Monster Hunter Wilds' Map System Paved Way for Complex…

Summary

Monster Hunter Wilds introduces a 3D map with detailed elevation for easier navigation in the game's open world environment.
The game's switch to a more open-world approach includes practical additions like cooking on the go and mounted combat.
Wilds' map design offers unprecedented detail and realism, setting a new standard for the Monster Hunter franchise.

The showcases for Monster Hunter Wilds at Gamescom 2024 featured several notable reveals, but one of the most practical additions to the game is coming in the form of UI instead of combat. The switch to a more open-world approach has led to adjustments to core mechanics that help the transition from the hub-oriented system of past Monster Hunter entries, from the ability to cook on the go to the introduction of mounted combat. Alongside large areas that evoke the size of World's offerings, these are set to make Monster Hunter Wilds the grandest of the entire series in a way that makes an overhaul of the in-game map essential.

During gameplay demonstrations of Monster Hunter Wilds' Windsward Plains zone, players were able to access a 3D map that displayed elevation as clearly as horizontal depth. It was already clear that the game's mini-map incorporates this design, but the full version available in the pause menu is the most robust and detailed example of the concept in Monster Hunter yet. In previous games, the segmented numbered areas that make up broader locations could become winding and confusing to navigate at times, and World's levels highlighted this more than ever. Now that Wilds' shift to 3D directly addresses these issues, players will have an intuitive way to traverse the game's sprawling landscapes.

Monster Hunter: World Pushed Vertical Level Design to the Limit

The introduction of layered areas like Monster Hunter: World's Ancient Forest and Coral Highlands marked an ambitious turn for exploration, but this rich verticality is easily able to disorient players. With the game's 2D map being limited in how it can present the nuance of areas stacked on top of each other, the pathways between these zone segments are not always simple to navigate through. It helps by highlighting the part that the player is in, but it still keeps the same basic style that the series has always used.

A larger scope established World's spot as the beginning of a new generation of Monster Hunter, but it could be said that its map wasn't able to keep up with its direction. Ascending and descending its multi-leveled zones can take hours to fully grasp, but this kind of frustration is far less likely to be present in the design of its upcoming successor.

Monster Hunter Wilds' 3D Map Complements Its Continuation of Monster Hunter: World's Scope

Simplifying Presentation Without Compromising On Ambition

The map format of the series has been rather consistent since its debut when it was still an overlay in core gameplay. It remained that way until one of the innovations of World was streamlining its map into being part of the pause menu. With Monster Hunter Wilds' changes, however, its new map holds unprecedented information in a more realistic graphical style. The player is able to pan the camera around and see an area in detail, with the numbered segments seeming far less isolated in context.

Now that there is more clarity to the immersion of exploring maps like those of the Windsward Plains, there is room for Capcom to continue the verticality motif of World in the form of new areas that go even further. If new heights of density are reached in the zones that follow more simple and flat plains, their maps will still be the most readable that the IP has seen. As the series potentially continues to explore new Monster Hunter biomes in fantastical territory beyond traditional climate ecosystems, this design supports the largest scale they could possibly be. It's still unknown where Wilds will take players outside the first environment that has been revealed, but it's already been charted in the most detailed fashion of any release in the franchise yet.

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