Monster Hunter Wilds weapons guide: A list for every weapon type and every new move and improvement (so far)

Learn which weapon is right for you with our detailed primer on every weapon type for Monster Hunter Wilds

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

The Forbidden Lands ofMonster Hunter Wildsis a dangerous and volatile ecosystem. The weather patterns can shift from peaceful to chaotic in a matter of seconds, and it is populated with some of the most vicious, bloodthirsty monsters you will ever have the misfortune of encountering.

To survive exploring this uncharted landscape, you will need powerful weapons to help down the Forbidden Lands’ apex predators. Fortunately, Monster Hunter Wilds has you covered as this game has fourteen different weapon types to choose from, each with unique playstyles, strengths, and weaknesses. What’s more, Monster Hunter Wilds will be introducing new special techniques, gameplay mechanics, and quality-of-life improvements not seen in previousMonster Huntergames.

Since there are so many weapons to pick from, we have compiled an overview of every weapon type in Monster Hunter Wilds to help you decide which one suits your playstyle the best so you can conquer the beasties of the Forbidden Lands with gusto.

Monster Hunter Wilds is launching in 2025 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: General changes for every weapon

Every weapon will gain the ability to inflict wounds on a monster if you continually attack specific parts of their body. Once the wounds appear, you can inflict extra damage on a monster if you attack their open wounds.

In Monster Hunter Wilds, every weapon type will gain access to a new gameplay mechanic called Focus Mode. Focus Mode allows players to activate an aiming reticule which will help them aim their attacks more accurately on a monster’s body regardless of whether they’re using a melee or ranged weapon. This mechanic will help players land their attacks on a monster’s weak spots more easily and keep the camera locked on the monster, so they don’t lose sight of it during the heat of battle.

In addition, Focus Mode will grant every weapon type called a Focus Strike. Focus Strikes are special attacks designed to exploit a monster’s weak points or wounds to deal significant damage to them.

On top of Focus Mode, every weapon type will gain two new mechanics called Power Clash, Offset Attack, and Sneak Attack. Power Clash is a cinematic power struggle that occurs when you block an incoming attack at the right time with a weapon capable of guarding. During this sequence, you must mash the attack button to push back the monster and perform a special and powerful super move to topple it.

Offset Attacks are unique sequences that occur where you and a monster attack each other at the same time. If you get lucky, your attack will beat out theirs and push the monster back. Afterward, your character will then perform a unique dash attack to close the distance and continue their assault. (Do note that only a few certain weapon types can perform Offset Attacks).

Sneak Attacks are devastating cinematic super moves that can only be activated if you hit a monster that hasn’t spotted you yet.

In Monster Hunter Wilds, players will be able to take two weapons with them during a hunt and switch between them in the heat of battle. This is thanks to the new Seikret mount, which the player uses to transport them across the game’s gigantic hunting grounds. Seikret can carry a secondary weapon in its carrier pack so you can switch your main weapon with it if the situation calls for it.

This means you won’t have to return to a campsite in the middle of a fight to switch to a different one in case your current weapon isn’t suited for a specific monster you’re hunting.

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Great Sword

The Great Swordis a mighty weapon that has the power to cleave monsters in twain with its heavy attacks. While this weapon cripples the user’s movement speed due to its hefty weight, the trade-off is that each attack can be charged by holding down the attack to boost its power when it lands.

You can get around the weapon type’s low mobility by sheathing the weapon, running up to a monster to hit with a charged-slash combo, and then putting the Great Sword away to reposition yourself or avoid incoming attacks, making this weapon a great choice for players who prefer hit-and-run tactics.

Great Swords also have some defensive capabilities such as using the weapon like a shield to block enemy attacks due to how large they are and allowing players to shrug off attacks to continue their combos by using the Shoulder Tackle technique.

Great Sword gameplay additions and changes

Monster Hunter Wilds will feature a slew of moves and mechanics that will help players overcome its mobility issues and improve its defensive properties:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Long Sword

The Long Swordis a technical weapon that specializes in clean and precise cutting attacks to chop off monster tails, evading enemy attacks with evasive maneuvers, and risky counterattacks to negate incoming enemy blows and hit back twice as hard with style.

The Long Sword has a unique gimmick called Spirit Gauge that fills up when you perform regular attacks. You can then spirit energy from the Spirit Gauge to unleash Spirit Slash combo attacks, which are twice as deadly as the regular ones.

Performing Spirit Slash combo finishers will level up Spirit Gauge (they go from White, Yellow, to Red) and depending on the level, will provide a significant boost to your weapon’s overall attack power and drastically increase the damage of the Long Sword’s ultimate move – the Spirit Helm Breaker.

