As Capcom’s Monster Hunter series has grown in scope and popularity over the past 20 years, so too have the game’s worlds. They’ve gone from discrete zones to massive open-world environments populated with smarter, more believable creatures. Monster Hunter Wilds continues that evolution, with an emphasis on its ecosystem, an ever-changing climate, and wildlife that feels more realistic than ever before.

I got to sample a small slice of what Monster Hunter Wilds has to offer during a hands-on event in August, and a few new elements stood out as potentially having a huge impact on how players experience this world.

That starts with the new mount, a dinosaur-like creature called a Seikret. I got my hands on a Seikret from the earliest moments of the game, which act as a sort of tutorial for how to ride and command one. Thanks to this speedy new mount, it’s easier than ever to keep pace with your prey in Monster Hunter Wilds. The Seikret opens up new combat tactics, too: You can store a back-up weapon on your Seikret that you can swap to while riding it — very handy if you need a ranged option on the go.

But it was during my battle to hunt down a Doshaguma — a new bear-like monster — where the ecosystem of Monster Hunter Wilds started to show its potential. In an early mission, I was tasked with slaying the alpha Doshaguma in a pack of the beasts, and was told that launching a large dung pod at a group of Doshaguma would help split them up. So it did; I launched that shit right at a charging pack and watched them panic. The chase was on.

Shortly after the pursuit began, the Doshaguma alpha ran into an area with inclement weather that quickly turned into a raging thunderstorm. The Doshaguma had foolishly run into the territory of a Rey Dau, a new type of flying wyvern that’s the apex predator of the desert area known as Windward Plains. A turf war was on. The two beasts clashed, and for a moment I thought the Rey Dau might just finish the job for me. It zapped the Doshaguma with lightning bolts, draining hundreds of hit points from the beast.

The Doshaguma fled, and found a safe haven in a valley. It was badly wounded, and using my great sword (and some help from summoned AI-controlled allies), quickly dispatched the beast. Using Monster Hunter Wilds’ new Focus Mode attacks, which offered an easier-to-follow camera angle of the Doshaguma during combat, I bested the alpha and carved off my spoils.

After I was done with the Doshaguma quest, I learned from a Capcom employee that I had another option. Instead of using the dung pod to sow chaos among the Doshaguma pack, I could have lured the trio into a sand pit and drowned them in quicksand. Apparently, only the alpha Doshaguma of the group would have been strong enough to fight its way out of that sand trap. Obviously I wouldn’t have had the assist from the Rey Dau, but the sand trap scheme sounds like another clever way to use Monster Hunter Wilds’ dynamic ecosystem to approach battles.

I really only got to play around with Monster Hunter Wilds’ desert environment, but obviously there’s more to the game’s ecosystem than just sand, lightning, and wind. The wetlands and jungle flora of the game’s Scarlet Forest surely have some qualities of their own that will lead to different gameplay strategies. I’m not really looking forward to facing the new threat there, the arachnoid known as Lala Barina, when I get my hands on Wilds next time.

We’ll find out much more about Monster Hunter Wilds’ varied ecosystem and the creatures that inhabit it when the game launches on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X sometime in 2025.