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Of all the games at the Tokyo Game Show 2024, one of the most exciting ones has to be Capcom’s Monster Hunter Wilds. It’s not only available at the Capcom booth (and a separate huge space to boot), but also at Sony’s booth.
Yeah, it’s obvious that the powers that be are heavily promoting the game.
I got a chance to try the game out at Capcom’s booth yesterday and walked away pretty impressed. In the demo session, I got to hunt one of Monster Hunter Hunter Wilds’ new monsters…a medium sized creature called the Chatacabra.
Funnily, I misread the name of the monster initially as Catacabra.
I went into the demo fully expecting to fight a gigantic cat monster or something and was disappointed when it turned out to be a cross between a Hunter from the Resident Evil series and a toad. Then again, I might not have the heart to kill a giant cat monster considering I love cats!
The first thing the struck me about Monster Hunter Wilds (at least in the demo) was the new dessert setting. It’s a bit of a shock when you’re used to the forest greenery or rocky terrain or the icy battlefields of Monster Hunter World.
Not a bad shock, just a shock.
I quickly got used to it and got to hunting.
The lightbugs (or whatever those green flying bugs were called) from Monster Hunter World are back in the new game too, and they’ll helpfully point you in the right direction for your hunts.
The Chatacabra was hiding in a craggy valley when I encountered it.
Despite being given a new Hunter just for the demo, I had zero issues stepping back into the world of Monster Hunter. The Greatsword was just as easy to use in past games. Swing and then dodge roll to cut down on recovery time. It’s a great feeling, and if you’re a veteran of past games, you know just what I mean.
I wasn’t able to try out the other weapons so I don’t know how they performed but if the Greatsword’s any indication, they should be similar to past games.
The Chatacabra hunt’s obviously from early on in the game and it wasn’t really that tough at all. I only had to sharpen my Greatsword once and didn’t even need to refill my health at all! Hell, the monster only hit me once or twice and that’s only because I was in the middle of a swing when I got smacked.
I really like the new wounding mechanic that’s introduced in Monster Hunter Wilds.
Basically, if you keep attacking a monster at the same point (say the butt or one of its legs), it’ll cause a wound to open up. Once there’s a wound, hitting with with a special attack will do much more damage.
There’s nothing more satisfying than outmaneuvering a monster and then stabbing it square in the wound for a massive critical hit. There’s just something primal and crunchy about it…like when you break off a monster part.
Anyways, the Chatacabra I fought ran away in the middle of the fight and I had to chase it down. In the demo, I was given the option to send an SOS for other Hunters to join in the fight. I did it, thinking that it might bring in one of the other players trying out the game too.
Awesomely, it’s AI NPCs that answered the call.
If you’re playing alone, with no friends to hunt with, you can request aid from the AI now. They fight about as good as human players so it wasn’t too hard to whittle down the Chatacabra (which was already on its last legs) and kill it.
It was a short hunt, and I really wasn’t that satisfied…but the hunt did reawaken the Monster Hunter spirit in me. I came away from the demo impressed and eager for more…but since Monster Hunter Wilds is only releasing in February 2025, it’s going to be a while till I can sate my hunger.
Salehuddin Husin, EIC
Sal's been in the industry since the early 2000s. He's written for a ton of gaming and tech publications including Playworks, Hardwarezone, HWM and GameAxis. Recently, Sal served as a juror for the Indie Game Awards at Taipei Game Show 2020. A geek and hardcore gamer, Sal will play everything, on any platform.
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