“Living, breathing world” is a 100% an overused cliché when it comes to games, and I’m not going to tell you that you’ll be so immersed in Capcom’s ambitious Monster Hunter sequel that you’ll feel like you’re really there. But in a hands-off demo of Monster Hunter Wilds at Summer Game Fest, most of what Capcom shared that’s new in this iteration stemmed from a more deeply simulated world, with each detail getting me more excited than the last. The presentation seemed laser-targeted on addressing what I thought were Monster Hunter’s biggest weaknesses, or at least opportunities: making the hunt part of Monster Hunter as involved and varied as the parts where you smash a creature in the face with a giant sword.
Dynamic Quests and Seamless Transitions
Here’s a smattering of things from the presentation that immediately got me psyched:
- Quests no longer have to be selected from a mission board or NPC menu; you can dynamically start them by initiating hunts in the field.
- Wilds seamlessly transitions between the village and the field. You can set up camps where you want out in the field and use them as fast travel points. And when you finish a hunt, there’s no need to go back to the village; you can stay out in the world and resupply from a camp.
Dynamic Day/Night System and Weather Events
There’s now a dynamic day/night system that affects monster behavior, movement patterns, and more. Weather events both directly and indirectly affect combat and monster behavior: a sandstorm lowers visibility, sends herbivores fleeing the area, and causes lightning strikes that can hit the player and monsters. The desert’s thunder element apex predator also becomes more powerful during the storm and actively wants to be struck by lightning. Lightning striking shrub brush can also trigger fires.
Environmental Traps and Advanced Monster AI
There’s seemingly a higher density of environmental traps like vines, rockslides, etc., you can trigger remotely with the new hook slinger. More advanced monster AI enables more advanced behavior and interactivity between monsters; for example, when a new monster named Doshaguma was near death, a horde of small raptors decided they had a shot to take it down. They were wrong, but still, cool to see them going on the offensive.
A sandstorm lowers visibility, sends herbivores fleeing the area, and causes lightning strikes that can hit the player and monsters.
If you were sick of following scoutflies in Monster Hunter World every single quest, don’t worry: you won’t be doing that again. “Before you’ve met a monster for the first time you’ll do something along the lines of World, gathering traces, but once you discover that particular monster type in that area, you already know it and your map becomes your guide to where it’s going to be,” Tokuda said. “It’s similar gameplay for the initial discovery, but I think you’ll find it a lot more streamlined on a quest-by-quest basis.”
I asked how this focus on the whole ecosystem will carry over to the gear and crafting system. Tokuda said that the proportion of small animal parts in the tech tree will stay roughly the same as in World, so there’s no big change there. But Capcom is finding new ways to make them more significant. “Endemic life and small monsters play a role beyond just parts to craft with. You may sp...