Last night, near 2 a.m., I saw something that made me grin the most: a 66-second video showcasing Monster Hunter Wild's hunting antlers. It's a 66-second video of Monster Hunter Wild's hunting horns. The horn's wielder plays a melody, generating a range-of-effect buff on the battlefield."

The Hunting Horn video is part of a series of videos introducing new features for each weapon type in Wilds, and is short enough that Capcom could have released it as a short YouTube movie or TikTok, but the company is eager for the gameplay of Monster Hunter fans, the company probably took a chance on them. These overview videos have racked up millions of views since Capcom began publishing them on YouTube four days ago. If there was any doubt in the slightest that Wilds would be the biggest Monster Hunter to date, it has been shattered.

To be fair, I may represent about half of these views. I have reviewed many times the overview of my favorite weapon, the gunlance. Most of the video deals with the basic techniques that have been the mainstay of this weapon for years, but there are a few new techniques that look absolutely sinister: with Wilds' new Focus Strikes (which also has a dedicated instructional video), the gunlance lunges at monsters, uncorks wyrmstakes, and carnivores' It can continuously puncture them like a Dig Dug. We also found a new full burst combo that fires the lance's shells in a horizontal arch. [An overview video of the Insect Glaive and Heavy Bowgun is also helpful. The heavy bowgun also has an "ignition" mode, which allows it to fire like a fully automatic machine gun. The heavy bowgun has an "ignition" mode that allows it to shoot like a fully automatic machine gun. I think this is new territory for bowguns, but certainly I've always been put off by the shooting options in Monster Hunter.

I have high hopes for the focus mode and focus strikes. The new mechanics seem to be toned down, replacing the switch skills of Monster Hunter Rise; a big theme of Rise was mobility, with wire bug moves and special skills that allowed everyone to move through the air whenever they wanted. It was fun, but at the expense of some of the "gravitas" I associate with the series.

Wiles appears to be more grounded in the precision attacks of the focus mode. In this new stance, a reticle appears on the screen, allowing the attacker to "hit" a specific part of the body. Importantly, the focus mode highlights the wounds inflicted on the monster, making it easier to target those areas and inflict additional damage. There is a particularly nasty new greatsword technique, which can only be activated by targeting a wound or weak spot. The hunter digs his sword into the wound and begins dragging it across his body in an implicit resistance. Ouch.

At this rate, it will be another week or two before Capcom finishes showing off the Wilds weapons. There's the dual blades, the hunting hammer, the bow, and of course the long sword.