Capcom hosted an open beta for its next chapter in the Monster Hunter series last weekend, and here at Pure Xbox, we took this chance to go hands on with the Xbox Series X|S build. So, here are our first impressions of the latest entry - Monster Hunter Wilds!
Create a Hunter
Your first task, as usual, is to create a Hunter (and also design your loyal Palico companion). This character creator now offers more freedom to change your physique and design a character that better reflects whatever you want. As Capcom also notes, Hunters from the open beta can be carried over to the full release next year. In the end, we decided to sculpt a rugged and mysterious Hunter, but we're sure you could come up with some really wild ideas if you had anything in mind.
Setting the scene
Once you’ve finished crafting your Hunter, you’re thrown straight into the action where you find yourself aboard a ship sailing across sand dunes, and this leads to a chase where you mount a bird-like creature known as a Seikret to rescue a character who is about to be a nearby monster’s lunch. This leads nicely into the open beta's story trial, which had us hunting down an amphibian-like creature known as a Chatacabra, deep in a cavernous section of this new world. When we were eventually allowed to explore the beta ourselves, the first thing we did was exit base camp to head out and explore the wild.
Exploring the wilds
You enter a scene that looks like something out of a safari or even a certain dinosaur movie – with packs of monsters roaming across dry grassy plains while other forms of life and creatures gather around oasis. In our opinion, the map - officially known as 'Windward Plains' - felt more alive, open and interconnected than ever, and did a better job hiding more linear aspects compared to previous entries in the series. When you do view it for the first time from the game menu, you might also be slightly overwhelmed by the amount of icons and points of interest that pop up!
Apart from what’s already been described, Windward Plains is made up of water holes, rocky caves and sand dunes – lots of sand dunes. To add to this is an ever-changing climate including weather cycles and sand storms, as well as day and night cycles. To traverse this world, you can fast-travel around to camps, set up camps in certain locations, and also auto-navigate from one Monster or landmark to another on the back of your Seikret. All of this made exploring the map even more enjoyable and we found it incredibly easy to get lost in nature, jumping from one area (or monster) to the next.
The hunt
The action, from what we experienced, appeared to be the same process as previous entries – you pick your class (and secondary weapon), and then go out – track a monster, set traps, and all the usual processes to ultimately capture it, or kill it and skin it. Like in Monster Hunter: World, you can use an SOS Flare, which will bring in CPU or real Hunters to assist you in battle. You can simply join other player lobbies as well and help each other out with objectives.
During the open beta for Wilds, we were able to team up with multiple parties to take down monsters (it’s worth noting cross-play is also supported). As for the monsters, we had access to the ‘Doshaguma Hunt’ – where you take on a massive bear-like creature. There was also the odd encounter with the thunder-Wyvern 'Rey Dau' (the apex predator of Windward Plains), and along with this, battles between monsters return.
Performance on Xbox
Now, we know this was just an open beta running on an existing development build of the game, but the performance is probably our biggest concern so far on Xbox Series X|S. This wasn’t isolated to this platform either, with players on other systems also noticeably reporting some odd (and amusing) bugs.
In terms of our Xbox Series X play sessions though, it was a mixed experience – on the ‘enhanced’ setting it looked nice enough but didn’t feel quite as smooth, and when playing online we encountered a bunch of visual glitches at times, especially at base camp, which resulted in some picture distortion and even flashing. The hunt felt a bit more sluggish when we were with a party of hunters.
As for ‘performance’ mode, it worked well enough, but the image quality felt much lower (and much blurrier) than we’d hoped for from a true next-generation Monster Hunter title across any platform. We've also seen reports from other Xbox players about crashes, disconnects and more during the open beta, but that's also the whole reason Capcom is running an open beta.
We can only hope Capcom offers a much more stable experience when it delivers the final retail build of the game for Xbox next year. Don’t get us wrong, the environments, weather effects (like lightning flashes) and sand dunes all looked lovely, but performance in many cases is our paramount concern when it comes to the hunt.
Final Thoughts
We had a fun time in the Monster Hunter Wilds open beta and feel there’s a lot of promise with this new entry in the series when it arrives early next year in 2025. It appears to offer a greater sense of freedom, even if we didn't necessarily encounter any major game changers during our time with the playtest. We just hope Capcom delivers a more stable experience overall and can find the right balance between the game's visual modes. And that's it - we'll see you in the wild next February when Monster Hunter Wilds launches on Xbox Series X|S.