I've now had my PS5 Pro for a few months, after pre-ordering and getting it on release day, and while I've had some great times seeing how games stack up on its boosted power, I might have just encountered the first that actually stretches it to its limit. Where Kingdom Come: Deliverance II threaded the needle for super stable performance, Monster Hunter Wilds has proved a more complicated prospect.
It's been relatively clear for a while that Wilds would be a bit of a beast from a performance point of view. Its open beta sessions attracted plenty of animus from people worrying that their choppy performance would reflect the full release (which I've been playing for a couple of weeks) – and responses from Capcom to confirm that it was a fairly old and unstable build.
Booting up Wilds for the first time, I was greeted with a bevvy of graphical options to choose from, in fact, including three different levels of graphical fidelity, some of which could be paired with no frame rate cap, a 30fps option or a 40fps one for displays with variable refresh rate (VRR) settings. It was a borderline intimidating list of options, and I settled on the "balanced" graphics setting, with VRR enabled.
While I did do some comparisons back and forth (although most changes require booting out to the main menu, making things harder), I mostly stuck with this setting since it felt like the best marriage of smooth action and nice detail, but it has be to be said that the game has still creaked at times.
I've seen a large amount of textures render very slowly – especially during cut scenes where the camera angle might swap back and forth – resulting in some blurry awkwardness up close. There's also been quite a lot of pop-in and some frame rate drops, too, which has made it clear that Capcom's graphical ambitions are pushing the PS5 Pro to its very limit.
This cuts two ways, of course. The downside is a little instability and inconsistency visually, but the big upside is that it has me wondering what things would be like on a basic PS5. I feel safe in presuming that they're even more wobbly at those moments of peak stress on the system.
That's the secret bonus of buying a PS5 Pro, of course – you feel like you made the right call regardless of what happens since even instability would be worse on less powerful hardware. I'll be really interested in whether a launch day patch makes things smoother, or if Capcom is just happy for people to choose their own performance levels based on the settings available.
Away from its performance, meanwhile, Wilds has been a terrific journey, and my first time properly sinking into a Monster Hunter title – I bounced off World, for some reason. It's a really slick and streamlined journey that rarely lets you chill out for too long before you jump into a new hunt, upgrading your gear and weapons along the way.
The scale of some of its battles is super impressive, as are the weather effects that amp things up. The potential for co-op fun and strategic synergy is also extremely obvious, with so many builds and buffs to be arranged in a group. I've been playing solo, though, and have still found it extremely engaging.
Wilds also has some massive open areas to explore, ranging from large dustbowls dotted with oases to fetid forests and frozen mountain ranges. I'd argue that only the first area truly feels like a space that you can easily keep track of and navigate, but that might be because the story spends a little more time there, whipping through the others surprisingly quickly.
There are also the traditional (by now) 14 weapons to choose from, each requiring quite a bit of time to really figure out and master. I've been mainlining the long sword, but now that I've wrapped up the main story quests I'm going to try dabbling in some others. Even better, the drip-feed of new monsters has continued with additions after the final boss, too.
Regardless, if you're a PS5 Pro owner looking to see a game really stretch your console, I recommend Wilds highly. Plus, if you're a fan of action games with a sociable side that let you really get to know some highly specific weaponry, consider it doubly recommended.