Long Sword gameplay additions and changes

In Monster Hunter Wilds, Capcom has taken a ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it approach’ for the Long Sword as it will play almost identically to how it worked in Monster Hunter World, with little changes. The only new gameplay additions to the Long Sword that have been confirmed thus far are:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Sword & Shield

TheSword & Shieldis a short sword paired with a small shield designed around performing quick strikes on a monster’s blind spots while providing players a means to block incoming attacks in an emergency (although it falters when trying to block heavy attacks).

Players can also attack enemies with the shield which, when used on the head, can knock them out and leave them vulnerable for a few seconds. The Sword & Shield also has a unique trait that allows players to consume healing items or use fire projectiles from the Slinger without needing to sheath the weapon.

Sword & Shield gameplay additions and changes

The Sword & Shield will be receiving a fair amount of subtle but significant gameplay additions and changes to its toolkit that will improve its offensive repertoire, mobility and defensive capabilities:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Dual Blades

Dual Bladeslets players brandish a pair of daggers and go on a rampage, slicing and dicing enemies to ribbons while bobbing and weaving through incoming strikes. Players can take the violent nature of Dual Blades further by activating Demon Mode, which increases their attack and movement speeds to ludicrous degrees and unlocks new special moves that rip and tear your enemies.

However, it’s best not to stay in Demon Mode as it drains your stamina while in use, so use it sparingly, otherwise you will tire out and be left vulnerable. Attacking in Demon Mode fills a special gauge that, when filled, activates Archdemon Mode. Being in Archdemon Mode grants you some of the attacks of Demon Mode without draining your stamina gauge.

So the gameplan of Dual Blade is a balancing between switching back and forth between Demon Mode and Archdemon to deal optimal damage to monsters while making sure you don’t exhaust yourself in the process.

Dual Blades gameplay changes and additions

Dual Blades' general gameplay loop won’t change much beyond how it played it previous games. Most of the new moves and gameplay changes seen so far are new dodge moves to help evade incoming attacks and a new Focus Strike. These new gameplay additions are:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Hammer

If you need a weapon purely to knock monsters out cold or break their skulls for rare parts, then theHammeris for you. The hammer is a massive blunt weapon designed for dealing stun-build-up and tons of damage when used on an enemy’s skull. The hammer’s attacks can be charged to deal extra damage like the Great Sword, except you can move around while charging instead of standing still, allowing players mobility while staying on the offensive.

Hammer gameplay additions and changes

The Hammer’s move-set in Monster Hunter Wilds won’t deviate too much from how it traditionally played in the past entries. However, it will incorporate certain moves from previous games like Monster Hunter Rise and Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate and a couple of new ones to enhance the Hammer’s mobility and offensive capabilities.

The Hammer’s new moves and gameplay changes seen thus far are:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Hunting Horn

TheHunting Hornis a musical instrument that doubles as a hammer. By performing specific attack combos, you will activate songs that provide passive buffs to your party, heal their wounds, and even protect them from status ailments. Some Hunting Horn songs can even damage enemies via deafening soundwave attacks.

As shown in the gameplay trailer, Monster Hunter Wilds' iteration of the Hunting Horn will be akin to how it played inMonster Hunter Rise, where it emphasized using soundwave attacks to defeat enemies. It will even bring back some of the new moves Hunting Horn got from Monster Hunter Rise into Monster Hunter Wilds like the Earthshaker technique.

Earthshaker was an amazing super move where you plug the hunting horn into a monster’s skull and then perform a guitar solo that literally blows their minds with the power of Rock and Roll. Now it has returned in Monster Hunter Wilds as a Focus Strike and has been slightly reworked to have a longer guitar solo to deal even more damage.

Hunting Horn gameplay additions and changes

The rest of Hunting Horn’s new tools and changes will include new soundwave-based attacks and quality-of-life improvements so players can perform songs faster to deal more damage and strengthen teammates more often:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Lance

TheLanceis the ultimate defensive melee weapon of Monster Hunter where the player wields a gigantic lance, and a tower shield capable of blocking the most lethal attacks a monster can throw at you. The general move-set of Lance involves stabbing at weak spots, charging like a knight jousting to chase after fleeing monsters, and performing special guard techniques to block attacks then counterattacking with the lance.

Lance gameplay additions and changes

Monster Hunter Wilds' version of the Lance won’t deviate much from how it played in previous games, and will mostly include new attacks that will utilize the shield.

