In thisMonsters Hunter Wilds Beginners Guide, we’ll go over many tips and tricks to make your experience with the game smoother and ensure you have a swift progression to High Rank. Whether you’re a new or returning player, this article will help you understand the mechanics, controls and progression of the game.
Monster Hunter Wilds Beginners Guide
How to Play Monster Hunter Wilds
Monster Hunter fans will be familiar with the series gameplay loop, but Wilds makes some critical changes due to the introduction of a dynamic real-time map where everything is happening at once across all regions of the game, and you have to pick what you want to respond to. This can become overwhelming as you aren’t sure what you should be doing and you’re spammed with notifications.
In this guide, I’ll help you navigate this confusion and optimize your approach so you can enjoy the gameplay loop to the fullest, taking advantage of all the things I learned in my 200+ hours with the game. There are of course mechanic spoilers on this guide, but the endgame section is at the very end so just skip it if you don’t want to know. I won’t be revealing the last boss or anything like that.
How to Pick the Best Weapon in MHWilds
The first thing you want to do if you’re a new player is figure out whatweaponyou want to main. This time around, yourmountwill give you an option for a second weapon so you’re able to swap back and forth when mounted by pressing right on the D-pad. In old games, this would not have worked because yourarmorwould have specific skills that boost your performance with a specific weapon. This is no longer the case, as now armor has defensive-styleskills, while weapons have the offensive skills built-in. So, you can now efficiently use the same armor set forLongswordandBow, for example.
To select your main weapon, I recommend you check out our series of guides that explain and showcase the movesets and gameplay of each category. These are 14 dedicated articles and videos you can find on ourchannelandwebsite, so I won’t try to repeat that all here as it’s too much. In general, most people would opt to have one ranged and one melee option, but it’s not uncommon to want to have a primary weapon of one element and a secondary weapon of the same type or a different element. I settled on a Dragon element Longsword as my main with a backup Water element weapon based on the monsters I was hunting the most.
When you pick your category, the next step is to select which weapon of that category you should create, and it can become really overwhelming as all the trees are marked with question marks. You can see all materials and completed trees on thefextra mhwilds wikiif you want spoilers, or you can simply follow the “rule of simple” as I call it: Make Ore or Bone and upgrade that only as you go. I’ll touch on how to progress through the tree a bit later, you can skip to the progression section via chapters if you want, otherwise let’s talk about setting yourself up with options and familiarizing yourself with controls.
Options, Settings & Control Tips & Tricks
The game has a huge amount of options, including changing the way focus strikes work, pathing for yourseikret, and the UI size. I strongly recommend you spend the time customizing this to your liking, as it can make a big difference for the clutter in your screen, and it can also affect your gameplay significantly. “Auto-sheathe” your weapon or not can make a big difference in how your combat feels, for example.
Since font size and UI size settings or the like are personal preference, the one thing I will absolutely recommend you do is go to Audio, scroll down to “Felyne Language” and make sure it’s on “Felyne Language” and not the “Voice Set Type” abomination.
Options to Consider
Under “Game Settings”
Setting up your Loadouts
The next thing you should do after setting thecontrolscomes when you first get access to your tent and handler. From the tent, navigate to “post / join quest” and select “Settings” to customize how you wantmultiplayerto work. you may determine max quest members, limit it to only players ornpcs, set automatic SOS flares so you get help as soon as possible, and manage passwords and cross play.
The next important thing to do is start to understandLoadoutsfor items and equipment, as well as the many shortcuts the game gives you.
Understanding the navigation bar at the bottom right can be very frustrating at first. So let’s begin by setting a simple loadout with key items you need every hunt, by going to “loadout” and then “item pouch” and selecting the first prebuilt one. As you get familiar with the game and your needs, you can set your own loadout here and whenever you come back from a quest, go into the tent and click the loadout to quickly deposit all your harvested items and replenish your needed consumables in one click.
From this same loadout screen, you can preview “equipment” loadouts - this will come in handy for endgame. But right now go to “controller shortcuts” and see what you have. When you exit the tent, you can “Customize Radial Menu” to change what you need on the basic menu mid-hunt. For example, if you set auto-SOS, you can remove the SOS button that comes default and replace it with something else you want, such as the world map or a group heal or defensive item.
Control tips for the new hunter
I recommend playing on controller even on PC, so I will make suggestions that reference a Playstation controller (MHWilds supports xbox and playstation controllers).
Press L1 to bring up your quick action menu. This activates both your predetermined “controller shortcut”, and the bottom right item navigation. For the controller shortcut, pushing the Right trigger up / right / left / down will select your quick item to use such as sharpening or healing. L1 + Dpad directional changes your shortcut from default to coatings, social, or other that you have set, allowing you to interact with those secondary shortcuts.
