Developer/publisher Capcom

Format PC, PS5 (tested), Xbox Series

Release Out now

The great dragon Arkveld is one of Capcom’s most formidable creations. It’s huge, it’s majestic, and it’s certainly wild. As we whittle down its health, it only becomes more ferocious, walloping us aside with difficult-to-read barges and smashing the ground with chain-like appendages that conjure bursts of deadly white energy. This is the uber-predator around which much of Monster Hunter Wilds’ plot revolves. Signalled early on as a late-game challenge, your eventual showdown is built up over hours.

It seems strange, then, that you may have got used to fighting Arkveld during Wilds’ beta test, or watched YouTube footage of skilled players slaying the beast before the game’s release. In the context of the full game, such familiarity is at odds with its enigmatic presence. Yet this contrast is characteristic of a game that seems keen to impress but not so much to surprise. This may be the grandest and liveliest Monster Hunter to date, but its largest leaps forward are in its creature design and quality-of-life measures. It doesn’t make the seismic mechanical and structural shifts we might have expected in the seven years since Monster Hunter World, even as it co-opts some advancements from interim Switch instalment Monster Hunter Rise.

That’s not to say Wilds doesn’t take advantage of the current generation’s power. The opening area, where rocky plains give way to undulating desert, swiftly makes that clear. From your first excursion, taking you up close to huddles of herbivorous dinosaurs, it’s both vast and busy. Exotic birds perch on the herd, while scrawny, snap-jawed raptors congregate ominously nearby. Tiny lizards scuttle as if late for work. Butterflies form colourful clouds. A local monster, the leathery-skinned chapacabra, ambles to an oasis to drink. It’s an illusion of a working ecosystem, but a convincing one.