[MHWs] Monster Hunter Wilds Is Fun

Long time no see. It's @aka. I've been playing a ton of Monster Hunter Wilds lately.

I had no motivation hadn't been writing on the blog, but despite being a huge gaming fan, I've never written a game-themed blog post. So I figured this is a good opportunity to summarize what I've been up to in Monster Hunter Wilds as of 2025/03/15.

Currently at about 80 hours of playtime, HR126. I'll cover difficulty impressions from the story, endgame content, and thoughts for anyone on the fence about buying.

If you only want my impressions, skip to "Impressions".

Note: Looking at the official X account, it seems the abbreviation is MHWs. It overlaps with MHW (Monster Hunter World), so I wasn't sure how to write it, but I found out while writing this post.

My General Approach to Quest-Based Games

As a general rule, my strategy for quest-based games is as follows:

General Approach

1. Only progress quests directly related to the story.
2. Keep upgrading weapons as much as possible, but don't upgrade armor.
3. If I get stuck on a quest, do whatever upgrades are currently possible and retry.
4. If I still can't clear it after step 3, do side quests or other activities to further strengthen my character/gear, then retry.

The reason for this approach is to balance "enjoying close fights" with "not losing motivation from being unable to clear". I find it really fun to barely win a close battle, but constantly having close fights and never clearing gets demotivating. Hence this approach.

Also, by not upgrading early, I can save materials for later (though from experience, most early-game materials become irrelevant or inflated later, so it's not a huge factor).

My Monster Hunter History

My hiatus was about 5 years — since farming Kulve Taroth in MHW.

My Monster Hunter history:

• Monster Hunter Portable 3rd
• Monster Hunter World: Iceborne
• Monster Hunter Wilds (NEW!)

Yeah, I actually haven't played that many titles. Probably around 1000 hours total.

I mainly used Gunlance and Long Sword. Both are strong in this installment, so I'm happy.

What I've Done So Far

Up to Chapter 3 Clear (2025/03/02)

I was watching the story at first, but it seemed long, and when I saw "Added to Gallery" pop up, I started skipping.

At first I was excited like "Omg! The Palico talked! Omg! The Hunter talked!" but... it's just so long.

Took about 12 hours (2 days) to clear.

My first quest failure was against Jin Dahad.

I couldn't figure out where to hide from the instant-kill attack and got wiped. The game only tells you the hiding spots after you fail — that felt harsh 😅 All my friends got one-shot on their first attempt too.

Other than that, nothing was particularly difficult. Even Jin Dahad went down after upgrading my armor, so the story didn't feel that hard.

Up to Chapter 6-1 Clear

Don't remember exactly how long this took, but I don't think it was much (maybe 6 hours?).

I needed to raise my HR periodically, so when main quests were locked, I did side quests.

Once you hit Tempered monsters, you need at least some armor upgrades, but I got by with Low Rank gear up to Tempered Rey Dau. I had my second quest failure on Tempered Rey Dau, but after upgrading armor, I cleared through Chapter 6-1. Again, the story isn't that hard if you upgrade properly.

Up to Now (2025/03/15)

The post-game highlight is upgrading weapons and armor, right? Armor is relatively easy. Investigation quests have guaranteed gem drops in some rewards, so gearing up feels much smoother in this installment. The problem is weapons...

To get the strongest weapons, you need to grind the Artian system. That thing is rough (in a bad way). It's super tedious — you need it for the strongest weapons, but the process is painful.

Random drops for Artian materials (gacha element #1) and random augments during restoration (gacha element #2) make it gacha on gacha.

It was so tedious that I did "flower picking" (a farming exploit). Search "Monster Hunter Wilds flower picking" on YouTube for details.

I made Artian weapons (Long Sword and Charge Blade) through this. They're not min-maxed but I settled.

I also gathered collection points and helped friends with quests.

• (Personal opinion) Some people criticize "flower picking" because it "makes endgame too easy = shortens the game's lifespan". Personally, I feel like this exploit is what's keeping me engaged. Without it, I'd give up on making Artian weapons and run out of things to do. So for me, "flower picking" is actually extending the game's lifespan. As someone else put it, it doesn't hurt anyone else, so just let people play how they want.

Going Forward

I'm running low on things to do, but fortunately I have these tasks left:

• Armor sphere farming
• Improving my skills (Tempered Gore Magala is a good challenge for practice)
• Charge Blade practice
• Long Sword practice

Impressions

The story is easy so you can breeze through it, and HR goes up quickly, so you'll get a good 20 hours of fun. Whether you enjoy it beyond that depends on the person.

My friends are still playing and there's still stuff to do, so I'm still having fun — but peak enjoyment was definitely the first 20 hours.

If you're the type who wants to craft the ultimate weapons despite the Artian grind, or you enjoy trophy/title completion, or you want to master multiple weapons, you could easily get 100+ hours out of it.

Also, DLC hasn't dropped yet, so there's more to look forward to.

That said, if you're on the fence and would be playing solo, I'd suggest buying a previous Monster Hunter title instead. (New releases are pricey these days.)

That's it for my thoughts on Monster Hunter after a long break. See you next time.