The kingtusk wheels around – as well as an oversized boar with the turning circle of an articulated lorry can do such a thing – and stamps its hooves, preparing to charge. The last time didn’t go so well; our attempt to hastily assemble a giant springloaded mallet trap resulted in us placing down several smaller springs instead, with one launching us straight into the stampeding beast, which immediately sent us flying back 30 feet or so. Now, however, we’re ready. Extending an arm, our hunter conjures a stack of crates, which fuse to form a mighty bulwark; our plan is to climb atop it before jumping off to deliver a swipe from above with our katana. Alas, no sooner has the wall miraculously appeared than those tusks have crashed through it, sending us on our second flight of the day as our humbled hunter cries out in pain once more.

Get used to that sound, because you’ll be hearing an awful lot of it during your time with Wild Hearts, EA’s barefaced attempt to capitalise on the success of Monster Hunter. Such is its debt to Capcom’s game, indeed, that developer Omega Force seems keen to avoid saying either word. Your first objective is not to hunt a monster, but to pursue a kemono, the feudal-Japan setting providing an excuse to use different terminology rather than having its writing team keep a browser tab open with the search results for ‘monster synonym’ (we speak, of course, from experience). Over time, it grows less coy – emboldened, perhaps, by its one big idea. This one’s borrowed from Fortnite instead: the ability, as long as you have the right materials (in this case a replenishable supply of celestial thread), to build objects in a flash.