Learning how to capture monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds is a good way to end a fight quickly, and get more rewards in the process.
It’s only an option when the monster is nearly dead — which just so happens to be when it’s at its most dangerous. To capture a monster, you’ll have to prepare with certain traps and bombs.
You can also capture small monsters, known as endemic life — the little bugs and lizards you see running around — to earn some extra Guild Points and to complete certain side quests.
Our Monster Hunter Wilds guide will tell you all about capturing monsters large and small, and how to craft the materials you’ll need for capturing them.
Update (March 12): Added details of which monsters cannot be caught
Why to capture vs. kill in Monster Hunter Wilds
The biggest advantage to capturing a monster in a trap is that it ends the fight immediately and much sooner than a fight to the death.
Most of the time, though, you’re going to be hunting monster for specific materials to make armor or weapons.
In the field guide, you can check the various materials you might get from a hunt on the Obtainable Materials tab. When you click through, you’ll see a list of percentages and locations. Target rewards are the rewards at the end of a hunt (independent of carving), broken part rewards are the material you might get when you attack a specific part of the monster, and carving are those three parts you get when you carve a monster after slaying it. The other rewards you get are from the hunt itself — those are the quest rewards you’ll see when you visit the quest counter.
After that, it gets into percentages of target rewards versus carving rewards. There are arguments to be made for both slaying and capturing, but it really comes down to the time and effort you want to spend on a hunt. Capturing a monster ends the hunt much faster and at the cost of only a trap and a couple of tranq bombs. Killing a monster will cost you time, potions, and runs the risk of you failing. But, slaying a monster has a (slightly) better chance of collecting the materials you’re after. (Sometimes. Usually. Look, math is hard.)
Some hunts will require you to slay a monster — especially some of the main and side story quests. Any time you see the word slay in your objectives, trapping them won’t work.
When can you capture monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds?
Technically, you can capture monsters at any time in Monster Hunter Wilds provided you have the necessary traps — see a later section on how to craft these. As soon as you can wear a monster down, and can craft traps and tranq bombs, you’re ready. You don’t need to formally “unlock” anything.
That said, you won’t get an official quest that involves capturing a monster until after the credits roll in the main story and you enter High Rank, though. In that mission, Chapter 4-1 “New Ecosystems,” you’ll get the tutorial popup for how to capture.
Again, you can still capture large monsters at any time if you prefer to get started ahead of then, as explained below.
How to capture monsters in Monster Hunter Wilds
Image: Capcom via Polygon
Before you can capture a monster, you’ll need to make sure you have traps — like shock traps or pitfall traps — and tranq bombs in your item pouch. You don’t have to add them to your radial menu(s), but you do have to be able to access them from the item bar.
Image: Capcom via Polygon
There are two steps to capturing a monster. The first step is to wear a monster down and reduce their health until they’re almost dead. Your palico might say something like, “It’s looking weak! Almost there!” The more reliable clue is when a skull icon appears next to their icon on your minimap.
When the monster is weak, it’s time to trap and capture it. There are a couple more steps now — setting traps and hitting it with tranq bombs. If the monster is weak enough, one or the other might knock it out. If it’s still going strong, you might need to use both.
Image: Capcom via Polygon
Lay a trap and lead the monster into it. Once it’s ensnared, run up and drop a few tranq bombs on or near it. When the monster passes out, you’ll get several rewards for its capture, just like you would if you carved its corpse.
What monsters cannot be captured, or have trap immunity?
A few large monsters have immunities to the traps you’ll be using to capture them.
- Rey Dau, Zoh Shia, and Gypceros cannot be paralyzed by a shock trap
- Jin Dahaad and Zoh Shia can’t be trapped by a pitfall trap
Zoh Shia is the only monster that can’t be captured at all. Anything else will succumb to tranq bombs once you have it trapped.
How to craft traps and tranq bombs
Crafting the items you need for capturing a monster will take a bit of work. For traps, you’ll need to buy trap tools from the provisioner in any base camp.
The items you’ll need to craft include:
- Pitfall trap — 1 trap tool and 1 net (made from 1 ivy and 1 spider web). You can find ivy in Windward Plains and Scarlet Forest. For spider webs, you need to look someplace where there are spiders. You can find some in Scarlet Forest, Oilwell Basin, and Iceshard Cliffs.
- Shock trap — 1 trap tool and 1 thunderbug capacitor. You’ll make thunderbug capacitors by collecting thunderbugs. You’ll only find those in Windward Plains.
- Tranq bomb — 1 sleep herb and 1 parashroom. Sleep herbs can be found in Windswept Plains, Scarlet Forest, and Iceshard Cliffs. For parashrooms, all four regions — Windward Plains, Scarlet Forest, Oilwell Basin, and Iceshard Cliffs — have them.
How to capture endemic life in Monster Hunter Wilds
Image: Capcom via Polygon
First, know you can’t capture any endemic life in Monster Hunter Wilds until after you attempt to visit Y’sai’s village and get turned away in Chapter 1. On your way back to the base camp in Windward Plains, you’ll meet your first Doshaguma and gather some honey.
When you drop off the honey at the provisions shop, he’ll give you your Essential Items: a portable BBQ grill (for cooking), fishing rod (for fishing), binoculars, capture net, throwing knife, paint pod, and ghillie mantle.
The capture net is what you’re after. To equip it on your bow caster, hold down L1/LB, hit down on the D-pad, and then move the right thumbstick to the upper right to highlight the net in your Essential Items.
Image: Capcom via Polygon
Once you have the capture net, capturing endemic life is just kind of point and click. When you spot an interesting bug or lizard, you just need to equip your capture net. Aim it at what you want to capture. If it’s something you can nab, the reticle will turn yellow-orange. You’ll fire the capture net with R2/RT.
Just make sure you don’t fire the hook slinger with circle/B instead. That will collect the creature instead of capturing it.
Capturing endemic life this way doesn’t get you any materials, but it does earn you Guild Points that you’ll use for things like building pop-up camps and increasing your hunter rank on your way to High Rank.
Our Monster Hunter Wilds guides can outline your progress with our main story walkthrough and monster list ahead of reaching High Rank, help you settle on an armament with our weapons list and best weapons explainers, and show you how to get ores, bones, and monster tails.
