Monster Hunter Wilds Sandstar is one of the most annoying pieces of endemic life to catch in the game, and it’s part of a side quest you will want to finish. With our handy guide, you’ll stop tearing your hair out trying to catch what has been kindly dubbed “Blue Pikachu” in our chat logs, and you will be able to finish the endemic life side quests once and for all, just by catching that Monster Hunter Wilds Sandstar.
Windward Plains is where you’ll need to head. But before you do, there are a few things you need to note down, or action. Without doing these, you’ll find catching Monster Hunter Wilds Sandstar to be a very hard time indeed.
Monster Hunter Wilds Sandstar: Prep
First up, you’ll need to be hunting this squirrely piece of endemic life at night. Not evening, no: night. You can change the time of day by heading to a camp and selecting “Rest” from the fourth icon along: “BBQ Menu”.
If this option is greyed out, it’s because you’re in the middle of a quest-line where the weather cannot be changed. Yes, this is a thing, and no there’s no way to change it aside from completing other side quests and coming back to this one later. Remember, to Rest in the first place, you must have reached High Rank in the first place.
Next up, you’ll need to grab some “Echo Feathers” from a hovering Baunos on your way through the desert. Doing so will net you 3 x Screamer Pods, and trust us: these are going to make your life so much easier.
How to find and catch the Sandstar
You’ll need to head to Area 13 in the Plains, and you can actually set up a pop-up camp here (Area 13: Oasis). It’s one that will frequently be knocked down, so it’s sometimes just easier to start at your home camp, grab the Screamer Pods on the way and start searching from here.
The Sandstar is fairly easy to spot, but unlike other pieces of endemic life, you won’t find multiples of them at once. You will have to be patient, do a lot of running around on you Seikret, and look for the glowing blue sign that a Sandstar has appeared.
Once spotted, you can give chase. You cannot catch it on foot, and you can’t actually net it from the back of your Seikret. You will need to get close enough, chasing it, and fire a Screamer Pod at the animal to deafen, and thus stop. Quickly switch to your net, capture it, and you’re done.
It is actually possible to catch without a Screamer Pod, and we’ve tested this, but it seems eventually if you chase long enough, it’ll almost glitch out for a brief few seconds, allowing you to catch it. You have to be very quick and a bit lucky this way, because if you don’t get it, the Sandstar will burrow underground and disappear for another cycle.
Using the Screamer Pod is our recommendation. Remember to be at “night” and to get the Echo Feathers on the way, and you should be able to finally finish this endemic life quest line.
