Wilds is a straight downgrade from World!

I have been playing MH since Freedom Unite 2 on PSP. It was my dream to play some Monster Hunter game on a "big" platform with better graphics and seamless levels, but years have passed with no news about the game. I have finished the school in 2016, got a job and it finally happened! It was 2017 and I remember my emotions when I watched the announcement trailer, it was fantastic! My childhood dream finally came true! I can't describe how happy I was to experience Ancient forest for the first time with so much details, complex level design and rich flora and fauna. Monsters have got amazing animations and proper hit boxes, it was truly a triumph for Capcom. After spending hundreds of hours in the game I can say that it had its drawbacks in terms of very crappy coop experience and some flaws in game mechanics. But I can say: it's still a great game with the potential to suck you in for many hours and you'll keep returning to it even after years since release.

So now I was waiting for the Wilds beta after the reveal. It promised even better experience and modern mechanics, a refresh. My first concern was the requirements list in Steam, which forces upscalers and frame generation on a pretty modern hardware. My second concern is Capcom's earlier release - Dragon's Dogma 2, namely it's engine - RE Engine. I've never played any DD and was interested in the release, but Steam reviews are mixed as for now, and most of them are about the terrible performance, even on the highest-end hardware. I have watched YouTube reviews and it's really one of the worst games in terms of optimization and performance in 2024. But I still love MH series for the gameplay, so of course I downloaded and played beta.

I tried to play on 120hz performance mode, but it looks really ugly, the textures are like from PS3 era, the resolution is like an upscale from 480p to 4K. And it also has significant performance (frame) drops. The "resolution" mode is not better either. It's unable to keep stable 30fps and the overall image quality is worse than in MH World! I purposely played MHW on a desert location after playing beta, and it's like a fresh breath of air for my eyes. The image runs at a full resolution with stable 60fps. It's generally impossible to play with 30fps in 2024, but when the graphics AND the framerate is better in a previous generation game, it really makes you think about the direction in which modern games are moving.

Capcom chose a desert location for the demos, which is not bad by itself, but when I actually played the game, it lacked the details compared to World's desert. There were many small animals and insects, spider nests, many little props and the level design was better in general. I could spend a lot of time to explore every corner In Wilds, on the other hand, the location grew in size, but it feels empty. I still was happy to go for a hunt, test the new move sets and explore the location. The move sets are interesting, they bring some fresh experience and many quality-of-life features. Some new mechanics are really great and I bless the game designers for that. But the combat with heavy weapons doesn't feel like you are fighting with those titanic clubs and swords, I couldn't feel that impact from earlier games. "With great power comes great responsibility" - it's not about Monster Hunter Wilds combat, but it's just my personal opinion.

As overall, I wish I could say that this game is a banger, like World. And I see improvements, but they are more iterative and "refreshing", but overall experience is worse than in the previous game and I can't even compare it to the MHW beta. I will still buy the game on Steam and play it with my friends in crossplay mode. I have mixed emotions, but mostly - sad. I'll sill be waint for the release and hope that at least the performance issues will be fixed, but it's very unlikely.

Please, share your experience and opinion!

I'll attach some screenshots later, the post will be updated.