🎮 The Monster Hunter Wilds Demo
It's been snowing the last few days, which has made puppy potty training more difficult. On top of our new boy Douglas not wanting to go outside because it's cold, once he's finally outside, all he wants is to eat the snow. 🙃 He seems to be getting it the more we go, but what an annoying setback.
Anywho, the Monster Hunter Wilds demo is here. Apparently it was here sooner or something and they took it away maybe? But now it's back and I have a new PC to try it out with that can definitely handle it. I'm excited that it feels and plays a lot like Monster Hunter World. I hadn't really enjoyed Rise, though part of that was admittedly my fault for buying it on the Switch and not PC. Though that ultimately wouldn't have fixed my gripes with the game. I'm not a longtime fan of the franchaise so I know those fans were happy with Rise, but I really enjoyed how World felt like every fight was a boss fight.
So here's some quick thoughts I have!
What I like
A small thing I expected to go away was mounts auto-walking to a destination. With Rise bringing in fully-controlled mounts, I thought for sure my beloved auto-walk mounts would be going away. I really liked this for extended play sessions, because I overuse my hands to the point of hurting (I know I shouldn't, but I do anyway) and those little auto trots give me a moment to just sit and relax while the game delivers me to my target. But I know most people are not like that and are going to want full control, as the auto-walk mounts get stuck behind monsters and can have some awkward behaviors at times.
But Wilds did something I really didn't expect - it combined both. Mounts will auto-walk by default to a destination, following the scoutflies in front of you, and will seemlessly hand over control if you steer them. I'm thrilled and impressed.
Not So Impressed
So... multiplayer.
Capcom really hasn't... figured this out, have they?
Yeah, I can make a private lobby with my friends. Yeah, I can make a linked group so we're partying together.
Why can't my friends and I just... wander the wilds together and kill random things we happen upon? Why do they get sent back to town through a loading screen and I stay out in the field when we finish killing a random thing I found? It's all just silly.
So far, Wilds does multiplayer better than other monster hunter games I've played (World and Rise). But it's nothing groundbreaking.
That said, I liked World's multiplayer more than Rise's, and this is closer to World's. We've only had one session trying this out so maybe it won't be so bad, but we were really confused just trying to figure out how to hunt a monster together, as a friend was still working on the first few hunts (which were not postable to the board.)