Wild Hearts asks a lot of a hunter. The game drops players into Azuma, a fantasy world built on feudal Japan, and hands them eight weapon types, a building mechanic and monsters the size of buildings. Omega Force developed it. Electronic Arts published it under the EA Originals label. It came out February 17, 2023, for PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S.
It works. Wild Hearts is the most interesting hunting game of 2023, and it earns the 8.2/10 that the IGDB critic aggregate gives it across eight outlets. The reason is not the monster roster. It is the Karakuri.
Trailer, via WILD HEARTS.
Azuma Is Not an Open World
The setting is several large areas, not one continuous map. Players roam them freely. That choice keeps the hunts tight. Azuma never asks a player to jog across empty ground to reach the next fight. The world is inspired by feudal Japan, and the areas carry that look without turning into a history lesson.
The player is a nameless hunter. The quests are simple: track down massive monsters called Kemono and kill them. That is the whole loop, and Wild Hearts knows it.
The narrative campaign runs about 30 hours, by the team’s own estimate. Players can bring in two others for co-op, which turns a hard hunt into a coordinated one. Single player and multiplayer both work.
The Karakuri Mechanic Is the Whole Game
Combat is not only weapons. Players build items mid-fight through the Karakuri mechanic. A crate can be leapt off for a powerful attack. A torch can ignite an enemy. Combine them and a bulwark rises to block a Kemono’s path.
The cost is thread. Attacking enemies is how a player gets more. That is a clean loop: hit the monster, earn the resource, spend it on the thing that helps you hit the monster.
Built items stay until a Kemono destroys them. Players can also build Karakuri to move around the map faster. As a hunter progresses, new weapons and armor unlock, which opens up harder monsters.
Eight weapon types are in the game, including the wagasa and the katana. That is a real spread, and it means two players can approach the same Kemono in completely different ways.
Players can team up with two other players as they progress in the game.
Mujina, Minato and the Ice Wolf
The plot starts away from Azuma. A kemono hunter leaves a distant homeland because of warring Samurai and a decline in kemono hunting. The hunter finds a piece of Karakuri technology on a mummified corpse, then fights a large ice-wielding wolf Kemono. The hunter loses and is left for dead.
A mysterious old man named Mujina rescues them. Mujina activates the Karakuri “seed” and plants it in the hunter’s heart, then points them toward the town of Minato. The hunter wakes up able to conjure Karakuri objects and harvest celestial threads.
On the way to Minato, the hunter saves the town blacksmith Natsume and her escort Ujishige from Kemono. Toga-hime, the town’s steward, asks the hunter to help the town prosper by hunting Kemono materials. With the town’s Karakuri expert Surazan, the hunter restores the flow of celestial thread to power dormant Karakuri technology.
That draws Earthbreaker, a gigantic Kemono that hungers for the town’s concentration of celestial thread after it was diverted from its territory. The hunter rallies the townsfolk and kills the beast.
Then the story turns. Suruzan finds old records showing celestial thread supplies are waning across Azuma, causing unrest among Kemono. On a mission with Ujishige at Natsukodachi Isle, the two find the environment — normally rocky and aquatic — frozen solid. The ice wolf that nearly killed the hunter is back, now called Deathstalker.
What Wild Hearts Gets Right, and What It Does Not
The Karakuri system is the strongest idea here. Most hunting games ask players to learn a monster’s moves and a weapon’s timing. Wild Hearts asks them to build the arena while they fight in it. A crate is a launch pad. A torch is damage over time. A bulwark is a wall. That is a builder’s toolkit dropped into a genre that usually rewards memorization alone.
The thread economy holds it together. Attacking is the only way to earn the resource, so aggression and construction feed each other. A cautious player runs dry. A reckless one gets the tools to survive being reckless.
The campaign length is honest. Thirty hours is a real commitment, and the co-op support means it does not have to be a solo one.
The weak point is the plot. The hunter is nameless by design, and Azuma’s story moves through Mujina, Natsume, Ujishige, Toga-hime and Surazan without ever making the hunter a character. The ice wolf returning as Deathstalker is a good beat. The frozen island is a good image. But the writing is scaffolding for the fights, not the reason to stay.
The eight weapon types are the other question mark. A wide roster sounds generous, and it is, but it also means the game has to balance eight movesets against the same monster list. Some will carry a player further than others.
Here is the ranking that matters for anyone deciding whether to start:
- The Karakuri building system — the reason to play Wild Hearts at all.
- The co-op hunts — three players against one Kemono is the best version of this game.
- The eight weapon types — real variety, uneven balance.
- The Azuma areas — tight and free to explore, but not a world to get lost in.
- The campaign story — functional, forgettable.
Where the Score Lands
Wild Hearts is a hunting game that solved a problem the genre had stopped asking about. Instead of another dodge-and-punish loop, Omega Force built a combat system where the player changes the ground under the monster’s feet. That idea carries 30 hours, and it carries co-op.
The parts around it are thinner. Azuma is a set of arenas, not a place. The hunter is a pair of hands. The story moves pieces around without giving any of them weight.
None of that sinks the game. Wild Hearts is confident about what it is: a monster-hunting game with a construction kit bolted to its spine, and the bolt holds. The Kemono are big, the Karakuri are clever, and the thread loop keeps every fight moving.
It is not the deepest story in the genre. It is one of the smarter combat systems. That trade is worth making.
8.2/10 (IGDB critic aggregate)
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