The Monster Hunter Wilds open beta will launch next week, Capcom have announced. It’ll be live on Steam from 31st October to 3rd November 2024, allowing the more impatient Capcommandoes amongst us to get a taste of the new setting and combat mechanics ahead of the game’s full release in February next year.
As detailed on the official site, the beta includes the game’s character creator and a couple of hunts. The first hunt is a story trial mode, in which you get to watch the opening cutscene, complete some tutorials, and hunt a Chatacabra. The second is a Doshaguma hunt.
I’m not acquainted with the Chatacabra – a cursory wiki inspection reveals it to be a frog made of boulders – but I’m sadly familiar with the Doshaguma. It’s the huge woofy bovine creature they ritually murdered at Summer Games Fest, so that they could show us all the new terrain elements in action. That Capcom presenter is the real monster here, and so are you if you try do anything to the Doshaguma except give it a nice gentle pat on its big floppy head.
In the event that you accidentally pat the Doshaguma’s head with your greatsword, causing it to sit on you with extreme prejudice, 1) that’s what you deserve, you filthy trouser-crafting carnist, and 2) you can summon up to three other hunters to help using SOS flares. The beta will include NPC bots but also supports multiplayer. Last but not least, it’ll allow you to ride about a large desert map on your Seikret – think Chocobo, but toothier – and switch between two different weapons on the fly.
The beta isn’t just a disposable prelude: you’ll be able to import your custom character and accompanying Palico (read: prancing cat minion) to the full game. Which, going by what I saw of it at SGF, should be pretty good fun, given the customary Monster Hunting prerequisite of a heart blacker than pitch and a frankly unreasonable urge to turn everything into pants. You can read my full preview here.