
Hunts in Monster Hunter Wilds can take anywhere from 10 minutes to half an hour depending on the level of difficulty and how geared up the player is. But a recent discovery makes it technically possible to clear a hunt in just two seconds. Fans are having fun with the exploit despite it not actually saving them any time. Let me explain.
Earlier this week, Streamer Shincry posted a screenshot with an absurd hunt clear time of just 8 seconds. Players couldn’t understand how he pulled it off. It was later revealed, as spotted by VG247, that the trick is less about actually capturing monsters quickly and more of an accounting sleight of hand that has to do with the way hunts are triggered in Monster Hunter Wilds.
While you can start fighting anything at any time, it’s not technically a hunt until the quest message flashes across the screen. That’s when the clock starts ticking for how long players have to finish the quest. And fans recently realized that you can poison monsters to your hearts’ content without ever actually triggering the clock.
So what players can do is keep pelting a Quematrice or Lala Barina with poison ammo until the beast gets weak. The monster will fight back, but no quest will have technically begun. Then, once it’s weak enough to catch (a little skull appears on the mini-map), players can capture it with the standard combo of shock traps and tranquilizer bombs. At that point the quest will begin, but less than two seconds later the monster will be captured, giving players lightning-quick clear times.
It’s important to emphasize that there’s no real use-case for this trick other than bragging rights and creating a fun meta-speedrunning challenge. Give players an in-game stopwatch and they will try to find ways to break it. I’m still waiting to see if players find some broken builds that truly let them demolish hunt times. For good players with full squads and maxed-out gear they’re already pretty short, and there are some decently deadly combos going around at the moment, like Lala Barina longswords with paralysis and switch axe burst.
But I’m still waiting for Monster Hunter Wilds to have one of those infinite damage glitch moments that crop up from time to time in Diablo 4. In the meantime, you can pretend to capture a Gore Magala in the blink of an eye and drop the cropped screencap in the group chat to make all your friends jealous.
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