Monster Hunter Wilds had an interesting launch this past weekend. The game not only broke Steam records for the most-played game so far for the year but it was also bombarded with so many negative reviews that it is also the most negatively-reviewed game so far for the year.
As I described in my review, Monster Hunter Wilds is not in good shape. The game’s performance across all platforms is incredibly rocky and its technical issues are even worse. With the PC version, the game suffers from unstable performance, overly demanding engine issues, and visual hiccups.
Players who have purchased the game have voiced their anger surrounding these problems. This has resulted in Monster Hunter Wilds reaching an all-time low when it comes to user reviews. A whopping 89,000 reviews have been posted for the game with 47% of them being negative. As a result, the game is sitting on a 3/5 on Steam.
Some reviews have slammed the poor performance and lack of polish for a R1500 game while others have called out the game for its generally watered-down gameplay and content. Many fans of the series who have spent hundreds of hours in Worlds and Rise say the game isn’t great with a mediocre story that plays out like a restricted amusement park ride and uninspired gameplay mechanics.
A lot of the reviews slam the game’s pacing and the lack of exploration as your Seikrat just takes you everywhere and there’s no urge to explore the world anymore. Many reviews have also complained about the game’s multiplayer system that makes it incredibly difficult to invite and play with friends.
As more players are completing the story, they are taking to Steam to share their opinions about the experience. Most of these shared reviews are mixed. This one review stands out as the general consensus after finishing the game;
Everything is weaker; the roster, the weapon depth, the armor decisions to be made based on build… even the end grind isn’t particularly exciting to think about with no real goals, or even cohesion; my game winning build is 5 evade window and some stamina/recovery up an any hammer/dual blades I feel like, and I just cobbled it together randomly as I played with no thought. The areas are less interesting, there’s less depth to palicos/movesets/secret collection… in fact are there even any secrets to find like the little critters in Rise? The few secrets I found just had a lot of random collectable trade items in them, which are only for use in the overly simple cooking buffs (where there’s also really no decisions to be made). Man, even the little cooking animations are worse; who just fries a whole quarter of a head of cabbage/lettuce like that and bites it off a knife?
Apart from that, Monster Hunter Wilds is still peaking on Steam when it comes to the player count. On launch day, the game peaked at 1,384,608 million players and has successfully reached over a million players during each peak gaming session.
Capcom has been tight-lipped about the issues surrounding Monster Hunter Wilds. The studio hasn’t responded to any fan criticism regarding the game’s poor performance. There have been several tweets about the game’s bugs, but there’s been no statement on when the game’s performance will be addressed.
Monster Hunter Wilds is now available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC. You can read my review here where I expressed my concerns for all the same issues outlined in many of the Steam reviews.
