After a lush $1,260 Ultra Collector's Edition, some frankly terrifying PC system requirements, and most importantly a February 2025 release date for Monster Hunter Wilds, Capcom released a lengthy beginner's guide for the next entry in this storied action RPG franchise. It's a useful collection of details and features seen previously, and there are even a few things in here that I hadn't really noticed.
For my money, this video offers the clearest summary of the main story of Monster Hunter Wilds. The setup is classic Monster Hunter: we head to the Forbidden Lands, "uncharted territory" that the guild is investigating. This area was thought to be uninhabited before the discovery of a boy named Nata, seen in several grim trailers, who was rescued by the guild after his village, home of the Keepers, was attacked by a monster that we now know to be Arkveld, the White Wraith and the flagship monster for Wilds.
Monster Hunter will never be a story-driven experience – it's all about the mons, baby – but Wilds continues the trend of Capcom investing more heavily into its storytelling, or at least more heavily than the classic prompt of 'guild rookie kicks some ass.'
The bulk of the video is a refresher on trailers that have come before – the core cast, weapon types, temporary camps, environmental fixtures, and so on – but a few tidbits around the 9:00 mark stand out to me. For example, your HP bar will flash when a monster is preparing a particularly lethal attack – something that had come up in fragmented gameplay streams at various events, but, I believe, not in a full-fat trailer.
I'm also a big fan of the new handler's weapon recommendation quiz – not that I need anyone to tell me to use lance for another 500 hours – and it is frankly hilarious that she recommends the longsword, Capcom's favorite child, in this video (around 7:50).
The emergency, Seikret bird companion-aided recovery shown at 9:50 also looks much more impactful than it once seemed, potentially even rivaling the wirebug recovery in Monster Hunter Rise.
That said, the most important news of the day comes from an expanded version of the Monster Hunter Wilds release trailer, aptly dubbed the "Extended Kut." To the delight of many players – the Monster Hunter subreddit, at least, is hootin' and hollerin' – the quirky bird wyvern Yian Kut-Ku is coming to Wilds. This is one of the few returning monsters that have been revealed so far, as Capcom has mostly focused on brand-new monsters for Wilds.
We haven't fought this thing since Monster Hunter Generations and its Ultimate expansion, first released in Japan in 2017 and worldwide in 2018, so we'll be looking at a roughly seven-year gap by the time we get our hands on Wilds in 2025. Kut-Ku was introduced in the original Monster Hunter in 2004, and I remember it having some surprisingly good weapon options, including one of the best 'monster head on a stick' hammer designs, so it's nice to see it's still kicking.
