If you've played MH: World, it's a lot like it, but it's missing so much that made World great. There's no canteen, no cat chef, menu's are a nightmare, refreshing your item pouch loadout is lengthy and tedious.

If you haven't played World, get that instead, it's very cheap with discounts and has 4x the basegame content. There aren't even any elder dragons in Wilds.
But the improvements to the weapons would be a reason to get Wilds. New QoL improvements and movesets that take out a lot of the stiff jank that World weapons may have had, along with epic monster-weapon clashes that you used to only ever see in cutscenes in previous games.

The world also has a 4-part season-weather system where different monsters and creatures come out at different times. Once you're through with the main story campaign you can freely skip time in your campsites to the season you want, so no waiting for schedules like other games might have you do.

The story isn't great, mostly due to how railroaded you are. There's a huge lack of agency during story missions, like being told you can't go that way, or told you aren't authorised to hunt that other Monster (you can anyway but no rewards). All that goes away once you finish the story though, the post-story is where the real game is at. It'll seem too easy but it'll get more challenging with some of the tempered monsters.

The multiplayer is the most confusing and convoluted it's ever been. Why is it a whole 7-step process to join a friend instead of just join and go? If you're in a populated lobby, anyone in that lobby can just join your hunt even without an SoS. (You can also turn on auto-SoS)
But it's also very solo-friendly, you can use SoS flare to call in well-trained ai-companions that will help tank the monster and keep you alive with buffs and party heals. Or you can turn them off and wait for real life players.

In the end it leaves me pining to replay MH:World again.

If you've played MH: World, it's a lot like it, but it's missing so much that made World great. There's no canteen, no cat chef, menu's are a nightmare, refreshing your item pouch loadout is lengthy and tedious. If you haven't played World, get that instead, it's very cheap with discounts and has 4x the basegame content. There aren't even any elder dragons in Wilds. But the improvements to the weapons would be a reason to get Wilds. New QoL improvements and movesets that take out a lot of the stiff jank that World weapons may have had, along with epic monster-weapon clashes that you used to only ever see in cutscenes in previous games. The world also has a 4-part season-weather system where different monsters and creatures come out at different times. Once you're through with the main story campaign you can freely skip time in your campsites to the season you want, so no waiting for schedules like other games might have you do. The story isn't great, mostly due to how railroaded you are. There's a huge lack of agency during story missions, like being told you can't go that way, or told you aren't authorised to hunt that other Monster (you can anyway but no rewards). All that goes away once you finish the story though, the post-story is where the real game is at. It'll seem too easy but it'll get more challenging with some of the tempered monsters. The multiplayer is the most confusing and convoluted it's ever been. Why is it a whole 7-step process to join a friend instead of just join and go? If you're in a populated lobby, anyone in that lobby can just join your hunt even without an SoS. (You can also turn on auto-SoS) But it's also very solo-friendly, you can use SoS flare to call in well-trained ai-companions that will help tank the monster and keep you alive with buffs and party heals. Or you can turn them off and wait for real life players. In the end it leaves me pining to replay MH:World again.