Monster Hunter Wilds is full of 'harsh and unforgiving' weather and will let you switch between 2 weapons on a hunt

People say it's boring to talk about the weather, but did you see that real-time sandstorm in the Monster Hunter Wilds trailer just now? Did you catch the bit near the end where lightning strikes the fins of some dinosaur-like creature roaming the desert? Forget boring—I have a feeling the weather's practically all we're going to be able to talk about when Monster Hunter Wilds arrives next year.

More than any other game in the series so far, Wilds looks like it's focusing on making the environments a major player in the hunting experience, with natural phenomena like sandstorms, quicksand, and lightning storms all coming into play. We've still seen far too little to know how deep these systems will go, but it's exactly what I was hoping for from the next Monster Hunter—while many longtime players like our own Rich Stanton loved Rise, I found it a bit too streamlined for my taste, without much actual «hunting» involved. I want to see Capcom go deeper on the interplay between different monsters and with their environments, and that seems to be exactly what Wilds is going for.

At one point in the trailer we see a big monster grappling with several smaller beasties who've leapt onto its back and locked their jaws, while in another a whole herd seem to be ganging up on our hunter. This behavior is almost as exciting as the final moment of the trailer, when he seemingly pries a charging beast's mouth open with his greatsword. That's pretty sick.

Theofficial website has a smattering of new info that expands on what I spotted in the trailer: 

Wilds is due out sometime in 2025.

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.