In my opinion, anyone who says that Monster Hunter World is better than Monster Hunter Wilds is a liar. This does not mean World is bad, it's good and I find it very fun and engaging, it's just not as good as Wilds in my opinion.
Firstly, I am excluding Iceborne from this discussion since not only is it an expansion and Wilds doesn't have that yet so it's unfair to include in this discussion, but I still haven't finished it so I can't really discuss it anyway.
Secondly, I am new to the franchise and started with Wilds, so there is a real chance I am biased towards it not helped by the fact that I played both games on console and effectively sidestepped the major complaints people had with Wilds (Bad framerate, poor graphics, the like).
With those out of the way, let me explain myself.
When I stopped playing Wilds for a while a week or so after Arch-Tempered Jin Dahaad, I wanted to play more Monster Hunter and remembered seeing online a lot of people praising World and saying that it's better than Wilds so I decided to pick it up. While I have been having fun with it and want to do the major things like slaying Alatreon, Safi'Jiva, and Fatalis at least, the whole time I was playing, I had this nagging feeling of "This is the game that a lot of people say is better than Wilds? I don't really see it."
It looks worse, the music is forgettable, the monsters don't feel natural, it doesn't have as many memorable or fun fights, the hunter is slow, the maps are both either too small or too large and more annoying to traverse, and the maps don't work as well as environments as Wilds.
To expand my thoughts and actually say what I mean, let's go over them one at a time.
What I mean when I say this is that although it can be excused since it is an older game, it does look worse graphically and stylisticly than Wilds. It looks like a strange middle ground between the stylization of older games and the realism of Wilds. It doesn't look and feel natural like Wilds but it tries to be so it just ends up feeling uncanny, especially if your first impression of Monster Hunter is a game released in 2025 and your second is a game released in 2018.
2. The music is forgettable
For the life of me, I can't remember a track in base World off the top of my head or one that I want to listen to again that isn't Nergigante's, Bazelgeuse's, or Teostra's themes. In comparison, off the top of my head Wilds has Lagiacrus, Rathalos, Mizutsune, Rey Dau, Uth Duna, Nu Udra, Jin Dahaad, Guardian Arkveld, Regular Arkveld, Zoh Shia, and Gogmazios. That's 13 tracks that I can remember off the top of my head because I like them enough to want to listen to them again in comparison to World's 3.
3. The monsters don't feel natural
Whenever I fight monsters in World, they feel like videogame enemies. Their moves don't lead easily into one another and there's a level of stiffness that is present when they stop attacking alongside some moves themselves feeling very artificial. Moves like Kirin's charge, headbutt, and kick start and look very stiff and Tobi-Kadachi just stands there for a second after it's tail slam or swipe. It doesn't happen a lot, but when it does, it's very obvious.
When I look at Wilds, it feels a lot more natural. While some monsters still stop awkwardly, it's not very noticeable and moves lead into each other well. There's a level of smoothness that helps make the fights feel more natural and like you're fightning an animal defending itself rather than a video game enemy.
4. It doesn't have as many memorable or fun fights.
When I think of a memorable or fun fight from Wilds, I think of how I've been unsuccessfully trying to focus strike Gogmazios just as it starts to fly so that I'm dragged along with it into the air, how hype it is when I block Omega's beam, how funny it is when I get greedy and try to jump on Lagiacrus' back just before he uses his shockspikes to slap me out of the air, charging at Uth Duna with a lance as it's helpless to stop me until it bellyflops, and avoiding Zoh Shia's fire by simply staying in the air by attacking it's back. When I try to do the same for World, I can't really say the same.
This is one of my biggest problems with World. Everything you do is so slow compared to Wilds. Running is slower, drinking is slower, and worst of all, recovering from a hit is slower. When you take a bad hit and need to recover health, it's hard to move away from the monster and even if you do, the drinking animation is so slow that you need to roll out of it early or you get hit as soon as or just after you started drinking. Even worse, sometimes you don't even get that oppurtunity to reposition yourself because it takes your hunter a while to get off the ground when knocked down and then you get hit again.
6. The maps are both either too small or too large and more annoying to traverse
In Wilds, the maps are large, giving a sense of scale and awe and easy to traverse since you have a controllable mount and even if you didn't, your sprinting speed is quite high allowing you to cross large distances easily even on foot.
In World, maps are smaller and feel more cramped while have more verticality. This really only works for the Ancient Forest as it has a lot of interactivity in climbing and swinging from vines. When this is combined with a slower running and mounts you can't really control, it's a lot more frustrating to actually go through the maps since you're just too slow. Honestly, my only problems are that you can't control the tailraider you ride and they can't sprint if I remember correctly. If you could, I would have found this less annoying since your low running speed is offset by a faster mount.
7. The maps don't work as well as environments
When I look at and compare the maps, Wilds looks and feels a lot more natural. World is honestly just way too cramped sometimes in comparison thanks to all the corridors. Thanks to Wild's size, they are able to connect the maps more naturally and either have wider walls for their corridors or outright don't have corridors at all. You can easily go from one area to another and not realise it while in World, there are just too many cramped spaces and walkways. This is also why my least favorite map is the Iceshard Cliffs. Too many corridors and cramped spaces doesn't help it feel natural and even then it makes sense since it isn't natural and explicitly the ruins of a civilization.
TLDR; World has a slower hunter, worse graphics, monsters that rarely yet obviously feel stiff and artificial, less fun or memorable fights, more frustrating and unnatural maps, and forgettable music. Having played through base World, if anyone says that it's better than Wilds, I assume they're looking at it through nostalgia or rose-tinted glass or are thinking of Iceborne. Thankfully, things are shaping up to better in Iceborne and I'm really excited for what comes next.
