Look, whether you want to admit it or not, everyone is afraid of something. It can be something big, rational, and routed in a traumatic event, or it can be something simple and basic, and you don’t even know why you’re really afraid of it outside of “you just are.” For many people, seeing these fears in any context can be truly terrifying, which is why they avoid doing certain things like the plague. A large part of the population, for example, is terrified of bugs and spiders. So, knowing there are monsters like them in Monster Hunter Wilds might trigger quite a few people.
Thankfully, there’s a solution to this, and it has to do with a mode that many games have been using recently. Currently, the Monster Hunter Wilds beta is going on, and as noted by Automaton, there is an option to get rid of any spiders and bugs. This option “adjusts the appearance of multi-legged creatures such as arachnids, insect-like small monsters and endemic life”.
In the beta, the “adjustment” turns them into blobs. It’s possible that they’ll have something more definitive in the game’s final version, but it’s hard to say. One of the reasons we mention this is that we know for a fact that a giant boss in the game, via one of its forest areas, is a giant spider. It would be rather odd to suddenly see that turn into a blob and then fight it, so Capcom might have to get creative when it comes to replacing that.
This isn’t the first game to feature this, as many other titles of varying genres have included a kind of “arachnophobia mode” to turn on anything that could trigger people. You might remember this in a certain adventure with Cal Kestis, for example, and other titles that came out recently. It’s nice to see that developers are taking this fear seriously because it can weird some people out to suddenly see their worst fears coming to life within something that they are supposed to feel safe and happy within. Gaming matters quite a bit in that sense.
As for Capcom’s title as a whole, the beta will help figure out any metaphorical bugs that need to be worked out as we march toward its 2025 release date. The game is easily one of the most anticipated titles of 2025, which is enough to bring many to the beta to help it in any way they can.
