Monster Hunter Wilds best controller settings

The best Monster Hunter Wilds controller setting can help you customize your combat and traversal, making hunts and Field Investigation easier. By making slight tweaks to some of the new mechanics like Focus Mode, you can seriously streamline the sometimes complex control schemes associated with weapons like the Insect Glaive, and even make moving around on your Seikret feel much more intuitive.

Monster Hunter Wilds is another step forward for the long-running co-op action franchise. By offering up a seamless open world teeming with flora and fauna, the game really switches up the look and feel of hunts. You can read our full Monster Hunter Wilds review to find out why we've placed the game on our best multiplayer PC games list.

Here are the best Monster Hunter Wilds controller settings to change when you first load the game up. We'll cover everything from making the most of extra back paddles to making sure you can always access items quickly.

Monster Hunter Wilds best controller settings

After spending hours playing the beta and the main game for review, here are my recommendations for the best controller settings to change in Monster Hunter Wilds. I'll then go into some more detail on each, so you can decide which settings you want to run with.

• Focus Mode - Toggle
• Seikret Manual controls - Type 2
• Back Paddle setup (Basic) - prioritize evade and attacks for melee
• Map Zoom settings - Disable
• Monster sighting camera - Disable
• Hold Confirmation Duration - Short

Focus Mode (Toggle)

First up, there are the controller settings related to Focus Mode. These relate to the new targeting system that's on the left trigger by default. Generally, you'll need to hold down the trigger to enter Focus Mode, but there is an option to set it to a toggle button press. This can really help with some weapons like the Insect Glaive, where you'll need to be holding down multiple buttons at once. Similarly for weapons like the Long Sword, where you'll generally always want to be in Focus Mode, this can save you from having to hold the trigger down for most of a fight.

Seikret Manual Controls

Next up is the Seikret Manual Controls. This option relates to how your Seikret moves when it is not in Auto-Move mode. I find that having this work in Type 2, which is the same as your Hunter moves, is much more intuitive. By default, you'll need to hold R1/RB to speed up, and R2/RT to slow down. If this feels weird to you, as it does to me, then switch to the other option.

Back Paddles

While we're on the topic of best controller settings, it's worth mentioning some back paddle bindings that'll help those with more premium controllers like the DualSense Edge and Xbox Elite Series 2:

• Evade - having the evade button (A on Xbox, X on PlayStation) on a back paddle can really help, as you can move the right stick while dodging, allowing you to quickly refocus your aim
• Attack 1 - the first of your main attacks (for non-bow-gun users) will likely be on Y for Xbox and triangle for PS5. You'll want this on a back paddle so that you can aim while attacking, without having to take your thumb off of the right stick
• Attack 2 - the second of your main attacks can also be mapped to a back paddle for easier use. As a Long Sword main, I find this setup really helps me focus my aim while using Focus Mode
• Sheathe weapon - sometimes, you're going to want to be sheathing your weapon to switch to item use, or triggering environmental effects with the hook shot.
• Sprint - another option for a back paddle mappable button is the sprint. This is on the left stick click by default.

Of course, how you set up your back paddles will ultimately come down to personal preference. For some tips on the controllers that are best suited for Monster Hunter Wilds, be sure to check out our best controllers for Monster Hunter Wilds guide.

Map Zoom settings

Monster Hunter Wilds features an extremely detailed map, which reveals different points of interest depending on how zoomed in you are. The problem that I ran into was that I use adjustable trigger action on my DualSense Edge, so there's less of a press to activate them. This means that trying to zoom in would automatically make the map jump to the highest zoom, or the lowest zoom, making it very difficult to hone in on what I'm actually trying to see. Disabling this really helps, especially when combing the map for resources.

Monster Sighting Camera

Finally, we have the Monster Sighting Camera, which will zoom in and present a more cinematic shot of large monsters when first encountering them. I prefer to turn this off, as it can lead to you losing control over the camera while riding into battle. More than once, this has led to me losing the element of surprise on a monster at the beginning of a hunt, due to my character continuing to move while the Monster Sighting camera is active. Disable this to avoid this animation from triggering.

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