It's been a little while since Monster Hunter Wilds was released on February 28, 2025, and a lot has happened in that time. After selling an impressive 10 million copies in its first month, Monster Hunter Wilds began chipping away at its promised Free Title Updates, and has released two so far. That's on top of several other updates, like rotating Arch-Tempered quests, a surprisingly involved Street Fighter crossover, and a general fleshing-out of MH Wilds’ endgame. A year hasn't even passed yet, and Monster Hunter Wilds is already proving its worth as the latest title in the Monster Hunter franchise.
Wilds needed some early version victories, as it's breaking away from many Monster Hunter traditions. Going open world required a different hunt structure and multiplayer integration, along with the introduction of Wilds’ new Seikret mount among other quality-of-life features. Monster Hunter’s recurring 14 weapon classes have also been refurbished to work with Wilds’ new Focus Mode. These conveniences, synergizing with the surge of Monster Hunter hype that started in late 2023, should have guaranteed great momentum from Monster Hunter Wilds, but it already feels like the game’s initial reception is fading away.
Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update 3 Wish List
Now that Monster Hunter Wilds' Title Update 2 content has been revealed, there's a lot to look forward to for Title Update 3.
The Good Times Are Over For Monster Hunter Wilds
MH Wilds’ Flaws Piled Up Too Quickly For A Fix
Judging by the player counts on Steam Charts sporting five-digit players even at the slowest hours, Monster Hunter Wilds is far from dead, and the combination of Street Fighter’s Akuma arriving and the second Title Update did prompt a small uptick in players. However, community sentiment has not been as steady, and MH Wilds' Steam reviews are still slowly picking back up after dropping to Overwhelmingly Negative. Veteran players, even those who came in at MH World or Rise, have been returning to their preferred entries upon hitting Wilds’ barren endgame, and the overall player count is trending lower all the time.
Many of Monster Hunter Wilds’ issues are still present in its console versions, but what's dominating the game’s discussion is how it runs on computers. To make a long story short, Monster Hunter Wilds has always performed poorly on PC, and when an early patch tanked framerates and stability further, fans review-bombed the game. Every official update has been accompanied by desperate pleas for Monster Hunter Wilds to be optimized, and Capcom even had to cancel a panel about MH Wilds’ optimization at the upcoming CEDEC 2025 conference due to harassment the development staff have received. Monster Hunter Wilds is going through dark times.
Monster Hunter Wilds Will Have To Weather The Storm It Kicked Up
There are some improvements, like Title Update 2 addressing the shader compilation bloat that has been causing especially bad lag, but for the time being, it seems like Monster Hunter Wilds has hit its lowest point. Pre-launch hype and post-launch playthroughs have given way to frustrations that Monster Hunter Wilds may not be able to address in the near future. Even if it can, PC players are still going to run into persistent performance problems in the meantime. Threatening developers is always unwarranted, but it really is too soon to boast about MH Wilds’ optimization when it’s a constant complaint.
Hope For Monster Hunter Wilds’ Future Is Distant, But Present
Breaking into a golden age is still possible for Monster Hunter Wilds, but it will take a lot of time, and likely a whole new release. The expected Master Rank expansion for Monster Hunter Wilds is one option, but so is an optimized Nintendo Switch 2 version. With all the talk of performance problems, that's a long shot, but if Capcom can get Wilds to run on the Switch 2’s weaker hardware, then PC players’ woes should be addressed in the process. Monster Hunter Wilds’ best days may be behind it, but with hard work and dedication, there's still a light at the end of the tunnel.
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 89 /100 Critics Rec: 95%