Then there’s the item menu on the bottom right. Press L1 and then SQUARE or CIRCLE to navigate left and right inside it. Then let go of L1 and press square to use the item you selected. This is weird and complicated, I know, but you’ll get used to it. There’s also a submenu here for fishing that requires you to equip the fishing rod (meaning you let go of L1 and pressed square) and THEN press L1 again to swap fishing rod baits. Insanity but it works!
Now that you have the control basics, we’re ready to explore the world, but my biggest tip for navigation is to make full use of the map’s “quick” buttons. By that I mean: open map with middle pad, press Right on the D-pad, and press X to bring up camp list and quick port. Otherwise you’ll have a horrible time trying to find your camps. You can also use this map menu to filter specific icons of things you want to find, so make full use of it.
Monster Hunter Wilds Beginners Guide - Exploration and Discovery
Monster Hunter Wilds is a treasure trove of secrets and hidden areas, easily missed by the auto-run hunter who is letting theirSeikrettake them to aquest. While I generally suggest progressing the game before exploring, make sure you do spend time really researching this wonderful world and its ecology, it’s quite rewarding.
Eachareahas unlockables for you in the form of camps,materials,monsters,endemic lifeandaquatic life. You should navigate the map carefully to find many camp locations, but you will only be able to place a few of them and if they are in a “dangerous” zone they are prone to getting destroyed by roaming monsters. I have a list of best camps to scout and set up in the wiki under the “Pop-up Camps” page, so I won’t list them here, but you want to consider not only safety but also whether it’s far from the starting point and if there arespecial items, gathering orfishingnearby.
The next thing you should do as you explore is keep a keen eye out for smallanimals and insectsmoving around. Use your capture net (equip it from the item menu under L1) and aim at everything you can to capture it, including the toads and thunderbugs, fireflies and vigorwasps. You will also see lizards, butterflies, birds, crabs and much more. There’s even a questline to take you to find one crazy little running guy for a trophy, so learn to do this as you go along and enjoy the experience.
A very convenient thing to know is that you can grapple items from the comfort of yourSeikret. Simply aim at them and press circle to get the item to yourself.
The same thing goes forfishing, that can be a rather frustrating experience. You will have to fish to get specific items and unlock more lures. The full walkthrough for the fishing questline is on the wiki so if you need help check it out, but the basics of it will be to use the right lure to get fish. If you don’t know what lure, you can try using your net to capture some of the fish and refer to your in-game aquatic life manual, that often tells you what to use. You will absolutely get stuck at one point trying to find a “Gravid Bowfin” that will simply not bite. I put tips on how to get it on the wiki page if you want but more than anything it’s a test of your patience and frustration tolerance. From there you will be able to get much larger and fun fish that are used for some weapons and armor, so don’t forget to fish!
Next up on your exploration to-do is to kill at least one of every type ofsmall monsteryou see. This includes the flying small wyverns you can get pods from. Aim at them and press circle to get a pod item, they will then fall to the ground. Kill them and loot to unlock their entry and get their materials. The reason you want to kill one of each is to improve your book understanding of them. You will want to do this for both low and high rank!
Forlarge monsters, you’ll see many pop in and you should always check them out with your binoculars, as it will tell you if they are a crown monster, allowing you to initiate a hunt immediately to get it on your log. A crown is an abnormally large or small monster, and gathering them gets youachievements and titles. If you happen upon one, be a great team player and notify your lobby or fire an SOS so other people can get the crown too!
Lastly there’s the gathering. You will see many ore, bone and “special” gathering locations that give you trade-in materials, special items and cooking ingredients. Bone and Ore should always be gathered a few times per zone, one in low rank and one in high rank, to obtain all the ore and bone for your basic equipment. You should also be on the lookout for “sparkly” ones as they give you more items. For the other special gathering locations, sometimes you will be notified there’s an “upsurge” of something, and it will be there only for a limited time. Go get that item as it will play a role in your trading to obtain unique equipment.
And that brings us to Villagers and trade, let’s have a look!
Unlock Trade & Villagers
As you progress the game, you will meet many villagers. Once you’re past a certain point in the story, you will get a notification that someone “wants to talk”, or notice an exclamation mark over their head. Interact with them as soon as possible to unlock villager trade and later villager material gathering. They are both integral parts of your progression.
Tradewill allow you to use yourspecial itemsto buy specific things you may’t easily get, and some unique items that allow you to craft villager-style equipment. You unlock more traders as you go so look around for them or check the wiki page that has a complete list of what’s possible. You should also look out for “settlement trouble” quests as completing them buffs gathering for that village, and you can save it as an investigation to repeat it when it runs out.
