Monster Hunter Wilds reviews roundup: Either 'a new peak for the series,' or 'may have lost its soul,' depending on who you talk to

The embargo for Monster Hunter Wilds reviews has lifted ahead of its February 27 release, and the consensus is pretty positive. Wilds is within striking distance of a 90% score on both Metacritic and Open Critic, though there are rumblings that it may have been overly streamlined compared to prior games in the series⁠—that was PC Gamer reviewer Lincoln Carpenter's primary critique in his otherwise very positive Monster Hunter Wilds review. Here's a general spread of scores:

• Metacritic: 88% (PC), "Universal acclaim."
• OpenCritic: 89%
• PC Gamer (Hey, that's us!): 85%, "Hitting dinosaurs with hammers never felt so good."
• TechRadar: 4.5/5, "A mighty evolution that ushers in a new era for the Monster Hunter series."
• VGC: 5/5, "The sequel to Capcom's best-selling game is mightier in every way."
• IGN: 8/10, "Continues to smooth off the rougher corners of the series in smart ways, making for some extremely fun fights but also lacking any real challenge."
• Gamespot: 8/10, "It has issues, but Monster Hunter Wilds iterates on a winning formula with another captivating collection of monsters to slay"
• Eurogamer: 4/5, "The most exhilarating and refined Monster Hunter yet, even if its attempts to balance the old and new don't always quite coalesce in its ongoing quest to please all audiences."
• Kotaku: "Beautiful, refined, and more familiar than ever"
• Rock Paper Shotgun: "Will devour your time if it gets its claws in. But an overbearing story might make you impatient to ride straight to the moreish endgame."

"The new peak of the series and an early contender for game of the year"

GamesRadar+, 4.5/5

There is definitely a consensus that Wilds is the most approachable and beginner-friendly entry in the series yet, and that comes alongside improvements to Monster Hunter as an action experience that should speak to series fans as well. GamesRadar's Austin Wood deemed it "the most satisfying combat sandbox in Monster Hunter's 20-year history," and observed that among its arsenal of 14 weapons, each with their own build trees and deep well of customizable add-ons, "nothing seemed underpowered." What makes Wilds the new peak of the series? Here's Austin:

"Monster Hunter Wilds remains an incredible action RPG with the sharpest game feel in its series, albeit slightly blunted by small recurring snags and a few meandering features. I can easily see some of these problems being addressed in future patches, and I'm willing to give Wilds that optimism because what's here is ultimately sublime. I see myself putting several hundred hours into this game. It's my new favorite Monster Hunter and an early contender for game of the year."

At VGC, Jordan Middler quipped that Wilds is "frictionless., At least it's frictionless for Monster Hunter," with particular praise for how the menus and controls have been simplified compared to Monster Hunter World. Middler goes on to argue that this makes the game feel less "arduous" than prior Monster Hunters, leaving it easier to both jump in and keep going back again and again for more hunts. Here's Middler's overall takeaway:

"Monster Hunter World earned its place as Capcom’s best-selling title. Monster Hunter Wilds is a better game in virtually every way. Building on the leaps forward in playability and presentation, this feels like a real victory lap for Capcom. It’s very difficult for me to find much fault in it at all as a game."

"So streamlined, it may have lost its soul"

Polygon, unscored

Though Rock Paper Shotgun's Brendan Caldwell thought Wilds' controls were still too fiddly and unintuitive, most of the critiques I've seen agree with Lincoln that it may have pared back the series' hunting mechanics too much. Kazuma Hashimoto, writing for Polygon, goes so far as to argue that Wilds may have sacrificed something essential to the series' identity in the process: "I continued to yearn for what the series used to be: The friction, the necessity of gathering and preparation for hunts, a larger sense of community, and a real challenge if you chose to go it alone." Here are some of Hashimoto's further thoughts on that lack of difficulty:

"I zoned out during fights, my evade window so large that I could often get a boost from perfect dodging attacks, which meant when I would dodge I would also spin around in a flurry of blades, dealing even more damage. Frustrated, I switched to the Hunting Horn weapon to try and give myself a challenge. But the experience was mostly the same.

"Even High Rank hunts, tempered monsters and all, felt a touch too easy. And as I clocked in at around 60 or so hours, having soloed the main scenario and all of the endgame content, I walked away feeling unsatisfied."

Eurogamer's Matt Wales was similarly left nonplussed by Wilds' lack of difficulty compared to prior Monster Hunters, arguing that this means there ends up being a lack of incentive to engage with the series' trademark grinding for better gear. Wales, like Hashimoto, also had some harsh words for Wilds' storytelling. Here's Wales on that front:

"It takes the series' relatively recent infatuation with cinematic storytelling to fairly exhausting extremes—suffocating its handsomely staged fights between so much endless cutscene jib-jabber and on-rails traversal that even the most receptive of newcomers (let alone old-hands who've done this dance countless times before) will likely be screaming for Capcom to shut up and get on with it. And don't expect the overcautious drip-feed of familiar features to immediately stop once you're in High Rank either, as it takes a surprisingly long time for Wilds to settle down."

But even with those criticisms, the critical consensus still looks very positive, and the buzz surrounding Monster Hunter Wilds seems to have it primed to threaten World as Capcom's bestselling game ever⁠—it's been among Steam's top sellers for some time even as a preorder. Monster Hunter has definitely come a long way since its long wilderness era of PSP and 3DS exclusives.