What does your Monster Hunter Wilds weapon say about you?

You won’t find much love from me for the greatsword in Monster Hunter Wilds. It’s a perfectly fine and reliable weapon, but that’s also why it’s the starting choice. It has the easiest of combos attached (mostly consisting of charged attacks) and there is no gimmick or unique feature about it. If you’ve landed on this as your weapon of choice, chances are you just defaulted to it after the tutorial because the anxiety of picking between all the other weapons caused you to freeze up. Call your therapist and get back on the Prozac, kid.

Some of the most iconic weapons in gaming, like Sephiroth’s Masamune, are long swords. They are the quintessential armament of the field: excessive, impractical, and remarkably flashy. If you find yourself gravitating towards the long sword in Monster Hunter Wilds, it’s because you — like Sephiroth over there — are probably a bit of a size queen who puts form over function every day. But that’s okay, we don’t judge around here and the long sword’s got all the glitz and glam you could want. Living up to its ostentatious reputation, this weapon is all about fast combos that build up a gauge that lets you amplify your damage and unleash some iconic moves, like sheathing your weapon before slashing at your foe. Just watch where you swing that thing.

As you’re likely beginning to understand, Monster Hunter has an intimidating amount of really cool weapons, which makes it difficult to pick just one. I think that’s why the developers eventually made the greatest weapon of the lot for us indecisive baddies: one weapon that’s secretly two. The Switch Axe’s remarkably simple trick is it’s a big axe that can morph into a bigger blade. Straightforward combos build up a series of smaller gauges that let you whip out the latter form and unleash huge attacks. If you’re someone who struggles deciding on anything, know that the Switch Axe is here to make you look and feel better.

You picked the light bowgun because you thought that it would be a simple weapon and now it turns out that you were absolutely wrong. Idiot. The bowguns can be simple if you just want to aim and fire at monsters from a distance, but there’s actually a lot going on under the hood and you’ll feel cooler learning all their tricks. The light bowgun, for example, has two firing modes (a burst fire and an automatic mode) but you need to build a meter with the first one to be able to unload hell with the second one. That meter, which sits above the ammo counter, will slowly fill on its own but it goes faster when you fire the weapon, and can even be sped up by following up every burst with a chaser shot. You can also swap between ammo types (some of which are more limited than others), fire off charged focus shots that look and sound like a grenade launcher, and can even place down a charge that can be blown up multiple times when shot at. But if you’re going to do all of that and keep up with the action, you’ve got to keep an eye on the light bowgun’s multiple ammo counters, and that’s a pretty big challenge.

In short, welcome to Monster Hunter, where every weapon is actually homework.

The insect glaive is a sick weapon. It’s also a scam. To love it is to be a masochist who truly hates themselves and never knows peace. To be entirely transparent, the insect glaive is my go-to weapon, and I love using it to pole vault over enemies and do a bunch of mid-air dashes and acrobatics. However, you will, as I have, become quite accustomed to spending as much time in the air as you spend face down on the ground after being knocked back by a monster in the middle of your attack. There’s also the “insect” of it all, where you need to use a large bug called a Kinsect to aim at specific points on a monster to extract and bring back certain colors of power to the player to unlock buffs and entirely new movesets, but this requires constant maintenance. Wilds cuts down on some of that upkeep, but it hasn’t completely erased it. This all sounds like a lot, I know, but if you’re drawn to this weapon like I am, you’ve never done things in life the easy way. Why start now?

If you’ve decided to rock the Hunting Horn, thank you for your service. You’re obviously a people pleaser and fellow support main who wound up in that position because everyone else on your team instalocked the DPS characters and there was no healing. You take out the frustration brought on by that situation by wielding the Hunting Horn, which can be swung at enemies for damage, all the while stocking up notes and melodies, which you then perform to buff yourself and allies. Along the way, you realized that your friends really are your power, but you don’t say that aloud for fear of being mocked. You’re obviously a current or retired band kid, and it shows. You know your role in the group, and execute on it a high level to make everyone around you look and feel better. You’re also clinically insane for undertaking such a complex role and bearing it with a grin. Please look out for yourself, but play that funky horn before you do.

You probably shouldn’t pick up the charge blade first thing, but you’re likely going to. How do I know that? Because it’s got a move that turns it into the whirligig saw from Bloodborne. The Charge Blade is very similar to the Switch Axe in that they’re both transforming weapons, but the Charge Blade has significantly more going on. For one, there are three components rather than two, and having to learn what a phial is, let alone the best possible use of these phials, like elemental discharges, is way more involved than you probably care for. But something tells me you’ve likely never shied away from a challenge, even though you always fail at them, and then bemoan the fact that “no one told you not to do it.” This is me trying to help you.

Let me paint you a picture. You’ve just downloaded the latest RPG you’re going to devote the next 100 hours of your life to. You excitedly boot it up, stare in awe at the incredibly hype opening of the game, and you jump right in. That excitement dissipates the second you hit a character creator though, and because you want to get to the game as quickly as possible, you make the most plain character ever. Your Mass Effect Shepard is the default guy, and you always pick a warrior type in every single one of these games. This is the life of a sword and shield player in Monster Hunter Wilds and I can begrudgingly respect it.

The hammer is as blunt a weapon as you’re gonna find in the whole set and because of that, it’s actually one of the best weapons you could possibly bring on a hunt. All that blunt weapon damage means that the hammer excels at stunning enemies, knocking those giants down and opening them up to a slew of attacks. It also has an unbelievably funny charge attack that involves wildly swinging the hammer to wind up a powerful finishing blow. The hammer is a very domineering weapon, and it needs a really deft hand and a will strong enough to kill God in order to get the most out of it. You’ve got to view everything and everyone as a problem (or nail) to be solved (hammered), which might make you a bit of a thorny person to be around. You find it hard to relate to and connect with others, but your presence inevitably brings up the competence of the group. You are Asuka Langley Soryu from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

There’s a lot to learn about the lance, which has a number of charge attacks and guard mechanics that come with the territory. After all, the kit consists of a giant lance and a similarly huge shield, you know what you’re getting into here. But you’re really only into this weapon because you want to run enemies through with the biggest weapon possible. Your lifelong fantasy has been to joust, and now that you have a reliable mount in the form of a Seikret and can don some fancy armor carved from the skin of your foes, the last part of your 12-step plan has locked into place.

I know what you are. You’re one of these freaks that loves the critically acclaimed (or reviled, depending on who you’re talking to) RPG Final Fantasy VIII. You experienced the high of swinging the gunblade at an unsuspecting enemy and pulling the trigger at the right time to fire it at the same time, multiplying your damage. You’ve been chasing that high ever since, and now Monster Hunter Wilds has got your back. The Gunlance (as the name might give away) allows you to poke and prod enemies while also letting off explosive blasts. Fortunately, you can “shell” enemies at almost any given point in a combo,