Monster Hunter Wilds: What Long-time Fans Can Look Forward To

Monster Hunter Wilds is gearing up to be the biggest Monster Hunter title to date. During the open beta in October, we were able to check out the new Windward Plains map, which far more varied and sprawling than similar maps in previous titles. The new Seikret mount, as well as quality-of-life features like carrying two weapons into battle, are huge updates to this 20-year-old series.

I recently sat down with series producer Ryozo Tsujimoto to talk about the title, and while we’ve already covered off what the game has in store for new hunters, we’d be remiss if we didn’t look at what’s coming for experienced hunters as well.

*Introducing your new best friend – The Seikret! (The bird, not the hunter).*

Keeping Seikrets

When I first saw the new Seikret mount bounding into battle and leaping across the landscape of the Windward Plains, I thought, “Oooh, it’s a cool new mount — like the Palamute from Monster Hunter Rise.” But after speaking with Tsujimoto, I couldn’t be more wrong.

The Palamute was an adorable canine combat buddy, like a more dangerous Palico (the cats) that you ride into battle. The Seikret was designed to solve a number of challenges inherent in the larger maps while providing some extra utility to the hunter.

“If we look at Rise and Wilds, I understand your thinking ‘you ride on both of these animals, they must be the same’. However, in Rise the Palamute fought alongside the hunter and was interchangeable with the Palico which was more support based,” Tsujimoto explained.

Tsujimoto also discussed how the Seikret is much more focused on mobility and making the maps easier to traverse. Playing through the beta, I noticed the maps were significantly more complex than in World or Rise — which is a great development in terms of how the maps show variety and give you plenty of places to fight monsters.

“The aim of the Seikret is to reduce the stress of moving around the map, so it won’t attack,” Tsujimoto said.

“However, [in contrast to the Palamute] we put more emphasis on making it easier to ride, since it’s automatically routed and tracks the monster”.

Playing through the open beta, the Seikret was a spectacular tool for multitasking, allowing you to travel while activating items, sharpening your weapons and picking up resources on the map.

Arm Yourselves

*The Seikret is a big new addition to the game, which helps with traversal, but also mechanics like weapon swapping.*

One of the other big additions the Seikret brings to Wilds is the ability to carry multiple weapons to any map — for me, this meant packing my core weapon, which is Hunting Horn. Then, being able to carry a secondary weapon like a Bow for ranged combat or Longsword for cutting off monster’s tails.

This versatility will likely have a lot of players experimenting with new weapons while keeping their standbys at the ready. As for Ryozo Tsujimoto’s preferred weapon…

“Hammer, I’ll just take two Hammers,” he smirked.

In Your Element

“We wanted to explore the richness and harshness of different environments” said Tsujimoto.

Looking back at the Monster Hunter series, the impact of monsters and particularly Elder Dragons on the environment has always been a part of the narrative.

“We want to place the focus on the ever-changing climate of the natural world. We experience the richness of nature as well as the harshness of nature.” Tsujimoto said, referencing the clear parallels to climate change in our own world.

In Wilds, we’ve seen Windward Plains, Scarlet Forest, and the Oilwell Basin maps so far. Tsujimoto discussed how each of these locales will feature different states. Each map includes Fallow, Inclement and Plentiful states that impact the challenges a player will encounter and the different monsters that will appear; the Inclement stages of the maps are where the area’s Apex Monsters appear, in the Windward Plains, that means Rey Dau, which appears during the region’s massive lightning storms.

Tsujimoto also spoke to how the Oilwell Basin can burst into flame with the appearance of a monster known only as the Black Flame (which looks like an oily octopus in the footage we’ve seen). Then, in the Inclement and Plentiful phases, the Scarlet Forest can flow with blood-like water when the spider Lala Barina is present and flood thanks to Apex creature Uth Duna.

Breaking, Balancing and Betas

Building a game like Monster Hunter Wilds and keeping experienced players excited — while helping new players get into the series — is a monster of a task (pun intended). The team at Capcom is now focused on addressing concerns raised from October’s beta test. “I understand the beta test wasn’t balanced, but we learned a lot from that test,” Tsujimoto said.

“We know for example, that the Hunting Horn was too powerful in that test. It is difficult to analyse every little thing, but we’re planning to put it all together in somewhere publicly available,” he said.

The amount of data the team was able to gather from that 4-day period is “massive”, Tsujimoto highlighted, speaking to the tweaks the team is making that brings the game closer to completion.

In Monster Hunter World, the lava Elder Dragon Zora Magdaros was a huge part of the story and provided some of the biggest fights in the series (literally climbing over his back like a walking mountain). To wrap up my interview with Tsujimoto, I asked him if there were fights the size of Zora Magdaros coming in Wilds.

“I can’t say anything yet. But we are hoping that Wilds is packaged so everyone will have something to enjoy,” he said. A little cryptic… but I’ll hold out hope.

Monster Hunter Wilds is scheduled for release on February 28th, 2025 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. Stay with Quest Daily for more news and a review when the game is released.