The gameplay changes and new moves spotted for Lance so far are:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Gunlance

If the Lance is an immovable object, then theGunlanceis an unstoppable force. The Gunlance is a lance outfitted with a giant cannon that fires short-range explosions that bypass a monster’s defenses to deal fixed amounts of damage.

This weapon also features the Wyrmstake Cannon, an armor-piercing stake that when fired, drills into a monster’s armor-plated hide and explodes from within to inflict grievous damages. On top of that, the Gunlance also possesses a powerful super move called Wyvern’s Fire which fires a gigantic explosion that will send monsters reeling if they get caught in the blast radius.

There are multiple kinds of Gunlances with special Shelling types that alter the properties of the Gunlance’s explosion attacks:

Gunlance gameplay additions and changes

The Gunlance in Monster Hunter Wilds has received a ton of new moves that expand on its Shelling attacks while providing players more defensive options to help them survive in battle:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Switch Axe

TheSwitch Axeis one of Monster Hunter’s more crazy weapon types. Its main draw is the ability to transform back and forth between being an oversized axe that granted players extra mobility while performing wild-swinging attacks to a Great Sword-sized blade that dealt slow but savagely dangerous damage to foes.

Attacking in Axe Mode will build up energy for a gauge meter that will allow you to perform attacks in sword form. Whenever you deal damage in its sword form, the Switch Axe builds up a secondary gauge meter. When it fills, the Switch Axe will activate its ‘Amped State’ which will cause explosions to happen with every hit in Sword Mode and unlock a powerful finishing move called the Zero Sum Discharge.

The Zero Sum Discharge has you stab a monster in the gut in sword form and fire a massive explosion from inside its body to inflict insane amounts of damage, but it spends all the energy of Sword Mode and reverts it to Axe Mode.

As the name implies, the general game plan around Switch Axe is to switch back and forth between Axe and Sword Modes depending on the monster you’re fighting and finish them off with the Zero Sum Discharge.

Switch Axe gameplay additions and changes

Switch Axe will be getting a new Axe Mode and Sword Mode attacks, and bringing back a special counter maneuverer from Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak to help compensate for weapon type’s lack of a shield like its counterpart, the Charge Blade, has.

All the changes and new moves spotted for Switch Axe thus far include:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Charge Blade

Charge Bladeis quite possibly the most complicated weapon to use in Monster Hunter due to its wide variety of mechanics to learn and master. Similar to Switch Axe, the Charge Blade is a transformation weapon capable of shifting forms from a large sword & shield to a gigantic battle axe.

How Charge Blade works is that you start off in sword & shield mode and use that form’s attack to build energy for the weapon’s unique resource mechanic called Phials. Once the Phials are filled with enough energy, you load them from the sword into the shield to power it up so it can block attacks more easily.

Once the shield is powered and you have more Phials filled in sword & shield mode, transform into axe mode to unleash its true power. While in axe mode, your Phials will cause every hit to be augmented with small explosions dealing extra damage. If you have the shield powered up while in axe mode, you can perform the Charge Blade’s ultimate attack called the Super Amped Elemental Discharge.

Super Amped Elemental Discharge will have the player slam the Charge Blade into the ground and fire every available Phial to cause an extravagant explosion capable of taking out multiple large monsters in a wide radius. After spending all your Phials, you will need to switch back into sword & shield mode to recharge your Phials, then transform back into axe mode to let loose another Super Amped Elemental Discharge, thus forming the core gameplay loop of Charge Blade.

Charge Blade gameplay additions and changes

So far, Charge Blade has not received many drastic changes to its toolkit compared to the other weapon types in Monster Hunter Wilds. It will primarily function like it did in Monster Hunter World but with a couple of new attacks, cleaner UI, and some tweaks to existing attacks.

The new attacks and changes for Charge Blade shown thus far are:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Insect Glaive

The Insect Glaiveis a mobile, acrobatic weapon that allows the player to perform elaborate and agile ground-based attacks and jump in the air to unleash deadly aerial attacks and dive bombs that can clip the wings of flying monsters. Additionally, the Insect Glaive has a secondary weapon paired with it that can grant the player extra strength called the Kinsect.

The Kinsect is a large insect that the player can command to attack monsters and drain their fluids to harvest special ‘extracts’ from their body parts. The Kinsect can then pass these extracts onto the player to boost their stats and unlock new moves depending on the extract type.

