After many more hours and some welcome multiplayer hunts in the PC Monster Hunter Wilds beta, I stand by my altogether positive impressions from the early PS5 beta. The game is looking good, and I don't really know what to do with myself now that the beta is gone. In just a few days, Monster Hunter Wilds started to feel like a part of my life, that comfy Monster Hunter-shaped addition that my routine has been missing, and now I'm absolutely jonesing for the full game.
That said, a few things are looking not-so-good. Compared to Monster Hunter World and Rise, some details are looking quite bad, actually. This beta was a fun free sample, but I'll be more than a little disappointed if several elements aren't noticeably improved by the time Monster Hunter Wilds launches on February 28, 2025. That said, Monster Hunter betas have been hugely beneficial in the past, so I have no doubt the final game will be more polished thanks to beta data. But Capcom is explicitly looking for feedback, so if I can't play Monster Hunter Wilds I'll just have to write about it. Here are 11 issues that stood out to me in my 15 hours of beta testing.
Performance, obviously
Let's get the big one out of the way. The Monster Hunter Wilds beta did not run very well on most PCs. I wasn't over-the-moon with the PS5 version either, and I've heard horror stories about the Xbox Series S. On PS5, performance mode was noticeably smudged, and graphics mode didn't have the frame rate that an action game like this really needs. This is probably the biggest problem facing Wilds right now, but it's also the one with the most obvious fix: just optimize it better. Easy for me to say! The devs have assured players that the full game is already in better shape, so here's hoping the inevitable second beta looks and runs much better.
Monsters running away all the time
I lied. This is the biggest problem in Wilds right now. When bosses just skip town all the time, it wastes the player's time, kills the rhythm of the fight, and throws any time-limited buffs into a big ol' dumpster. This problem isn't new to Monster Hunter, but it feels especially egregious in Wilds, with monsters changing areas at one- or two-minute intervals at times, and often running hundreds of meters away in an instant. This is exaggerated by how long hunts can take due to the beta gear being weak, but if the driving motivation to get stronger and play better is to curtail infuriating monster AI, something has gone wrong. I want Capcom to leash these things to an area for at least four or five minutes at a time.
Too many monsters at once
I should not have to pull out dung pods several times in a single hunt just to tell unwelcome invaders to go away. Multiple large monsters appear in the same area too often and hang around each other too long. If I didn't come here to hunt it, it can get in the aforementioned big ol' dumpster. It doesn't even make sense; surely everything would flee from the apex predator of an environment. And if another monster is going to crash my Rey Dau hunt, it could at least have the common decency to deal some damage to the thing before I quite literally tell it to eat shit. Instead, they have the nerve to attack me, as if I just killed 17 of their closest friends and am now wearing their skin. That doesn't sound a thing like me.
Too many buttons at once
More than once, Monster Hunter Wilds reminded me of the PlayStation 6 meme controller mockups with 20 buttons and four analog sticks. It feels like Wilds might be overcomplicating some weapons, or at least mapping commands poorly. Multiple attacks rely on three simultaneous inputs. It's just plain uncomfortable to hit triangle and circle while also aiming with L2 and the right stick and guarding with R2, but it honestly wouldn't be that big of an issue if the game's input buffering didn't consistently misread commands.
Clunky item pouch
After the item loadouts in World and Rise basically solved Monster Hunter's restocking issues and streamlined the inventory UI, Wilds seems to have gone back to fiddly, multi-step processes for replenishing your potions and ammo. What we need is a one- or two-button solution that refills our inventory with all the stuff we need, preferably paired with an interface that doesn't have more steps than a charge blade.
Constant UI disruptions
In a similar vein, I cannot begin to express how little I care about the notifications that regularly pop up on the right side of Wilds. I've turned off all the blurbs and boxes I can but they keep coming back like invasive web ads. Did you know that your flash bomb was effective? Yes, Capcom, because I saw the monster fall out of the sky. Did you know these other monsters are having a turf war somewhere? No, and why do I need to? What about this environmental update that we're going to put over the button that opens the map? Could I just have my map, please?
Weather instantly changing all the time
Environments update a little too frequently, as it happens, and probably too quickly at that. Dynamic weather is all well and good, but the storm conditions in the beta absolutely tank visibility and framerate, and it's blatantly unnatural the way an eclipse-like storm just consumes the entire desert in two seconds. And then, bam, it's right back to sunshine and rainbows minutes later. This makes even Georgia weather look tame, and it feels like a classic case of aesthetics conflicting with gameplay.
Uneven level design hurts combat
While we – by which I do mean I – are on the subject, I would like to see the hunting experience prioritized over making levels pretty and varied. The sand dunes in the beta are the worst offender, constantly forcing your character to slide and causing monsters to move erratically when they crest a hill. In my ideal world, every area in every Monster Hunter game would be a largely flat arena with some minor decorations to gussy it up. That's never going to happen, and admittedly it probably shouldn't because it would get boring, but Wilds covering levels in fixtures and shapes that completely break movement feels like an unhealthy extreme of its own.
Limp-wristed weapon hit stop
If players are busting out frame counters to explain why weapons don't have that same oomph anymore, there is a problem. Big hits just don't feel big in Wilds, and I miss my juicy critical attacks. I've gotten more satisfaction from chopping pork loin with a chef knife. The lack of hit stop on meaty blows is not offset by those shiny, one-decimal damage numbers. Crank the hit stop back up a little, please. Give me a few frames of pain. Put some stank on it.
Focus Mode jank
Focus Mode, which lets you land wound-destroying special attacks and aim normal attacks with greater precision, actually feels like a healthy addition to Monster Hunter combat overall, but it makes some weapons feel downright unwieldy. How am I supposed to move my character and the reticle while holding the charge button on my insect glaive? I only have so many digits, Capcom, and that's coming from someone who used a claw grip on a Nintendo 3DS for 500 hours of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. And after another 500 hours in Monster Hunter World, mostly spent maining lance, why does it suddenly feel impossible to land some attacks without using Focus Mode?
Weapon imbalance
Hello, this is me officially ditching the thin disguise and getting on my soapbox to summon my 11 fellow lance mains. Why does the perfect guard counterattack, which absolutely slapped in Monster Hunter Rise and Generations, deal roughly 20% more damage than a normal poke? This is a travesty, and it cannot stand.
In seriousness, it's not just lance. A lot of motion values feel bizarrely skewed, hurting the competitiveness of some weapons and warping their playstyle in un-fun ways. Sure, you control the buttons you press and the weapons you use, but feeling powerful is fun. This shouldn't be as bad in the full game when we have access to more weapons and armor skills, but some numbers definitely need to be tweaked. There will always be a worst weapon, but the gap should not be as big as Monster Hunter's speedrunning community has come to believe after the Wilds beta.
Putting beta feedback into action, Monster Hunter Wilds devs show off improved hitstop and reworked weapons that feel how you remember them
Final Fantasy 14 devs would love to do a Monster Hunter Wilds collab: "There are many fans of the Monster Hunter series within the FF14 team, and I am one of them"
