Monster Hunter Wilds PC players are finally set to receive proper optimisation for the game’s performance issues, but Capcom has stated it won’t arrive until this winter. That’s almost a year after the game was released.
“To our hunters playing #MHWilds on PC, we’re committed to listening to your feedback and improving both performance and stability of the game,” said Capcom in a post on social media. “Although we will continue to implement gradual improvements in the weeks ahead, we are targeting Free Title Update 4 this winter to implement a multifaceted plan, including CPU and GPU related optimisations, followed by a second stage of mitigation measures afterwards.”
The PC version of the game has been heavily criticised since the game’s release for its poor performance, but waiting so long for improvements is ironic when the game has sold incredibly well and Capcom itself has noted how important the PC platform is. Will the improvements coming in winter be too little too late?
“Yeah, there are more players than ever playing on PC, including in Japan,” said producer Ryozo Tsujimoto back in February ahead of the game’s release, “so we definitely see room for the series to capture new players who haven’t tried it before if that’s their chosen platform.” That’s partly why Capcom released a PC benchmark tool too, to help satisfy PC players.
It’s a sentiment mirrored across the industry. Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has noted the importance of the PC platform, teasing a release for GTA 6, while Square Enix is pursuing a multiplatform strategy that’s seen sales of its Final Fantasy 7 Remake games and Final Fantasy 16 boosted. And just look at the PC success for Shift Up’s Stellar Blade, which sold a million copies on Steam in just three days.
So when Capcom released Monster Hunter Wilds across PC and console in February, it’s no wonder sales skyrocketed after the success of both World and Rise. It became the company’s fastest-selling game, with over 8m units sold in just three days. It even helped propel Capcom to its 12th consecutive year of increased profit. According to Capcom’s recently updated Platinum Titles list, Monster Hunter Wilds has sold 10.5m copies across all platforms and is the eighth best-selling Capcom game of all time.
And on PC the game got off to a spectacular start. On Steam, it quickly surpassed Monster Hunter World’s all-time player peak before hitting over a million concurrent players. Shortly afterwards, Steam hit a new player peak across the platform. Analyst Mat Piscatella stated in March Monster Hunter Wilds was the best-selling game of February, with Steam accounting for over half the game’s sales.
Yet quickly that success was marred by performance complaints, specifically on PC. Capcom acknowledged these issues, but has failed so far to fully rectify them. Even now, the game sits with a mostly negative rating on Steam.
Sales and player counts have tumbled as a result. Last quarter, Monster Hunter Wilds was outsold by Devil May Cry 5, albeit through sales and its new anime series raising interest levels. Monster Hunter Wilds sold 477k copies, which was only just higher than the four-year-old Monster Hunter Rise. At the time of writing, the game has a Steam 24-hour peak of just under 46k – that’s a 97 percent drop from its all-time peak of 1.38 million players. Concurrent players don’t tell the whole picture of a game’s success, but the drop here is monumental however you look at it.
Capcom has released multiple patches to address performance issues on PC, but problems remain. What’s more, the forthcoming patch doesn’t appear to be all-encompassing as a “second stage of mitigation measures” will follow, suggesting this will be a major overhaul as issues run deep. If that’s required to fix problems, it’ll be worth the wait to get the game back on track.
But that long wait is a huge disappointment for players, with responses on reddit ranging from apathy to frustration at how long it’s taking. As one response on social media reads: “You guys waited too long and lost me. Sorry, not sorry.”
While the initial sales of Monster Hunter Wilds has proven the success of the series, its massive drop-off ever since just shows how quickly the audience has moved on. The lack of a comprehensive fix on PC is a core reason for this, but so is the endgame.
Capcom has today released a statement acknowledging the demand for increased replayability of endgame content. As such, Appraise Talismans will now be available in top level quests, allowing for deeper customisation. A new Melding Pot feature will also allow for unwanted Appraised Talismans to be used to create new items.
Still, the additional monsters and challenging hunts coming later this year feel like minimal extras. Presumably, Monster Hunter Wilds will receive a major expansion just like Iceborne for World and Sunbreak for Rise. Typically these extend the lifespan of Monster Hunter games considerably, with extra story and more monsters to hunt. Until then, it’s frustrating to see Capcom continue to stumble on a fundamental level.
