Monster Hunter Wilds Feels Empty and Small

I've been playing Monster Hunter since the Freedom titles on the PSP, and I absolutely devoured the 3DS, WiiU, and Switch entries, especially 3U and GU. I also enjoyed World (with some caveats) and Rise.

So, Wilds was an obvious must-buy for me. The first 20 hours were pure fun, even though, just like in World, the map design bothered me a little. But the more I play, the more frustrated I get with how the maps are structured. Even though the areas are objectively larger than before, the world somehow feels much smaller.

There's no real village anymore, monsters are just a 30-second walk from camp, and nobody seems to care. The whole world feels artificially small, almost like a bad theme park MMORPG. In the older games, whether it was P3rd, 4U, or GU, the segmented maps felt like part of a much larger world. You’d start in a grassy field and see a path leading up a hill. If you followed it, you'd transition into another zone and suddenly find yourself in a mountainous area. It created the illusion that your character had actually traveled some distance: pure immersion.

Now, camps, NPCs, and monsters are packed together with barely any space in between, and the mount only makes things worse. Instead of helping, it reinforces how unnaturally small the world feels.

Don't get me wrong, the core gameplay is absolutely fantastic. But when it comes to the environment, atmosphere, nature and overall aesthetics, Wilds is a massive step backward. So much so that I’ve gone back to playing GU, which still delivers a far superior sense of world design, scenery, and immersion.