endgame system for each new entry into the franchise. The best approach to lessen the severity of this fact would be toinclude those systems within the base game. While previousMonster Huntergames have tried to include something, arbitrary RNG-fests are certainly not the best that Capcom can do.
The final update forIcebornewas Fatalis, perhaps the most classic and threatening elder dragon in the franchise. Felling Fatalis is the ultimate achievement ofIceborne. It requires players to go through a rodeo of ever more difficult fights to increase their hunter rank, their skill, and their gear.The Guiding Lands helped this journey quite a bit, providing a zone in which players could grind out these elements of the game while simultaneously progressing a dynamic endgame-only environment.
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While perhaps unfair to relate the entire development cycle of a game to the initial release of another,Icebornedoes show how satisfying and well-crafted aMonster Hunterendgame can be. Having some form of endless progression, tied in with an ultimate challenge, is whatMonster Hunterdoes best. Players purchaseMonster Hunter, simply, to hunt monsters. When the overall goal of an endgame is to grind for minuscule increases in power on pieces of gear which themselves don’t share the flavor of equipable monster-based armor and weapons,the endgame strays too far from the core of the game.
Hopefully,Wildswill learn from one of the primary criticisms of bothWorldandRise, and include a system that has more thought put into it. It’s important to note that the life-span of aMonster Huntertitle is far more weighted towards its expansion content. Players spent around two years withinWorld’sendgame, and six years withinIceborne’s,but even so, that small slice of endgame is still a sizable amount of time on its own.
Monster Hunter Wilds Brings Highly Requested Features Like Crossplay & More
Crossplay is just one of the quality-of-life improvements being introduced in Monster Hunter Wilds, but don’t expect to find new weapons.
The result of this weighted time isMonster Hunterhas earned a reputation as a game that facilitates hundreds of hours, and rewards players for doing so. Yet, this is never the case for the first few years of a new entry’s lifespan,which often creates a negative initial impression of that lauded replayability.
BeyondWildsindividually, it feels as though everyMonster Huntergame has an endless list of reasons to play it, but with an eternal asterisk that hinges on its release cycle. Withnew open beta tests on the waytowards the game’s close release, hopefullyMonster HunterWildshas had some behind-the-scenes work on nullifying this asterisk. The series as a whole needs to move past perhaps the last consistently present issue of the franchise with a tangible sense of replayability and goals at the endgame.
Monster Hunter Wilds
Monster Hunter Wilds is the highly anticipated follow-up to Capcom’s multi-million seller, Monster Hunter World. Announced at The Game Awards 2023, Monster Hunter Wilds will put players into a sprawling world where they’ll hunt monsters to create new weapons and armor while protecting their home base and uncovering the secrets of unexplored lands with friends or alone.
