"Tokyo Game Show2026" period, I participated in "Monster Hunter Wilds: Surpass》demo. New terrain is the new area"Cloudrest Ruins", the weapons I mainly used were the Bow, challenging monsters were Kulu-Ya-Ku and Teostra. The demotime was 45 minutes, demo platform was PlayStation 5, all footage shown is from development builds and may differ from the final version.
My biggest impression from this demo is the significant increase in overall game difficulty. Although this feeling,largely comes fromInstructor Marvin's death stare—during gameplay I asked him to help record, he would give advice and apply pressure. But it couldn't hide my awkwardness as a Bow user walking the tightrope, frequently failing and wriggling on the cart.
"Don't say it in the group chat," I murmured.SawInstructor Marvinlooked at me like I was an idiot, making my old face turn red, "It must be that the rehabilitation process wasn't thorough enough, let me get familiar with the new system again, I'll definitely make it."
System that needs familiarity, namely "Monster Hunter Wilds: Surpass》added"Amplification Braces": Accumulate gauge over time or through attacks, obtain maximumthree beans, activating Amplification Mode will unlock powerful new moves for a certain period. Taking the Bow as an example, attacks or executing wounded parts can fill the gauge. Compared to those wide-swinging weapons,it can be said to have an advantage in output frequency. But I also encountered a difficulty; on controller, activating Amplification Mode requires pressing both analog sticks simultaneously, or the right shoulder buttonR1Plus Triangle plus Circle: Under high-intensity challenges, it's either easy to input the wrong combo, or too many buttons cause panic. If the final version doesn't change this, players may need to remap their controls.
In comparison, I also tried the Hammer, which is relatively safe and simple to operate, using three keys to activate Amplification Mode is more stable. While the Great Sword has derivations during regular charge attacks, without needing to press three keys together, after finishing a charged attack, pressing the right shoulder button directly activates Amplification State, which can be considered a balance compensation for these low-frequency output weapons.
The Bow can charge while in Amplification Mode; the moment you release to shoot an arrow, there is a counter-kill judgment with displacement invincibility frames. If successful, you get significant recovery of stamina and arrow slots, and the charge level rises to max—this largely solves some pain points of the base game Bow, providing considerable benefits to the Bow's precise output cycle.
Thousand Arrows in Amplified State comes with a displacement, feeling faster to execute, and can be followed by a normal shot to maintain charge level, but stamina consumption is higher. In comparison, this timeG-Rank's new move "Phoenix Shot", stamina consumption is lower and has decent motion values, but requires counter-killing the monster first to derive, essentially encouraging close-quarters Bow playstyle. To achieve maximum output, you must dodge attacks right in the monster's face, giving me somewhat the feel of "Monster Hunter Rise"'s Dodge Arrow Slash style, but also making sudden deaths more likely.
Andbase game flashy but impractical moves"Flying Swallow", now can bottle while airborne, single bottle limit also increased to 20. Additionally, there are also new moves that consume one arrow slot to fire residual trigger arrows, supplementing the Arc Shot system, making the output cycle of Thousand Arrows exploding residual arrows smoother.
It can be seen that, compared to "Monster Hunter Wilds" initial launch stage BowThe cycle of "Arc Shot + Thousand Arrows to explode wounds + Focus Mode for damage", "Monster Hunter Wilds: Surpass》Bow emphasizes close combat, more dangerous but with stronger mobility. High-frequency output weapons theoretically have advantages in accumulating resources for Amplification Mode. However, increased monster performance makes this advantage not so easy to convert into victory, requiring deeper understanding of the system, positioning, and stamina control, along with extensive practice.this is not a bad thing—I think,"Monster Hunter" seriescan be considered fun Bow, it must be played as a melee weapon.
The first monster, Kulu-Ya-Ku, looks like the offspring of Valstrax and Brachydios, and indeed gives combat pressure unlike ordinary bird wyverns. In the new map Cloudrest Ruins, it brings two minions like Magnamalo. If players don't use Dung Pods to distract the minions, their sneak attacks will test players' immediate reactions. Especially for weapons like Great Sword and Charge Blade that rely on burst techniques, and Bows that use Thousand Arrows, if major damage outputs are blocked by minions, it easily causes frustration.
