New Details from the Monster Hunter Wilds Gameplay Demo

Last weekend at GamesCom included the first playable demos of Monster Hunter Wilds at Gamescom. The play sessions revealed a ton of details about several aspects of the world, such as the dynamic environment, the Seikret, Alma the Handler, and more. Below is what we learned, divided up by general topic.

Alma the Handler

Alma takes a much more active role in hunts than The Handler in Monster Hunter World. She joins you in the field, providing information and refilling your supply items. While the exact extent of her involvement is not yet known, it is clear she helps players engage with the game and their environment.

Here are a few observations from the gameplay sessions:

• Alma refills your Seikret's supply pouch, replacing needing to go to the supply box at the beginning of each hunt.
• Alma provides information about the world and the environment.
• Alma warns you if you are about to leave an area if you have cut off a tail but not carved it.
• Early in the game, Alma gives players a sort of weapon personality quiz to help newcomers decide what weapon they might want to play.

The Environment

The environment in Monster Hunter Wilds is the most dynamic yet. We have seasons for the first time with the Fallow, the Plenty, and the Inclemency. These seasons have a variety of effects, including changing what endemic life appears on the map. There is also a significant amount of environmental interaction, with rockfalls, vine traps, and more existing in the field for the hunter to take advantage of.

Dynamic Environment Details

• Season of Plenty has more healing life, while Season of Fallow has more buffs.
• The severe weather in the Inclemency impacts gameplay, such as the lightning in the Windward Plains being able to strike monsters and possibly the hunter.
• Rockfalls and vine traps can be used from the surrounding environment via the hook slinger. Rock falls stun the monster if they are hit, and vine traps act as free pitfall traps.
• Paratoads are back.
• Slinger nets are back, and once again allow you to catch endemic life.
• Wedge beetles are back. You can use these to grapple and swing yourself around certain parts of the map where they are present.
• Upsurges are back. Upsurges make certain types of items, endemic life, or environmental traps more common.
• The map shows a forecast of upcoming weather, upsurges, monster arrivals, and monster departures.
• Vigormantles are a new type of endemic life that thus far seem to function like a personal version of a Vigorwasp.
• There are underwater passages you can traverse and use the hook slinger in.
• The map includes short descriptions of notable endemic life, monsters, and other interactables when you hover over them
• The storm in the Windward Plains Inclemency travels across the map rather than being a static state for the entire map
• When you activate an environmental hazard, it turns grey on the map. It then shows a countdown timer with the hazard's cooldown.
• Great thunder bugs can be used as shock traps. They are only present during the inclemency of the Windward Plains, though they seem to remain for a bit after.

New Weapon Information

There is a lot of new weapon information, as the gameplay sessions made it clear that the weapon previews Capcom shared did not show everything that was added to each weapon. I also must give the disclaimer that it is very possible I missed some new actions, whether from a stream I was not able to watch, or from the Capcom streams which had 4 people playing at once. Regardless, there is a lot here, and potentially more to come in future showcases. Due to the amount of new information, this section is split into 4 parts: Ranged weapons, Melee shielded weapons, melee unshielded weapons, and general.

Ranged Weapons

• Bow coatings are no longer items, they work as a gauge that refills on perfect dodge or hitting the monster.
• Thousand Dragons is back for Bow as a large scale spread shot. This seems particularly potent when combined with the tracer arrow.
• Damaging arc shots are back for Bow, causing a rain of arrows.
• The homing effect on tracer arrows is very powerful, allowing you to fire facing away from the monster and still hit it. Their duration is short to compensate.
• Heavy Bowgun has both automatic and manual guard. The manual guard can trigger power clashes.
• Normal, Pierce, and spread ammo are on a gauge rather than being items you bring with you. Their level is fixed for each gun.
• Bowgun customizations can increase those fixed levels, in exchange you can not have as wide a variety of ammo.
• Harder hitting ammo types, such as elemental ammo, are still crafted.
• Light Bowgun has a shorter range, while Heavy Bowgun has potentially the longest range it has ever had.
• You can have damage numbers show one decimal place.
• Dragon piercer for Bow is faster.
• Bows perfect dodge is called discerning dodge, it restores stamina and your coating gauge as well as giving i-frames.
• Evade and melee with Bow causes you to hop in the air and fire five shots in a cluster.
• The shotgun style large reticle Bow shot, which destroys wounds, can be followed up with a quicker firing dragon piercer.
• Bow sneak attack is a single shot of areal aim, the silkbind move from Monster Hunter Rise.
• Bowguns have paint ammo, though the reason for this is unknown.

Shielded Melee Weapons

• Gunlance reload now has a guard point.
• Wyvernstake on Gunlance is much faster.
• Wyvernfire on Gunlance no longer has a guard point.
• Savage axe is one of Charge Blade's wound destroying attacks.
• Power clashes happen as a result of perfectly timed blocks in some situations.
• Switch Axe has a counter in both axe and sword mode.
• Elemental discharge on Switch Axe has a follow-up attack.
• Sword and Shield has a new plunging attack from its leap.
• Some and possibly all blocking weapons can perfect guard, negating all damage, with the right timing.

Unshielded Melee Weapons

• Dual Blades have a built-in special dodge that avoids all damage when used with perfect timing, This adds an attack to all dodges for a short time.
• Hunting Horn has 3 charges of echo bubble.
• Echo bubbles pulse damage when you recite with hunting horn.
• Demon flurry for Dual Blades is a 3 part combo now instead of a long locked animation. The attack is longer if you use all 3 parts.
• Entering Focus mode can do a full 180 degree turn on Great Sword charge attacks.
• Great Sword has a counter in offset rising slash, which is a counter attack you can charge. You can also roll out of it instead of tackling.
• Longsword's spirit helmsplitter has a follow-up attack, and can be cancelled midair.
• If you tackle through something with Great Sword and immediately go into a charged slash, it is instantly fully charged.
• It seems aerial vault has been removed from the Insect Glaive.

