Some quotes of interest from IGN's preview.
If Monster Hunter World was the first huge, noticeable evolution of the long-running series, Wilds is shaping up to be a clear, exciting progression that takes many of World’s surprising change-ups a step further.
www.ign.com
Where World disposed of individual zones in each region, Wilds removes loading screens between each region and its home-base town, now located right on the map itself
"Open world" after all!
As is tradition, the hunt I watched started off in town, where you can eat, manage your inventory, and craft weapons and armor with the encouraging
new smithy, Gemma. However, this village was established
within the Windswept Plains hunting locale with no loading screens separating it from the action. In fact, the entire 30-minute demo, from preparing in town to taking down a monster and exploring, was completely seamless.
Multiplayer is going to be incredible with this, even more seamless than it was in World, which was the best drop-in drop-out co-op experience I've ever had.
a new monster appeared to shake things up. This was the “Apex” of the plains – the new wyvern shown in the
most recent trailer at Summer Game Fest.
So we know that monster was not the flagship like many thought, more equivalent to Legiana.
Eventually, the hunter was able to escape the new threat and tackle the alpha Doshaguma with the help of some NPCs called upon by an SOS Flare, a mechanic that allows you to “summon” other hunters seamlessly at will into your current hunt. When online, these would be other players, of course.
Upon a Power Clash, where the hunter fought off the Doshaguma with a Great Sword rammed in its mouth
A named game mechanic, I'm sure we'll get spammed with a tutorial about this. Could be the new monster riding mechanic?
Director Yuya Tokuda said the Palico now having a voice helps the player understand what’s happening, as there are a lot of “environmental changes” and “things happening in real time.” For example, the Palico spoke and said, “Shock trap’s down and ready for you” in the demo. I can definitely see the audio cues being helpful when it’s difficult to read text in the middle of the action, but Tokuda-san assured me you can change the voice back to the familiar meows of cat-speak if you choose.
Cat language confirmed for Palicos if the voice acting is disturbing you.
Wounds will appear on the monster as you fight it. This is a system related to Focus Mode, which allows you to specifically target attacks and guards where you aim the cursor. When you enter Focus Mode, Scoutflies will highlight the wounded areas in red. Attacking those wounds specifically, either in or outside Focus Mode, will eventually destroy them and couse damage. There are even special moves for each weapon designed to destroy wounds more quickly.
Focus mode sounds much needed considering how many monsters there can be in a fight and how chaotic it can get. Good idea to help train newbs on Weakness Exploit.
Each biome in these “Forbidden Lands” have different environmental phases, and different materials will only be available during certain times. For example, the Windward Plains has dry and abundant phases, punctuated by sandstorm weather events that have severe lightning strikes.. Great Thunderbugs only appear in the plains during those thunderstorms.
We knew about Windward Plains from a prior trailer but it seems like each environment will have its own weather cycle and they will all be different.
The Hunting Horn is returning to its style from World, but with some additional changes.
Would be nice to take some cues from Rise's improvements to HH, they really improved the weapon for normies.
The Light Bowgun and Heavy Bowgun have “received some of the most kind of broad action changes” of all the weapon types, Tokuda said.
I hope so, it's been pretty boring to play bowguns in the past couple games considering how many options they have given melee classes. Good chance I'll bring a bowgun as my backup to LS/GS/SNS.
Tokuda said they’ve made playing through the story in multiplayer a lot more convenient in Wilds than in World, but you won’t be able to play perfectly together in sync throughout the story as there are some story elements you’ll have to witness solo before matching back up. “We’ve introduced new features in the game so that in the background, you’re always connected,” Tokuda explained. “...so as soon as you’re able to go into a quest, it matches you up quickly and you can seamlessly go back into multiplayer gameplay.”
Not loving this, why can't players just watch the scenes together? Hopefully whatever they did makes this less of a pain, but it will still be jarring to need to split up if you are playing together from the start.
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