Tokyo Game Show 2025

As an FFXIV Player, Monster Hunter Wild's Upcoming Boss is a Nostalgic Trip

To be clear from the start, I am not a Monster Hunter player. The last title I put any serious time into was Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate on the Wii U—and that was in 2013. However, what I most definitely am is a Final Fantasy XIV player—which gave me an interesting perspective on the Monster Hunter Wilds/Final Fantasy XIV crossover battle I played at Tokyo Game Show 2025.

The demo began with my character mounting an FFXIV-style chocobo and riding into battle against an instantly recognizable boss: Omega. Originally from Final Fantasy V, the Final Fantasy XIV version of the character served as the antagonist for the Stormblood expansion's 8-man raid series—and is the actual boss you battle against in the eleventh raid fight.

I have done this battle in its various iterations many times and what strikes me is just how faithfully realized the Monster Hunter Wilds version of the boss is. All the attacks are there—cones of fire exploding from the flanks, massive hands that appear and fly at you, and a giant beam that utterly obliterates anything it hits. Even as a Monster Hunter novice, I knew immediately what to do in any given situation. While the viewpoint and controls were a bit different, the visual language remained the same—and all the muscle memory was there.

But while I was able to dodge Omega's attacks the vast majority of the time, my attack power was very much lacking. I foolishly chose the bow as my weapon and, in the end, lost the fight by running out of time.

That said, as a Final Fantasy XIV player, this was a novel experience to say the least. I'm sure that Monster Hunter Wilds fans will be happy just having another boss to smash. But if you're in the subset of players who plays both FFXIV and Monster Hunter Wilds, you're going to have a lot of fun with the Omega boss battle.

The Omega Planetes battle will be released as part of the Title Update 3 on September 29, 2025.