One of Kulu-Ya-Ku's more impressive moves isstanding big whirlwind, seemingly possessed by Zangief, possessing360degree omnidirectional hitbox. And even more annoyingly, its minions sometimes block the view; before you can clearly see the situation, the minion moves aside, and another dragon-wing-like giant palm slaps you down.。相比之下，它愤怒Status One下类似天彗LONG"Cute Star Flying Smash" moveneeds to be more sporting, two minions will fly up with it, hovering in mid-air, then dive-bombing headfirst like missiles one by one. Accompanied by the gradually howling winds of Cloudrest Ruins, this move's presentation is extremely oppressive, cool and fierce, but the rhythm is very clear, countering it feels like being invited to a dance-off, providing quite a good interactive experience.
This approach of having one protagonist with two dance partners seems to me a very correct way to design group enemies. Moreover, the recently released "Onimusha Way of the Sword》has already showcased CAPCOM'sfor multiplayerdeep understanding of BOSS fights, making me look forward to whether there will be similar monsters later, truly integrating interesting monster habits and ecological settings,feedback into the combat experience.
The second monster is Teostra, known as "Flame Cat" by players of "Monster Hunter: World" and "Monster Hunter Rise", a Hakimi with a bigger temper than strength. However, when I started hunting with the same impression, I became a slingshot mouse running around in panic,until stuck in the oil swamp, burned into"duck neck".
In terms of appearance, this Teostra has a dark face and reddened horns. When enraged, its tail joints burn like an armored tank, creating overwhelming pressure surpassing the previous two titles. And since Teostra's flame-based moves are full of dust and explosions, and the flame color highly overlaps with wound indicators in Focus Mode, it directly increases the difficulty of identifying wounds and deciding which part to execute by a level.
Furthermore, this Teostra has tougher flesh and stronger aggression, making it hard to find opportunities to circle behind for output after dust explosions as in the past, leaving no safe output gaps. Meanwhile, while retaining most moves from previous titles, Teostra also adds two brand new techniques: one is a standing forward weight strike, suspected of having variable timing, making it difficult to judge counter-kill opportunities on first encounter; the other is a short wind-up forward lunge followed by a turning tail swipe, with wide hitbox and unpredictable follow-up variations.
During the demo hunt, facing this situation left me completely confused. Looking back now, these two moves have similar prototypes: one resembles Rajang's standing forward lunge, the other resembles Tigrex's drift charge—just thinking about it scares me to tears, this "Monster Hunter Wilds: Surpass》who exactly is Teostra?
Even more outrageous is that the hunting ground for Teostra will still featureOil-slick terrain restricting player movement further compresses hunters' performance space. But the intention is clear, encouraging everyone to utilizeThe clash in "Wilds" and the counter-kill under the "Surpass" Amplification Mode. After all, in the current version, almost every weapon has its own defensive counter-attack mechanism, and "Teostra" is probably the G-Rank "counter-kill" teacher.—students who previously skipped class will learn their lessons here.
Since the demo version equipment is default, I temporarily cannot know what "Monster Hunter Wilds: Surpass》added which skills or decorations.But it can be inferred that, to accommodate the Amplification Mode system,DLC might have similar"Monster Hunter Rise" Wirebug decorations, these decorations that change mechanism turnover efficiency can increase Amplification Gauge accumulation speed or other related performance. And in moreencourage hitting"Counter-kill" environmentalso needs to design a skill that increases the instantaneous defensive counter window, encouraging players to grind more decorations to compensate for insufficient operations and reactions under high difficulty.
Although after finishing the demo,I wasMarvininstructors mocked for a long time, but actually playedvery happy. Because challenges exist, new systems have greater room for development, especially for someone who loves "Monster HunterXX" "Monster Hunter Rise" Bow playersspeaking,"Glass Cannon walking the tightrope" isI believe is the unique charm of the Bow. Therefore, I approve of "Monster Hunter Wilds: Surpass》that encourages risky action design direction.
Another point is,LaterInstructor Marvin forgave me. He said, he later found out that most other media instructors hadn't fought two monsters either, and some died in particularly ugly ways.
Then I'm relieved, it's not just me struggling.