This piece is written in memory of Alpha Doshaguma, an enormous furry quadruped with the belly, gait and sad character of an orphaned Saint Bernard, who – no, WHO was sleeping soundly in a canyon when the Capcom demo presenter showed up and hit him with a bayonet howitzer. The demo in question was for Monster Hunter Wilds, which they should probably rename Monster Hadron Collider since a major selling point seems to be having megafauna converge and kill each other. It’s possible to do this in previous games, including 2018’s Monster Hunter: World, but not like this. Not like this. Alas for Alpha Doshaguma. Getting a rocket launcher in the butt was just the beginning of the worst day of his life.
Monster Hunter Wilds is the usual deluge of new additions – and, just as importantly, subtractions – from the long-running Dragon Skin series. We have, uh, let’s see here: a new swanko longsword of some description, excellent for combos where you strike a pose between chops. Cheese makers who say “cheese and thank you”, because if absolutely necessary, Capcom. Pop-up Palico tents where you can rest and eat while maneuvering, and which monsters can destroy if left unattended. The apparent lack of loading breaks between the village areas and the field, although it seems that these villages are still protected against monster invasion. The corresponding removal of the ritual of choosing a target from a quest board before going out to claim its head – now all you have to do is stumble across the thing while exploring and, if necessary, awaken it d ‘an innocent and unsuspecting being. sleep with your ugly portable artillery. A new feathered player mount, the Seikret, in whose pockets you can store a second piece of equipment. A new region of the open world to be filled with smoking dinosaur corpses and very bad weather.
Watch on YouTube
It can be difficult with sequels like these to identify the common thread, especially if you’ve lost touch with the series. I loved/was intrigued by World, but missed its hefty Iceborne expansion, barely dipped a toe into 2021’s Monster Hunter Rise, and haven’t even watched a trailer for the recent multi-genre spin-offs. I watch the ongoing development of Monster Hunter with a mixture of hope, familiarity, and exhaustion, like a man sprinting toward a bus whose driver has closed the doors but has yet to activate the turn signals. Still, I’m pretty confident in saying that the main attraction this time around is the creation of very open turf wars, which brings us, unfortunately, back to Alpha Doshaguma.
When our demo handler discovered the beast, it was fearsome with its pack, with denser herds of monsters being another new Wilds feature. Initially, the demo player was trying to fight them all simultaneously up close, but that meant all we could see of Wilds was huge hairy butts squeezing together in a soundscape of outraged tuba noises, so after a moment or two we beat a tactic. withdrawal aboard our Seikret, using a projectile of some kind to mark the Alpha Doshaguma and distance it from the crowd.
Then began a quick 15 minute exercise to find all the latest new Wilds features and get the Alpha Doshaguma going for it. To begin, our demo player led Doshaguma’s herd into a pack of velociraptor-like things, which leapt aboard the bellowing behemoths and snacked unsuccessfully on them before getting trampled. Next, we took the Doshagumas around some thorny bushes, which successfully blocked the little Doshugama’s advance, allowing us to focus on the Alpha. And then, a rapid climb up a dune and into the territory of some sort of burrowing leviathan, which summoned a whirlwind of quicksand into which the Alpha Doshaguma dutifully tumbled.
He was able to escape after many pitiful struggles, and you know, a kinder soul would have put the creature out of his misery and shown us some of the new biomes, maybe guided us through a or two crafting menus. But no. After assaulting the Alpha Doshaguma again, our Capcom presenter guided him into a storm that wasn’t actually a thunderstorm, but the mobile weather lair of a great bloody dragon, the region’s apex predator.
The storm dragon lunged at Alpha Doshaguma, ripping off its tail in one fell swoop. The aforementioned Burrowing Leviathan then caught up with him and attempted to strangle him. I was, you have hopefully inferred, firmly rooting for Alpha Doshaguma at this point, although I enjoyed the fancy weather effects and the consequent notable impact on hunter techniques as well specialized as “move” and “see”.
The Doshaguma somehow survived the storm, and again, a merciful antagonist could have stepped in to finish him off in close combat, but that would have meant missing the opportunity to demonstrate new destructible terrain features, so we went to visit caverns abundant in paralysis-inducing electrobugs and dangerously loose stalagtites – perfect for razing monster health to a few hundred points per pop. Also in the caverns is a Chatacabra – or giant rock frog – with which the Doshaguma briefly merged into a roaring, belching ball of scales and fur.
After receiving a few stalagtites to the head, Alpha Doshaguma was bristling with wounds, it is a system of glowing weak points that you can target using a new “focus” aiming mode, which applies to all weapons. At this point, the creature was obviously tired of being Capcom’s demo assistant and decided to go home for a nap. Ah, the lame animation of Monster Hunter. Is there a greater source of pathos in gaming as a whole? Doshaguma needing a timeout, however, was inconsistent with Capcom’s desire to show off its ability to roll explosive barrels down hills. In this case, the explosive barrels missed their victim, so our demo decided to call it quits by calling three more hunters onto Seikrets to crush the rest of his face.
I’ll be honest, the last few minutes of the demo are a blur to me. There was talk of new weapons and exciting displays of wrestling and mounting, but by this point I had filled my brain with different methods of bothering Doshaguma, and I could only marvel in sadness as the large, beautiful beast encountered its end.
What do you do after killing an Alpha Doshaguma? Despair of inhumanity and take up a new career as a villager? A cheesemonger, perhaps, doling out puns alongside the cheese to hide the dark, puffy clouds of self-loathing, not-so-deep inside? No, you suddenly come across David Attenborough. The presenter ended by pointing to some small avian creatures perched in a tree and, I don’t blame you, suggesting that we “take some time to enjoy nature.” You fucking bastard, I said to him from across the auditorium, smiling and giving a thumbs up. You stupid bear-baiting bastard. Revenge! Revenge of the monsters! Revenge for Alpha Doshaguma!