How To Trap And Capture Monsters In Monster Hunter Wilds

Capturing a monster is a kinder way to end a fight in Monster Hunter Wilds, and it sure has its benefits! Updated Nov 12, 2026, 11:00 AM EST Ryan Thompson-Bamsey has been an Editor at TheGamer since 2021. He has specialized in RPGs, grand strategy games, and visual novels, reviewing major releases in franchises from Square Enix, Larian Studios, and Paradox Interactive. Ryan has served multiple times on the jury for the Indie Cup awards, and has mentored many emerging writers in the games industry. He has covered some of the biggest releases of recent years, including leading the site's coverage of Baldur's Gate 3, Dragon's Dogma 2, and plenty of other massive RPGs. Hunts are the central gameplay feature in Monster Hunter Wilds. It's all in the title, after all! Grabbing a weapon and going to town on whatever unsuspecting beast you have your eye on is the main thing you'll be engaged with for however many hours you're playing this game. But not every hunt has to end in death! Indeed, it's possible to capture your enemy monsters, and this has numerous benefits. For one, you can end fights a little earlier, and for two, you get the same amount of rewards (even though you miss out on carving the monster's corpse)! How To Trap And Capture Monsters There are three elements to capturing a monster: Weakening the monster until it's very low on health. Trapping the monster. Tranquilizing the monster. To sum up, you need to weaken a monster until it's within 'capture' range, and then set up the second two points simultaneously. A monster must be tranquilised using one of the two tranquilization methods, and while it is tranquilised, it must be inside a trap. If all three boxes are ticked, the monster is considered trapped, and the hunt will be over. How To Know When A Monster Is Weak Enough To Capture There are a few ways to know that a monster is weak enough for you to begin the capturing process: The first is when your Palico or a support NPC alerts you to the fact that the monster is very weak. The second is when the monster starts to salivate noticeably. Not all monsters will do this, however. The third is when a skull icon appears next to the monster's icon on the mini-map. The skull icon is the most surefire way to know that a monster can be captured. The shouts from your allies and the salivation are good tells, but they are not 100 percent accurate for capturability. If anything, make sure your volume is up, listen for the auditory cues, then double-check the mini-map before you waste time trying to trap the monster. How To Make Traps There are two types of traps that you can bring to a quest: Pitfall Trap and Shock Trap. You can only carry one of each type of trap at a time, so it can be beneficial to take along the crafting materials with you so you can craft more on the fly if you want to use traps offensively during a fight, or you mess up the actual capture. There are also alternative trap types that may be added to your Seikret's pouch at the start of a quest, and your Palico may set traps for monsters randomly throughout a hunt. Some monsters are immune to one trap type, so it's good practice to make sure you have both types with you at all times if you're going for capture over slaying! Monsters immune to Shock Traps include: Rey Dau Gypceros Zoh Shia Monsters immune to Pitfall Traps include: Jin Dahaad Zoh Shia How To Tranquilize A Monster There are three ways to tranquilize a monster: Using Tranq Bombs so that they explode within the monster's vicinity. Multiple Tranq Bombs will be necessary. Shooting it with Tranq Ammo, which can only be used by Light Bowgun and Heavy Bowgun users as a long-range alternative to Tranq Bombs. Shooting it with Tranq Blades, which are long-range Slinger Ammo. Item How To Obtain Tranq Bomb Sleep Herb + Parashroom Tranq Ammo Tranq Bomb + Normal Ammo Tranq Blade Tranq Bomb + Throwing Knife Sleep Herb Obtain from Windward Plains, Scarlet Forest, or Iceshard Cliffs. Parashroom Obtain from Windward Plains. It's easiest to tranquilize a monster once it's trapped, but it is possible to use these methods to tranquillize the monster before you trap it. If this is the case, the tranquilised monster will be considered captured the moment it falls into the trap you use. Which Monsters Cannot Be Captured Some monsters in the game cannot be captured, no matter what you do. This includes some story monsters that need to be killed to progress the narrative, and some entire monster species. Field Guide of a Monster That Cannot Be Captured Field Guide of a Monster That Can Be Captured There are two ways to determine this: If an objective tells you to 'Slay' or 'Repel' a monster rather than 'Hunt' a monster, the objective will only be completed if you kill it (or deal enough damage in some 'Repel' cases); capturing it will not work. When you look up the monster in the Field Guide, you'll be given stats on how many times you have Hunted and Captured it. If the monster is capturable, this box will contain a number. If the monster cannot be captured, it will contain '-----'. An example of this is depicted in the table above.