Monster Hunter Wilds could be the franchise's biggest hit — but I'm disappointed it still fumbles on one thing

We’re on the cusp of the release of my most anticipated game of the year, Monster Hunter Wilds. For years, I’ve been waiting for this follow-up to one of my favorite games. To give some context, I poured over 300 hours into Monster Hunter World.

With reviews now live, Monster Hunter Wilds has garnered mostly positive reception. However, our own Wilds review here at Windows Central criticized the game’s lack of difficulty—something at odds with the premise of the franchise for many long-time fans. Having had the privilege of playing the game early, I wanted to share my own thoughts, particularly some counterpoints.

While I agree that the reduced difficulty might feel like a departure for veteran players, I see it as an overall positive. It makes the game more accessible to newcomers and casual fans, something that may lead to more mainstream success for the franchise than ever before. That said, I have my own major frustration with Wilds.

The multiplayer experience, which is my main way of playing this series, remains as convoluted and clunky as ever. In 2025, I have far less patience for these outdated systems than I did in 2018 when Monster Hunter World launched. As a result, I don’t see myself dedicating nearly as much time to Wilds, and that’s a real downer for a game I’ve been so excited about.

I had higher hopes for the co-op experience

I've been playing—well attempting to play—Monster Hunter Wilds with my partner, who also has early access. We’ve played previous games in the series together, and I had high hopes that the co-op experience in Wilds would be more streamlined. There are some improvements, like the game now automatically sending an invite to your 'link party' once you're done with a cutscene in campaign mode, eliminating the need to fumble with controls yourself. However, the experience as the invitee is far less intuitive.

For instance, when we both met a monster for the first time, we watched its cutscene separately (the monster reveals are still incredible, by the way). Once the cutscene ended, I was thrown into battle while waiting for my partner to join my game.

Meanwhile, they had to navigate the menus to accept the invite, all while the monster continued attacking them, potentially knocking them out of the process. As soon as they accepted, they were forced to leave their quest and be transported back to camp, then run back to rejoin me in my instance.

This process is frustrating, especially early in the game when fast travel points are limited. Why can’t we simply experience the story together in a shared instance? Why can’t we walk to the quest location and watch the cutscene side by side? Instead, we’ve spent more time sitting through cutscenes or fiddling with settings than actually fighting monsters together. While cutscenes are now skippable and auto-invites have been added, the process remains overly complicated and disjointed.

Here’s a tighter summary of how it plays out:

• Party up.
• Start a mission.
• The game splits you and your partner into separate instances, though you remain in the same party.
• Each player finds the monster and watches the cutscene.
• Once the cutscene ends, an invite is automatically sent to party members.
• The invitee accepts and loads into the host's instance, starting from camp.
• Any progress made fighting the monster in separate instances is lost.
• Even worse, you can be interrupted by the monster while attempting to accept an invite.

Multiplayer Monster Hunter has gone backwards

What's most baffling to me, is that prior titles like Monster Hunter Rise and Generations Ultimate handled co-op much better. In Generations, cutscenes integrated your party members into the action, avoiding these interruptions altogether.

It’s frustrating that Wilds seems to carry over the co-op system from World rather than taking cues from its handheld-focused titles, despite years of player feedback asking for improvements.

The World and Wilds entries admittedly have a sharper focus on "cinematic storytelling," which feels even more ambitious in Wilds. However, this focus feels misplaced in a franchise traditionally celebrated for its gameplay. I don’t want the multiplayer experience to suffer as a result of the storytelling.

It’s as if the portable team behind Rise has prioritized fun and accessibility, while the mainline team remains fixated on cinematic realism—which while admirable leads to unnecessary complexity in the gameplay systems.

Departing from tradition to welcome new hunters

On a positive note, while I agree with our review that the game is easier than World, it's undeniably fun and packed with jaw dropping moments. The shift in difficulty will likely bring many new players into the hunter ranks, which is a fantastic thing for the series.

As a bow main, I love the new focus mode and the ability to zero in on clearly marked monster injuries. These new elements make hunts more manageable, and I’ don't particularly mind a little bit of hand-holding—especially in a year packed with so many other exciting releases. Streamlined mechanics like focus mode abilities and less grind-heavy gear progression may make the game feel less challenging for veteran players, but they do serve a purpose in bringing more players into the fold at least at launch. These difficulty grumbles can easily be fixed too with some beefy DLC later on down the line.

Despite my frustrations with multiplayer, I do genuinely believe Monster Hunter Wilds has the potential to surpass World’s popularity, thanks to its accessibility, at least from a solo gameplay perspective. Overall I’m excited to see more people pick this up as their first Monster Hunter experience and dive into the franchise.

However, nothing kills that excitement faster than telling someone they can’t just jump into the game with their friends from the start. Instead, they have to navigate an endless set of menus and sit through cutscenes, before they can actually play together. This, to me, feels like the franchise's biggest stumbling block and I feel as fans we should be lobbying for better systems.

Monster Hunter World was the first break for series into mainstream appeal. Wilds feels like a step backward when all you want is a straightforward co-op experience from start to finish.

Maybe this will be addressed in future updates or DLC, but it’s frustrating that multiplayer accessibility isn’t already a higher priority, especially when the game is at its absolute best experienced with friends.

Monster Hunter Wilds makes an admirable attempt to strike a balance that welcomes new players into the fold, but the convoluted co-op system still has a long way to go. Because of this, I’m not sure I’ll be sinking the same amount of (wo)man hours into this title as I did with its predecessors.