Monster Hunter Wilds arrived on February 28, 2025, with a roar, quickly climbing the charts as Capcom’s most successful Steam launch to date. Boasting over 1.3 million concurrent players at its peak, this latest installment in the beloved franchise promised a breathtaking evolution of the series—an open-world adventure packed with stunning visuals, innovative mechanics, and a deeper narrative than ever before. For many, it delivers on that promise, offering a vibrant ecosystem teeming with monstrous challenges and a refined hunting experience. Yet, beneath the surface of this triumphant release lies a growing murmur of discontent among players, myself included. The culprit? An overabundance of cutscenes and mandatory “walk-and-talk” sequences that, rather than enhancing the game, often pull players out of the visceral thrill that defines Monster Hunter. After sinking hours into the Forbidden Lands, I can’t shake the feeling that Capcom’s push for cinematic storytelling has come at a steep cost to the series’ core identity.

Walking & Talking Is The Worst Part Of Monster Hunter Wilds

It Slows The Game To A Snail’s Pace

Let’s be clear: Monster Hunter Wilds isn’t short on brilliance. The game’s world is a marvel—lush deserts give way to icy caverns, and every biome pulses with life, from the smallest critters to towering behemoths like Arkveld. The new Focus Mode, which lets you target specific monster parts for devastating strikes, feels like a game-changer, streamlining combat without sacrificing depth. Add in seamless co-op improvements and a character creator so detailed it’s practically a game unto itself, and you’ve got a title that’s undeniably ambitious. But ambition can be a double-edged sword, and here, it’s wielded with a heavy hand. The opening hours, in particular, are bogged down by a barrage of cutscenes and scripted sequences that feel more like a leash than a lure, dragging players through a narrative that, while competent, struggles to justify its intrusive presence.

Take the early game as an example. After crafting my hunter—a grizzled veteran with scars that hint at battles past—I was eager to leap into the fray, weapon in hand. Instead, I found myself locked into a nearly four-hour gauntlet of tutorials, cutscenes, and forced walking segments. X posts from players echo this frustration: one user lamented spending “60% of the first 4 hours” on rails, unable to explore or hunt freely. My experience mirrored theirs. A typical sequence might start with a gorgeous cinematic—say, a monster crashing through a sand dune in a flurry of scales and dust. It’s impressive, no doubt, and Capcom’s production values shine. But then, the game shifts gears, forcing me to trudge alongside an NPC, listening to exposition about the Forbidden Lands’ ecology or the guild’s latest woes. I can’t sprint, I can’t veer off to chase a fleeing beast, and I certainly can’t skip these segments. My hunter, a supposed elite, is reduced to a passive observer, shackled to a script.

This isn’t a new gripe for the series. Monster Hunter World had its share of unskippable cutscenes, a pain point for co-op players who had to watch them solo before joining friends. Monster Hunter Rise sidestepped this by keeping story beats brief and optional, letting the hunt take center stage. Wilds, though, doubles down on World’s approach, amplifying it with a narrative focus that feels at odds with the franchise’s roots. Historically, Monster Hunter has thrived on minimal storytelling—your purpose was simple: hunt, craft, repeat. The lore was there if you sought it, tucked into item descriptions or NPC banter, but it never demanded your attention. Now, Wilds thrusts that lore front and center, complete with a voiced protagonist and dialogue choices. It’s a bold shift, and for some, it’s a welcome one. Posts on X praise the “heroic” feel of a talking hunter, arguing it makes you “an actual person of import” rather than a silent avatar. But for me, and many others, it’s a distraction that dilutes the raw, unscripted freedom that drew us to the series.

Real Cutscenes Can At Least Be Skipped

It Makes Getting Into The Action Easier

The walk-and-talk sequences are the real sticking point. Unlike the skippable cutscenes—accessible with a button press, thank goodness—these moments trap you in a slow march, controller idle as NPCs yap about the next objective. One Reddit thread I stumbled across dubbed them “the pinnacle of cinematic gaming” with biting sarcasm, and I couldn’t agree more. They’re a relic of game design meant to blend story and gameplay, but in Wilds, they clash with the open-world promise. Why give me a sprawling map and a Seikret mount if I’m tethered to a handler’s monologue? I’d rather be tracking a Rey Dau through the dunes than nodding along to a lecture on guild politics. Worse, these segments often follow high-octane cutscenes, killing the momentum. Imagine felling a monster in a heart-pounding clash, only to be yanked into a five-minute stroll where your only input is a dialogue prompt that changes nothing. It’s jarring, and it’s frequent.

Capcom isn’t oblivious to feedback. Director Yuya Tokuda has noted in interviews (like one with GameSpot) that Wilds aimed to smooth out co-op story progression after World’s missteps. And sure, the link party system lets friends join hunts post-cutscene more easily. But the single-player experience feels overlooked. The game’s Steam discussions and X posts reveal a split fanbase: some revel in the cinematic polish, others—like me—yearn for less hand-holding. A reviewer on Steam even admitted to crafting an “absurd-looking character” just to make the mandatory scenes bearable. I get it. When the story’s pacing drags, humor becomes a lifeline.

Adding A Story Focus Could Be Cool, But MH Wilds Does It Wrong

It Should Have Dropped The Walking And Talking

Don’t get me wrong—Wilds isn’t a failure. Once you break free of the early shackles, the hunts are sublime. Tracking a monster’s trail, setting traps, and landing a Focus Strike on a wounded limb is as satisfying as ever. The game shines when it trusts you to explore and fight on your terms. But those moments are too often interrupted by a narrative that overestimates its own pull. The characters aren’t poorly written—Gemma the smithy and the handler have their charm—but they’re not compelling enough to warrant this level of screen time. Compare this to Rise, where NPCs were quirky sidekicks, not lecturers, and the balance felt right.

So, where does this leave Monster Hunter Wilds? It’s a paradox: a technical marvel that stumbles over its own storytelling ambitions. Capcom could’ve leaned harder into skippable cutscenes for all story beats, as suggested by some fans online, or trimmed the fat from these walk-and-talks. Instead, we’re left with a game that’s half cinematic RPG, half monster-slaying sandbox—and not quite excelling at either. For every player dazzled by its scope, another is itching to skip the fluff and hunt. Me? I’ll keep playing, if only because the combat’s too good to abandon. But I can’t help wishing Capcom would let the wilds speak for themselves, rather than forcing me to listen.