The first tests of Monster Hunter Wilds are out, and one topic is particularly engaging the community: the difficulty of the game.
Why is difficulty a major topic? In Monster Hunter, the goal is to hunt large and powerful monsters and face challenging battles along the way. Looting, leveling, and grinding have always been core elements of the game. The series surrounding the monster hunters has existed for over 21 years now and sends players on the hunt with numerous titles and spin-offs.
This leads to some particularly loyal players also being part of the community for several years and titles. Particularly during the time of Monster Hunter World, voices arose saying that the game would become too easy and too “casual” (examples via Reddit and Steam). The tight battles and the hard grind for the desired equipment have become less frequent and offer little challenge.
Since February 24, 2025, the first tests of Monster Hunter Wilds have been published, which are overwhelmingly positive. However, among other things, there is more frequent criticism that MH Wilds is also too easy or even easier for some. Many veterans are already concerned that the game will not provide them with a challenge and are expressing their frustration on Reddit.
However, the community sees the issue less with the game itself as a problem, but rather with the players who express this criticism.
The Experience of Veterans as the Main Reason
What reasons lead to the criticism? On Reddit, alongside numerous threads discussing that the game might become too easy, there are also some that do not directly see the reasons for this discussion in the game itself. One example is the thread by Glum_Series5712, addressing the discourse and the problematic nature of the criticism.
The user mentions 3 reasons that he believes lead to this criticism:
- Players who express this criticism are mainly experienced players. These players are veterans of the series and bring a lot of prior experience both with the game mechanics and with some monsters. For this reason, they find the battles easier than newcomers do. From his perspective, this point is often forgotten and leads to frustration among these players.
- The battles are now much more dynamic than before, and the hardware has improved. This makes the game much smoother, the downtime between attacks and actions shorter, and overall feels quicker.
- Also, the revised controls, which have become significantly more pleasant with titles like Monster Hunter World and Rise, contribute to this. This mainly concerns the delay between keypress and action execution as well as the significantly improved camera control.
He also emphasizes that he sees the main reason as the fact that players who find the game too easy have simply become more experienced and have developed skills over the years that make their hunts easier. In this view, the game has not become easier; rather, the players (and the hardware) have simply improved.
MeinMMO editor Alexander Schürlein also has a clear opinion on difficulty:
Basically, I agree with the user and his summary. Experienced players will have little trouble with the low-ranking monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds and will therefore quickly progress through the story and reach the high-ranking monsters. This is mainly because Wilds placed special emphasis on an improved learning curve during development, which aims to make it more accessible for newcomers to learn the basic mechanics of the game.
This will be introduced to players through improved tutorials and a clear structure in the monster progression. For instance, the first monster Chatacabra only has attacks that focus on a single target, while Quematrice as the second monster teaches initial area attacks with its tail. Thus, the monsters indirectly act as teachers, which may initially seem underwhelming for veterans on their early hunts. I see this change as another point that will certainly contribute to the criticism.
However, such changes are also necessary to accommodate players who have not been with the series for years and are familiar with the old, clunky times, and to ensure a new flow of fresh hunters who enjoy Monster Hunter and will become new veterans in the future. And let’s be honest: Who really enjoyed the battles against Lagiacrus in Monster Hunter Tri on the Wii with that terrible control and didn’t wish for better camera controls?
As the game progresses, the monsters will also become tougher, and veterans will quickly reach these points. If they find the path there too easy, there’s still the option to set personal challenges. For example, you can fight without armor, attempt speedruns, or even do no-hit runs.
What does the community say? Under his post, there are numerous voices agreeing with him and seeing the issue similarly. Additionally, some fans highlight that Monster Hunter World also significantly increased its challenges with the Iceborne expansion, where even voices were heard requesting nerfs for certain monsters, such as Behemoth or Alatreon.
Many also agree with him that earlier hardware made games unnecessarily difficult, thus blocking many inexperienced gamers from the franchise because they found no way to actually play the game.
MeinMMO editor Leya Jankowski also shared her thoughts on difficulty in her review of Monster Hunter Wilds. You can read how she felt about it here: Monster Hunter Wilds in Review: Almost Perfect – But Not Flawless
