Summary
Monster Hunter Wildsis the next big entry in the long-running franchise. It was announced last year at The Game Awards and will be released in 2025. Despite only receiving a brief teaser and a somewhat distant release date,Monster Hunter Wildsis already one of the most anticipated games right now. This can be attributed to the massive popularity ofMH Worldand the fact thatWild’strailer hints at plenty of new features, such as terraforming, a flying mount, and a much higher density of monsters. Another thing thatMonster Hunter Wildscould do to bring more life to its world is overhaul the series' approach to multiplayer.
Multiplayer has long been a staple of theMonster Hunterfranchise.MH Worldis one of thebest open-world co-op games, but previous entries have shared many of the same features despite their segmented environments. InMonster Huntergames, players can assemble groups of up to four players to track down and hunt various creatures. Multiplayer can make some of the harder hunts in each game more approachable and is generally considered a fan-favorite feature since it lets people show off their armor, and the fights scale well to accommodate multiple players.Monster Hunter’s multiplayer is a beloved cornerstone of the series, but it hasn’t had any major evolutions in quite some time.
Monster Hunter Wilds Should Up the Player Count
Over the years,Monster Huntergames have featured plenty of gigantic beasts. Most notably, many ofMonster Hunter’s strongest Elder Dragonshave been huge in size. Zorah Magdaros was one of the biggest fights inMH Worldand required players to attack it with an array of weapons from afar in earlier quests. Battling it is like fighting a mountain, and it isn’t hard to imagine it requiring a small army to fight and kill. Hunts for monsters like Zorah Magdaros and Dalamadur could be reimagined inWildsto allow for larger player counts fitting of each monster’s enormity.
How Could Monster Hunter Wilds Bring Back Rampages?
Monster Hunter Riseintroduced Rampage Quests that tasked the player with defending Kamura Village from invading waves of monsters.Monster Hunter Wildscould overhaul Rampagesin a number of ways.Wilds' teaser shows off vast hordes of monsters roaming the world. An overhauled rampage mode could feature much larger waves of beasts for players to take down. Like the fights against gigantic beasts such as Zorah Magdaros, scaled-up Rampages could be another ideal venue for a larger group of players to take on battles together. By introducing hunts that larger groups of players can take co-operatively, Capcom could inject new life into one of the franchise’s most beloved features.
How Could Larger Parties Work in Monster Hunter Wilds?
Larger player parties inMonster Hunter Wildswould probably only work against certain monsters. For example,Monster Hunter Rise’s Aknosomis fairly small, and any more than four players fighting against one would be overkill. Creatures like Glavenus, on the other hand, could probably be taken on by groups of 6-8 players, provided their difficulty was scaled accordingly. IfMonster Hunter Wildswere to expand multiplayer, it would likely need to create set party sizes for each hunt. This could work similarly to how certain content is restricted to different party sizes in MMOs. Gigantic monsters like Zorah Magdaros could hypothetically allow for twelve-player fights, while smaller hunts like the Great Jagras could allow for only four hunters to take on the quest like in older entries.
Monster Hunter Wildsis still largely mysterious, but the hype around it has made it so that Capcom must deliver a large step up fromMH Worldin order to meet the expectations around it. The teaser hints at dynamic environments andterraforming inMonster Hunter Wilds,which are exciting, but overhauling multiplayer to allow for larger groups in certain content would be a surefire way to make fans of the series happy. Multiplayer is one of the cornerstones of theMonster Hunterfranchise, andWildswould be the perfect game to give it a much-deserved upgrade.
