For better or worse, Monster Hunter Wilds is an incredibly streamlined game. The series’ notoriously cumbersome systems, which saw major refinement in both World and Rise, have essentially been filed down to nothing. Wilds is a fairly straightforward action game compared to what came before it, and while I’d debate whether or not all of those smooth edges make Wilds a better game, there’s still one remaining obtuse system that, ironically, should have been the first to go. Setting up multiplayer in Wilds is as big of a headache as ever, and in fact, might even be worse.

Why? This is the most frustrating holdover from past games and the only thing everyone can agree should’ve changed years ago. Does Capcom like it this way? Is there something unique about Monster Hunter that prevents it from streamlining multiplayer? Playing with your buds is the best way to break into the series, but for some reason, Capcom continues to make multiplayer as off-putting as possible.

Just Link To My Environment Squad Lobby Bro

Let me run down all of the different multiplayer systems in Wilds, and you can just stop reading whenever your eyes start to roll back in your head and foam starts bubbling out of your mouth. Basically (though there’s nothing basic about it), you’ve got squads, lobbies, link parties, environment links, and friends, which are all used for different situations, and largely overlap with each other in confusing ways.

The most straightforward system to use is squads. If you play with the same people all the time and you just want to run missions and investigations together, this option will let you set up a permanent lobby. Everyone can load into this lobby whenever they want, and everyone in the lobby can join any posted missions. While it’s simple to use, setting it up is a whole other story.

After setting up a squad with the Squad Manager at base camp, you’ll need to send an invite to each squad member using their unique Monster Hunter ID, good luck walking everyone through how to find that. Even better luck getting everyone to find and accept the invite in Monster Hunter’s endless pause menu.

Being in the same Squad Lobby doesn’t mean you’ll be able to see your friends outside of missions. You won’t see them outside of base camp ever, and you’ll only see them in base camp sometimes.

This is only going to work if you hunt with the same group of people (up to 50). If you want to hunt with people in other squads or you have more than 10 friends playing at the same time, you’ll either have to join multiple squads and bounce between them, start a new lobby – which is like a temporary Squad – or set up a Link Party, which is a way for four people to join each other’s missions but doesn’t require them all to be in the same lobby.

Finally, if you actually want to be able to see other people and run around the open world with them, you’ll need to set up an Environment Link. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a Squad, a lobby, or a Link Party, you’ll need to establish an Environment Link with each person (up to 4) you want to play with, and then everyone will be moved to the host’s instance… sometimes. It’s hit or miss and you may occasionally desync. Got all that?

I Just Want To Stab Dragons With My Buds

Once you understand all the different ways to party up and find one that works for you, there are still other issues. There are far too many menus to navigate. Menus within menus within menus, with multiple redundant ways to access them, and lots of bad UI that will make you think you’ve sent or accepted an invite when you really haven’t.

We also still have the same old cutscene problem that forces you to constantly split up from your party during story moments and then have everyone abandon their quest and party up with one person to complete the mission. It’s tedious, annoying, and somehow already been solved by every other co-op game with cutscenes like… decades ago. It’s incredibly disruptive to the co-op experience through the main campaign, and at this point, I just play Monster Hunter alone until all of my friends have finished the story, and then we hunt together. It feels like it doesn’t need to be that way, and I can’t figure out why it is.

Monster Hunter Rise split the single-player and multiplayer modes into two separate campaigns, which was the best solution we’ve ever seen. It probably should have stuck with that for Wilds.

On top of that, you have more typical network issues. Players de-sync and drop out of the party mid-hunt. Players disconnect from the lobby and can’t join missions. Your friends are standing next to you one second, and the next second they mysteriously vanish. It wouldn’t be so bad if you didn’t have to click through ten menus to get back to where you were, but that’s Monster Hunter, baby.

Capcom straightened out so many tedious and cumbersome systems for Wilds, it’s mind-blowing that the worst one is still here.