General

• Focus mode on all weapons is meant to be an addition, and is not a necessity to use in hunts.
• All weapons can use a special attack to destroy wounds while mounted.
• Each weapon has 3 different attacks while mounted: strong, weak, and special.
• Attacks from both the hunter and monsters affect the environment, such as causing grass to burn.
• Entering focus mode causes you to redirect your attacks.
• You can pick up and roll barrel bombs in the direction of your choice.
• While it is not unlocked immediately, the second weapon slot unlocks early in the game.
• Special sneak attacks can be used on monsters that have not yet noticed you.
• An unloaded Hook Slinger can still do weak attacks.
• Contribution awards from Monster Hunter World are back, showing a specific aspect of the hunt each hunter did particularly well in.
• You can open up multiple wounds on a single mount.

Monsters

We also learned more about the revealed monsters and their behaviors, as well as how they interact with the environment around them. Monster Hunter Wilds has put a focus on an intricate ecosystem, and the monsters reflect that.

• Balahara climbs around on the terrain, including on some places that can be pulled down by the hook slinger. Pulling down a structure it is climbing on causes a knockdown.
• Balahara can create sand traps, which suck in the hunter and monsters alike.
• There is a new alligator like small monster. You can slinger its tooth to get bleeding pods which deal increased wounding damage.
• Rey Dau only appears during the Windward Plains Inclemency, but sticks around after the weather changes.
• Doshaguma and Balahara have a turf war.
• You now automatically receive rewards from part breaks in-quest except for tails, which are still carved.
• Rey Dau applies a sort of crystallization effect to itself and the ground around it, though the effects are still unclear.
• The ground and walls of Rey Dau's nest are covered in the crystals mentioned above.
• Chatacabra can put saliva on its arms applying an effect based on the ground it is standing on.
• You can get screamer pods by hitting Barnos with a hookslinger.

The Seikret

We were able to see the Seikret fully in action at Gamescom. It seems to be a combination of the best aspects of Raider Ride from Monster Hunter World and the Palamute from Monster Hunter Rise. It is useful for travel, but also in hunts, providing mounted attacks, the option to quickly escape or lure the monster elsewhere.

• Seikret can either be guided manually or by setting a destination on the map.
• There are areas you can only traverse with the Seikret and areas you can only traverse on foot.
• Seikret dismount attacks do mounting damage.
• You can sharpen while moving when riding the Seikret.
• You can drink potions while riding the Seikret.
• Seikret is faster if you control it yourself.
• Seikret transitions seamlessly between manual and automatic control.
• You can use your hook slinger while riding Seikret in both automatic and manual mode.

Miscellaneous

We also learned several things that do not fit cleanly into any of the above categories.

• Pop up camps are a new feature. They are temporary camps that can be built in designated places and behave like the camps from previous Monster Hunter games.
• Pop up camps can be attacked and destroyed by monsters, even when the hunter is inside.
• AI support hunters spawn from support camps.
• Camps have safety levels that indicate how likely the camp is to be destroyed. The level is shown when you go to set up the camp.
• The SOS flare can call in AI support hunters.
• You are now able to make meals in the field. Monsters can attack while you are eating.
• You can recollect traps after placing them if they are not triggered.
• The quest completion screen is a more passive overlay, though you can still view the traditional version if you would like.
• You can pick up new quests from camp, or attack something in the field to start a new quest.
• Large dung bombs have larger range, and are used to break up packs.
• Meals show the ingredients you pick in the cooking and eating scenes.
• Mantles from Monster Hunter World are back. The gameplay sessions only showed the ghile mantle.
• The new auto heal button selects the correct amount of healing for the amount of health you are missing.
• The music changes when you have a whole pack attacking as opposed to just the alpha.
• The new luring pods work like stink minks from rise, drawing the aggression of the monster to the player who uses it.
• Layered armor is unlocked gradually.
• There is a new cart animation: the seikret brings you back to camp and your palico throws a potion on you. The old animation is in the game as well.
• Consumable bait has replaced lures for fishing.
• You can skip quest ending animations and processes.
• You can still have the classic version of the quest complete screen if you do not end quest immediately.
• There is some degree of needing to bring cooking ingredients with you, though the details are still unclear.
• Armor set bonuses are returning.
• Fast travel is one of the only times in map you see a loading screen.
• The steak cooking minigame has returned.
• Cutscenes are skippable .
• You can bring two Palicos, adjust support hunters, or disable humans responding to SOS flares (thus ensuring AI only) by talking to Alma.
• Your health bar reacts by turning red and showing an increased heartbeat-like waveform when monsters do attacks that are particularly dangerous. Your palico alerts you as well.
• You get more meat by doing better in the meat cooking mini game.
• There is a special condition to hear your hunter say “So tasty!” After the meat cooking mini game. The condition is currently unknown.
• You can tap to bring up an overlay map that still allows you to move, or hold to bring up the full interactive map.
• Chase and combat music themes have a smoother flow between them.
• We can see how long debuffs last via a timer above the health bar.
• Blood is a toggleable option.

The Monster Hunter Wilds gameplay demo at GamesCom 2024 revealed a lot of new information. Overall, we learned a lot about the world being built in Monster Hunter Wilds. There is a greater emphasis on the environment and interactivity, and weapons across the board have expanded move sets. Alma is taking a more hands on approach to being a handler, and the Seikret thus far seems to be a useful and convenient tool for movement. We do not know when we are going to get the next trailer, but we are certain to get more information as we continue to move closer to release.

Written by: Brogangh

Reviewed by: Tenkiei