You will also find a special village of Lynians called “Wudwud”, and if you visit it at night during times of plenty they will have a big bonfire where they can cook your items and give you special rewards. Trade with them here to get your steak cooked and obtain assorted goodies.
The other feature that villagers do for you, only after you complete theirsidequests, is gather materials. Each villager will have a different specialization and will be able to get more or less items depending on what you ask. They also will bring some special materials such asSinister Cloth, like your palicoes would in the other games. This is a very important feature and you should always set and retrieve these materials and the festival materials to maximize your game time away from gather farming.
An important note is that you should avoid trading for ingredients unless you have an abundance of special materials. The reason is that theingredientsyou get for cooking have rather mild effects and can be quite rare, so you will be mostly cooking from rations for a quick health and stamina buff rather than making fancy honey-coated fish. But there’s another reason, and that is the village food, let’s check it out.
Get the Best Food Buffs
I am as heartbroken as you are about no cat cookery. But let’s get over it for the sake of gameplay, and delve into the system. Villagers will invite you to eat and prepare a feast for you at random intervals. These feasts give the most powerful effects and last a full hour. This means if you go to the right village and get “Capture Pro” as a reward, you will get extra materials capturing. Or a specific village may give you “Insurance” so if you are doing an endgame hunt that is the one to get.
I personally prefer to capture monsters to end hunts quickly, so the capture meal was my favorite, but there are also carving buffs to be had that can be taken into the endgame boss to maximize drops and get as many things as possible.
AzuzandIceshard Cliffsare my favorite meals. You should learn what all the buffs do and attempt to focus on the type of hunt that gets the most out of it whenever you get one of these invitations. And yes, it’s all on the wiki of course, so if you want to see just go to thecooking page.
Recommended Progression
Now that you have the basics of the gameplay loop I want to make some recommendations regarding how to progress through the game.
As most veteran players will tell you, you should not waste your time grinding materials for low rank armor, but if you are playing solo and are new you may spend quite a bit of time before you unlock High Rank armor that matters, so it can pay off to have a progression path.
Personally I often follow the sameish path in all monster hunter games with returning gear, so here goes my recommendation:
With that simple progression out of the way, we get to the endgame of Monster Hunter, which is mostly about finding rare endemic life, fishing for giant squids, and killing tempered monsters to get gems, decorations and the new Artian Weapons. Let’s look into it a little bit
Endgame Content
You may be wondering why I’m touching on Endgame in a beginner guide, and it’s simply because I feel like the game is better experienced if you go through it knowing what your goals are and how endgame will play out. I dislike getting to endgame and seeing I unlocked a bunch of features that make a task much easier and I wasted my time doing it at low level. So for that reason, I want everyone to know what’s coming up. As I said above,spoilersso don’t stick around if you don’t want to know!
Your endgame loop will mainly focus on finding the right hunts to optimize your equipment. You may have marked items in your wishlist, and this makes special notifications for when monsters that have your items spawn, and highlight when you get those items. It’s very convenient so I recommend you use the wishlist fully to set clear objectives for your hunt.
Your wishlist would typically contain your endgamearmor,talismanupgrade, a main weapon and some “backup"weaponswith other elements. From my view of the trees, your backup weapons will most likely be Artian Weapons, so you’ll spend a lot of time going into rare 8 artian drop hunts and getting special ore materials to meld upgrades for them. Artian weapons work by combining your quest rewards of parts of a weapon to create many elemental variations of an endgame weapon that have 3 level 3 decoration slots, making them very powerful once upgraded if you have good decorations for them.
You will spotmonsterswith guaranteed gems - verify you save as investigation so you can redo this later and stock up on theseitems. You should do this for any quest that has lots of decorations, artian drops, etc. The higher level the quest the better the drops in general, so you’ll be chasing those tempered arkvelds and such.
Sincedecorationscan have double effects, having backup weapons makes farming more rewarding as you are farming decorations for multiple weapon elements and customizing multiple loadouts.
If you find yourself aimless at this point, and you haven’t done it yet, it’s time to look into cooperative play.Multiplayeris an integral part of Monster Hunter, so dive into it full-on with link parties with friends, passwords and clans. We have a Fextralife clan with cross-play that allows you to see other people’s quests and jump in to enjoy being helpful while hunting for monster crowns and achievements. Make sure to customize your “Hunter Profile” with the many fun poses, backgrounds and braggadocious medal displays available, and snoop on other hunters to see whatbuildspeople are trying out.
And that’s about it for my beginner and progression guide to Monster Hunter Wilds. As always, we have made an expansivewikiand set out everyweapon,armor,monster,materialand all possible data around them, but you can always jump in and help edit other details. We also haveguidesfor all weapons coming out now, and we’re working on progressionbuildsand tips for all weapons as well. Whether you’re new or returning to the series, I hope you have a great time with it and see you ingame!
