Capcom has been doing daily little trailers for the weapons in Wilds in preparation for the playable demo at gamescom this year, which has been pretty cool. I'll admit I'm still not fully sold on Wilds yet, personally, and while some of the weapons have had some cool stuff added... I still find myself struggling to be very excited for the game.
Comments on each after the break, just in case you wanted to go in fully blind for the game.
Greatsword: I'll admit, I don't play greatsword much! Haha. It seems like there's a bit of a focus on guarding with many of the weapons in the game? Which could be interesting. Some of the new attacks looked cool but it seems like there's not a ton to squeeze out of greatsword in terms of like, huge mechanical changes. Kind of indifferent to this one, but that's mostly because I don't play the weapon.
Longsword: I like that the spirit combo has new options. One of longsword's biggest problems imo is that there's just not a ton of buttons for it haha. Saw an attack from Frontier in there as well as one from MHO? Which is pretty cool. Generally happy with what I saw. Less flashy than Rise (which I preferred honestly) but I'll take it.
Switchaxe: Liking it mostly! Seems like the weapon is sped up in some ways. Plus, I'm really happy they kept the guard point around. Swaxe has pretty poor defensive options so this is a great addition. Overall very happy with what I saw there.
Sword and Shield: Another weapon I don't play much. It seems like they're pushing mobility on it which is pretty cool. I could see it fitting well into that niche. Part of me was hoping that they'd really lean into the grapple hook thingy for SnS given that it can uniquely use many items with the weapon drawn. Again, pretty indifferent to this one for the same reasons as GS.
Hammer: Another weapon I don't play, but!! The grapple hook pull! That's a wirebug move! I'm glad that they're keeping the spirit of those alive, even in this small way. Like I mentioned for SnS I feel like both of these weapons could do some very fun stuff with a grapple hook as like, a core feature. Seems neat but hard to comment on since I didn't play the weapon much.
Charge Blade: Regrettably a weapon I haven't played with enough to have a strong feeling about. It seems like they've sped stuff up in a lot of places which is welcome. I'll have to talk to some folks I know who play the weapon more to see what they think.
Insect Glaive: Seems like fun! It looked like it's easier to get into the air, some kinsect quality of life (you can see what the extract will be while aiming!) Liked that your kinsect joined in on some attacks. I imagine this will come down to a numbers game but I liked what I saw.
Dual Blades: Another weapon I don't play much. I liked the cool grapple hook attack, and was that bushi dodge??? Seems like it could be fun.
Hunting Horn: Hot take I gather but I actually thought Rise hunting horn was a ton of fun. This seems to be going back to how it functioned in earlier games/world, which is what most people wanted as I understand it. Fair enough! I like that they kept a silkbind around and just made it cooler haha.
Lance: Seems neat! I liked that new shield bash attack, seems fun. Gives lance some KO too which is welcome. From someone who doesn't play the weapon very often, it's hard to comment on a lot of the changes but. Lance mains I know seemed hyped so I'll take it.
Now! Onto my main weapons:
LBG: My main weapon. It seems like valor shots are back, in essence, which is cool! I'm speculating that normal bullets are all rapid fire now? Given that both LBG and HBG can rapid normal shot, this seems plausible. The little attachment doohickey that lets you rapid also seems neat. Kinda like a bootleg ultra rapid fire, in a sense. I didn't notice them fire anything except what looked like normal shot, which is... Worrying. I hope they haven't taken away pierce/spread from LBG. Overall I'm not unhappy but definitely not what I was hoping for.
HBG: It can rapid fire now????? This worried me initially because that's... Like LBG's entire gimmick, really. We'll see how it plays out, ultimately. The new special shots all seemed cool, and it appears HBG can just guard as like, a baked in feature of the weapon now. I wonder if this means bowgun mods will be different (or removed) this time around? Again, not unhappy but we'll see.
Gunlance: Blast stepping from frontier!!! Really happy to see it. It also appears that charging shelling does more of a, like, mag dump kind of thing? You fire multiple shells at once essentially. Wyvern's fire seems easier to use, and the blast swipe from frontier also makes an appearance. Overall super happy, of my main weapons this one worried me the least. I just hope shelling types are still there, and hopefully Capcom isn't too scared to give it decent shelling levels like they were in Rise.
Bow: By far, my biggest disappointment of these reveals. Don't get me wrong, the tracer shot is novel, the focus attack is really cool, bushi dodge makes a return it looks like? But... It's back to world-style bow. No shot types. Rapid for normal shots, spread for power shots, no pierce shots. Really disappointed by this. It renders bow variety effectively pointless because all you care about is the one with the biggest number. It's like removing sharpness from a blademaster weapon.
Them rolling back the changes Rise made worries me, not just for bow but in some other aspects, too. Random decorations sound likely to return which is so dumb. Worse in every single way compared to random talismans. In my 300 hours of world I never got a single attack deco drop ever. It was crippling for builds. Hopefully we don't go back to bloated raw, it's a dumb abstraction, imo. The multiplayer is already confirmed to be making the same mistakes world did as far as being clunky as shit (though the insist it's "easier" now.) As well, I find the character models kind of... Uncanny? World had the same issue. I think it's just an art direction problem.
A big thing for the two bowguns, as well. The sound design and hit registration is straight up BAD right now. The LBG mount attack didn't even look like it was hitting the monster! It barely sounds like you're hitting the thing, and the effect for shooting the monster is barely noticeable at all. I hope that it isn't final because it's genuinely not good, especially compared to the other weapons.
Those are my thoughts! We'll see what the demo at Gamescom reveals.