Monster Hunter Wilds’ NPC Support Hunters are balanced to be less time-efficient than human players, and you can even customize them so that they don’t steal your spotlight

Monster Hunter Wilds introduces a brand-new Hunter Support system, which allows you to bring AI-powered NPC hunters along with you on your hunts or even summon them mid-hunt in a pinch. The NPC hunters can serve as helpers on solo runs, formed into a full hunting party of four, or added to cover for a missing member.

But how will the AI hunters be balanced? In a recent joint media interview, Monster Hunter Wilds director Yuya Tokuda shared some insights.

The new Support Hunter system for #MHWilds is ideal for solo gamers and multiplayer enjoyers alike! New to Monster Hunter Wilds, you can now call-in aid mid-hunt from NPC Support Hunters for up to a party of four, whether you're alone or playing with others! pic.twitter.com/GXvb5sNtME
— Monster Hunter (@monsterhunter) August 22, 2024

According to Tokuda, “In terms of time efficiency, it will take longer to defeat monsters when playing with NPC hunters than when playing with 3-4 average [human] hunters.” However, the tradeoff is that the AI helpers are designed to provide attentive support to the player, proactively doing things like setting up traps and healing you.

In addition, Monster Hunter Wilds will give players some control over the NPC hunters’ behavior. “We’ve also prepared options you can use to disable NPC hunters from performing certain actions, like destroying Wounds or mounting. Although support hunters will each come with special characteristics, such as being good at mounting, we figured that players may want to do these things themselves, so we’ve made it so that you can set your preferences according to your play style,” Tokuda explains. Therefore, NPC hunters won’t steal your big moments, like knocking down a wound you’ve been targeting, if you don’t want them to.

Apart from being customizable, Monster Hunter Wilds’ support hunters will automatically grow more powerful as you progress in the game, remaining equally reliable even against tougher monsters. “We’ve designed them so that they provide a consistent level of support from start to finish.”

In the same interview, the dev team also gave insights into Monster Hunter Wilds’ monster design and talked about how they will be balancing weapons and optimizing the game.

Monster Hunter Wilds is scheduled to launch on February 28 for the PC (Steam), PS5 and Xbox Series X|S.