The Dark Souls games might be my all-time favorites, but Monster Hunter Wilds beats them in one crucial way: fashion

Monster Hunter Wilds beta and trailer screenshots
(Image credit: Capcom)

When I lay down to dream, I see Miu Miu tops , dresses that look like orchids from , and Monster Hunter Wilds armor sets I'm wildly jealous of as a devoted 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:FromSoftware fan. I thought my years assembling avant-garde looks as a passionate 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Fashion Souls craftswoman were wo🍒ꦕrth something – but Monster Hunter Wilds' have brought my life's work to shame.

OK, let me take a deep ♏breath. I'm destr🧔oying my mascara.

and default schoolboy shorts I once put my Bloodborne protagonist in – very . And Fia's smoky, chiffon in Elden Ring – it has an elegant swish to it. But am I being dramatic about the disparity between clothing options in Monster Hunter Wilds and the undoubtedly more masculine selection found in FromSoftware games? No. Absolutely not. I've grown tired of hiding my mage's tasteful four-pack abs behind breast plates the same size as God's foot.

So, Monster Hunter Wilds has impressive beasts to battle and a philosophical story to wrestle with, as we commend it for in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Monster Hunter Wilds review. But, as an outsider to Capcom's action RPG series, all I'm interested in is the gam🎉e's slinky black capes and crop tops – the clingy fishnet tights and fancy helms. I'm getting💃 emotional already.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Layered armor, an editing mechanic first introduced in 2018's Monster Hunter World, allows players to combine these runway-ready pieces into uniforms appropriate for either dr🦩agon slaying, or slaying at the Forbidden Lands' hottest dive bar.

The mechanic works as intui🎐tively as a needle and thread – after you gather high-rank mater🐼ials and create high-rank armor, you can unlock its cosmetic options. Color and material matching are both in your control, making it so that a sultry, low-brim cowboy hat can appear to be lined with leather or crocodile, depending on what else you're wearing.

A screenshot shows Solaire covered in golden light in Dark Souls 2.

Inst🦩ead of taking the time to "Praise the Sun," Dark Souls 2 should have been worried about praising the sundress – or even a pair of sunglasses. (Image credit: FromSoftware)

There is no FromSoftware game that enables this level of personalization – not even Elden Ring, which introduced the ability to "alter" armor with subtle tailoring. But, while Monster Hunter Wilds players are galloping around looking like and in non-gendered outfits, Elden Ring's rarely go beyond removing a cape or sackcloth hood from its, mostly, rectangular armor sets weighed down by elephanti൩ne codpieces. Bloodborne at least has a few frilly skirts you can slip on, and its Victorian-inspired menswear is more flattering than, for example, Dark Souls' onion-shaped , but its fashion is still more re𝕴strictive than what's in Monster Hunter Wilds.

This matters, because clothing matters. If it didn't, women wouldn't have pushed to make pants an acceptable part of their wardrobes. Women in 1920 wouldn't have braved unamused on Coney Island and gotten arrested for wearing one-piece bathing suits. Women around the world wouldn't still need 𝔍to advocate for whether or not they should cover their hair, or arms, or belly button piercings because everyone would know that choosing an outfit is freedom.

I'm starting to sound like a Dark Souls suffragette, but I'm serious. When a supposedly inconsequential video game 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:defaults to masculine preferences in clothing, as a woman, I know the developers didn't expect me to play it. And, while I may appreciate a gilded codpiece as much as the next girl, FromSoftware limits players' creativity and immersion by forcing them to preen like a chest-puffing male lion. How am I supp𝓰osed to imagine myself in a crumbling fairyland when I'm way too distracted by the covering my eyes?

Though I wish the FromSoftware games I've been obsessing over for years had done it first, Monster Hunter Wilds boasts a flexible approach to fashion that, I think, is both the most stylish and welcoming an action RPG has ever had. I hope to see more games follow suit. Video game fashion isn't as important as sleep or starlight – and it's just as intangible – but I need it all the same.

Oh no, Monster Hunter Wilds is so good that I'm already counting the days until its inevitable Master Rank expansion.

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pi🌠eces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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