Insect Glaive gameplay additions and changes

From what has been seen thus far, the Insect Glaive will getting a few new attacks and even a quality-of-life improvement for gathering extracts:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Light Bowgun

TheLight Bowgunis a ranged weapon specialized in firing rapid-fire projectiles at medium ranges while offering special evasive maneuvers for its users to dodge incoming attacks. While the Light Bowgun may not have the sheer firepower of its Heavy Bowgun counterpart, it features the compatibility for a wider variety of ammo types that are designed to debilitate the enemy monsters with status effects, power up fellow players, or take advantage of a monster’s elemental weaknesses.

In addition, the Light Bowgun features special landmines called Wyvernblasts that can be placed on the ground to damage any monster that steps on them.

Light Bowgun gameplay additions and changes

The Light Bowgun in Monster Hunter Wilds will receive new evasive techniques, new attacks, and a quality-of-improvement that will allow players to load the gun faster.

The list of new gameplay changes and additions for Light Bowgun that have been spotted thus far are:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Heavy Bowgun

The Heavy Bowgunis a long-ranged weapon designed to blow up enemies from a distance with explosive ammo and armor-piercing rounds. You can also modify the Heavy Bowgun with a shield so it can block incoming attacks.

In addition, the Heavy Bowgun has a special energy gauge which when filled, will let you activate Ignition Mode. Ignition Mode will allow the player to load special ammunition that will blast even the biggest monsters into smouldering with their extreme firepower.

Heavy Bowgun gameplay additions and changes

The Heavy Bowgun in Monster Hunter Wilds will feature a few quality-of-improvements to its guarding capabilities and Ignition Mode charge, as well as other new additions:

Monster Hunter Wilds Weapon list: Bow

The Bowis a classic ranged weapon that allows players to dart across the battlefield at tremendous speeds and let loose a volley of arrows from long distances into a monster’s hide. Players can also augment the arrows they fire with special coatings that increase their damage output or give them the ability to inflict status ailments to slow enemies down.

In addition, the Bow has a special Arc Shot attack where the player fires a bag of rocks into the air that comes raining down on a monster’s head to stun them. The Bow’s most devastating attack however is the Dragon Piercer, which involves attaching rockets onto an arrow and firing a lightning-fast shot that pierces through a monster’s entire body to deal serious damage.

However, performing actions with the Bow costs a tremendous amount of stamina so players should take heed of their stamina gauge when using this weapon lest they wish to tire themselves out and be left helpless before a rampaging monster.

Bow gameplay additions and changes

The Bow in Monster Hunter Wilds will be receiving a ton of improvements to its core move-set so that moves like the Dragon Piercer will be more viable in battle and new attacks that not only look exciting to use but could potentially completely alter how the Bow is played from previous games.

The new moves and changes for the Bow shown so far are:

Have you decided which weapon will be your favorite in Monster Hunter Wilds?

-Best Xbox headsets to get in 2024-Best upcoming Xbox games-Best gaming laptops in 2024-Best Xbox controller deals-Best Xbox hard drives-Best Xbox SSDs

There you have every weapon available at your disposal in Monster Hunter Wilds and all the new mechanics and improvements announced for them thus far. As you can see, this game has all kinds of weapons that cater to almost everyone, whether they prefer fighting monsters up close with melee weapons or sniping enemies with long-ranged projectiles they’re safely out of harm’s way.

RELATED:Monster Hunter Wilds preview

What’s even more exciting is that players won’t have to just stick to one weapon during a hunt like in previous games as the new Seikret mount will allow them to switch to a different weapon mid-fight, giving players the ability to switch between melee and ranged combat at will.

What other new surprises will Monster Hunter Wilds bring for the weapon types as we edge closer to its release date? Stay tuned to find out as we will continually update this list with new mechanics and attacks announced for every weapon type that will help you conquerMonster Hunter Wilds’ ever-growing bestiary of monsters.

Monster Hunter Wilds, the next-gen successor to one of Capcom’sbest Xbox gamesandbest PC games, Monster Hunter World, is scheduled to launch on February 28, 2025 forXbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC via Steam.

Monster Hunter Wilds

Explore the uncharted Forbidden Lands to discover long-lost secrets and hunt monsters to protect the balance of nature in Monster Hunter Wilds. Hunt the vicious beasts of the Forbidden Lands alone or with your friends in 4-player online co-op.

Pre-order at:Amazon|Best Buy|GreenManGaming (Steam)

Alexander Cope is a gaming veteran of 30-plus years, primarily covering PC and Xbox games here on Windows Central. Gaming since the 8-bit era, Alexander’s expertise revolves around gaming guides and news, with a particular focus on Japanese titles from the likes of Elden Ring to Final Fantasy. Alexander is always on deck to help our readers conquer the industry’s most difficult games — when he can pry himself away from Monster Hunter that is!