Monster Hunter Wilds’ TU1 patch finally bestowed a Grand Hub (notably not a Gathering Hub) unto players and, like Gathering Hubs before it, it will likely be where many players congregate or spend most of their time unless another region’s NPCs beckon a visit. Monster Hunter World and its DLC expansion, Iceborne, both had their own individual Gathering Hubs available at their respective launches, and so Monster Hunter Wilds finally receiving a Grand Hub after the game released on February 28 was long-awaited and highly anticipated.
There’s a lot to adore about Monster Hunter Wilds’ Grand Hub, including its sheer size—far larger than World or Iceborne’s Gathering Hubs and nearly big enough to be its own hub region, a la Astera or Seliana. If there’s one area of comparison where Wilds would definitely lose to World: Iceborne, however, it’s between the former’s Barrel Bowling and the latter’s Steamworks.
Monster Hunter Wilds: How to Play Barrel Bowling
With Title Update 1, Monster Wilds has a plethora of new features that create a more socialized experience. Here is how to play barrel bowling.
Monster Hunter World: Iceborne’s Steamworks is a Dream of a Minigame
Comparing Barrel Bowling to Steamworks, it is plain to see how one minigame designed to provide resources as rewards absolutely eclipses the other. Monster Hunter World: Iceborne’s Steamworks essentially has players press any combination of three buttons and rely wholly on RNG to have all three inputs be correct; meanwhile, adorable Felynes toss coal into a furnace.
There are different phases that Steamworks can progress through, including a sequence where the furnace is in ‘Overdrive’ and grants additional rewards for correct inputs or a sequence where Felynes indicate the order that buttons should be pressed.
Because this is all relegated to RNG, players are as likely to accumulate more steam and receive greater rewards whether they’re actually guessing the correct button combinations or pressing the same button combinations in each sequence. Players can reach a climactic finish where the Felynes and Handler are blown into the air by the furnace’s eruption with players then able to continue from the beginning. But, in many cases, players may not have enough fuel invested into Steamworks and their minigame is cut short whenever their natural and stored reserves are depleted.
Still, because Steamworks gradually replenishes its own fuel store, players need only wait a while before returning or wait patiently for a UI notification to tell them that the Steamworks is full again. The music during Steamworks is incredibly catchy, too, but the enormous helping of rewards players earn in any half-baked attempt at the Steamworks is well worth players spending their time in Iceborne’s Seliana alone.
Monster Hunter Wilds’ Barrel Bowling Arguably isn’t Worth the Trouble
It’s great that the Grand Hub has a minigame where players can earn resources—World: Iceborne’s Steamworks is found just outside the Gathering Hub in Seliana—but, even if the bowling aspect can be entertaining, it loses its luster quite quickly. First, players need vouchers in order to play Monster Hunter Wilds’ Barrel Bowling, unlike Steamworks, which only requires that players have adequate resources to hurl into the furnace.
Then, while player skill mattering more in Barrel Bowling than Steamworks would seem like a boon, Barrel Bowling grants rewards based on grades players earn from two rounds (each with two barrels flung), which can result in immediate satisfaction if both throws earn high scores but can also be immediately dissatisfying if a low score is earned. Players are free to practice as many times as they like, and yet no two throws may reliably be of the same skill determining how many pins are struck.
Plus, players will be met with a dizzying number of rewards no matter how poorly they do in Steamworks—assuming they have enough fuel stored to go on for a while, at least—whereas only a total of 8 rewards can be earned from a single completed A Rank run at Barrel Bowling. It took World until Iceborne for Steamworks to even exist, and perhaps there’s a future where a Wilds DLC expansion unveils a satisfying and rewarding minigame of its own. Until then, players who don’t have the vouchers to spare aren’t missing out on much by not partaking in Barrel Bowling.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 89 /100 Critics Rec: 95%
WHERE TO PLAY
- Engine
- RE Engine
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
- Yes, all platforms
- Cross Save
- No
- Franchise
- Monster Hunter
- Number of Players
- 1
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
- PC Release Date
- February 28, 2025
- Xbox Series X|S Release Date
- February 28, 2025
- PS5 Release Date
- February 28, 2025
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
- X|S Optimized
- Yes
