At last: Monster Hunter Wilds is willing to kick my ass

It happened as it always does: A new Monster Hunter released, veteran hunters complained it was too easy, and those of us who've watched this cycle repeat for the last 14 years settled in to wait for Capcom to inevitably send along a fresh parade of powerhouse monsters to balance the scales.

Now that Title Update 1 is here, I'm pleased to report that it only took Wilds a month to start humbling me.

Before last week's Wilds patch, I could count the times I'd been KO'd by a monster on one hand. I was still enjoying myself. For me, the satisfaction of Monster Hunter isn't in having slain a monster, but the fantasy of fighting it—how the weapon mechanics and arcane systems all feed into a natural mimicry where you're studying monsters just as your hunter has, until you're capable of fighting on equal footing with any two-story behemoth of horns, talons, and occasional lightning blasts.

The problem is, once you're acclimatized to Monster Hunter's higher difficulty tiers, which are added to each game in post-release expansions, you're not going to be on equal footing in the launch quests. You're going to be death incarnate. The visual, kinetic splendor of a well-executed hunt is still there—swatting aside a lunging monster with an offset attack will never disappoint—but by the time I'd upgraded my Wilds weapons and kitted out my endgame armor set, the fights were simply ending too soon.

Even worse, I was starting to develop bad habits, ripsawing into monster wounds with a reckless abandon, confident enough in my ability to trigger the next stagger window that I was willing to ignore inconsequential monster attacks. For all its frenzy, even Gore Magala had become the proverbial coughing baby, and I the hydrogen bomb.

Which is why I was so thrilled on Friday when I was casually swatted off my raptor house and punted back to camp with a nuclear fireball.

Zoh Shia, the final boss of Wilds' Low Rank story, is now a repeatable High Rank hunt, and Capcom wasn't stingy when it gave the frankendragon the necessary combat upgrades. It's faster, meaner. It's gained an arena-wide instakill attack: an apocalyptic torrent of fire that's guaranteed to cart you if you can't quickly find a way to spare yourself.

But that's only an aperitif for the fight's later stages. By the end of the hunt, the rapidly-mutating monster becomes a stress test of dodge timing and situational awareness, filling its cave with a barrage of atomic projectiles and lightning strikes, each capable of charging and detonating the crystals it leaves behind with every claw slam.

And it's not alone: Mizutsune, returning in the title update after its last appearance in Monster Hunter: Rise, is arguably a greater threat. Between all its bubble projectiles and pressurized water beams, it's capable of deploying a near-instant somersaulting tail slam that, in its Tempered variant, can one-shot an unsuspecting hunter. By the end of patch day, it'd cemented its reputation as Wilds' worst terror.

Considering how many players found themselves fed into the Title Update 1 wood chipper, you might expect some amount of resentment. But many hunters have welcomed the ass-kicking, and I count myself among them.

My gaming habits are about as laidback as they come—my thousand hours and single raid completion in Destiny 2 are proof of that. But even as a pathological casual, I'm thrilled when a monster hits me hard enough that I have to use a fraction of my full power.

Monster Hunter has a habit of turning its players into Gokus. When I was abruptly smoked by Zoh Shia, it was a signal that I was being knocked back down to a more even playing field. It was Capcom saying I'd graduated from sleepwalking through sparring matches; it was time to put me back into a proper bout.

I finished that first HR Zoh Shia fight with one life left, and immediately dove back into another; for materials to make its weapons and armor, sure, but moreso to watch how cool it would look once I was weaving through the hellfire and arc lightning to land a clean sequence of hits on its alabaster-plated dome. I'm now seeking out Mizutsune whenever it spawns for the simple satisfaction of the five-or-so minutes I'll spend dodging its tail slams.

Luckily for me, there are even more threats coming my way. Arch-Tempered Rey Dau is arriving later this month, promising even higher intensity hunts against what might be my favorite addition that Wilds made to the Monster Hunter bestiary. And sometime this summer, I'll get to make an overdue acquaintance with Lagiacrus once the fan-favorite monster makes its long-awaited return.

If Title Update 1 is any indication, Capcom's lining up a healthy amount of carting in my future. Can't wait.