Monster Hunter Wilds, the next new iteration in the series after Monster Hunter World, is set to release on February 28th, 2025 on all platforms except the Switch but a beta is live right now for all platforms and will run until November 4th. The Monster Hunter franchise has held a firm grip on the world ever since Monster Hunter: World and the Beta’s performance is reminding us of that.
The Numbers Are Crazy
The numbers on steamDB are insane to say the least, as of writing this article there are over four hundred thousand players on steam alone, this number will obviously go much higher if we are to include players from other platforms such as Xbox and Playstation.
This huge number shows just how many players are waiting on the release of the game and the release of it. The beta has 4 monsters and all 14 weapons available to play which were individually shown just a few months ago on their Monster Hunter Youtube channel.
The player count is expected to go much higher as more and more streamers and content creators start showing off all of what the beta has to offer for new and veteran players.
What The Beta Offers
It starts off with our character talking with a higher up about a land that was thought to be uninhabitable, an essentially desolate land from where a boy had escaped a monster that attacked his village, he is of a race that was thought to be extinct as well. Our task is to investigate and learn about his people and hopefully rescue them as well.
The Beta starts off full of action as after this short backstory, the scene changes into us riding a boat through a desert from where we see a girl being chased by a group of monsters and after our character leaps to chase and rescue this girl.
During this sequence is where we get our first experience using the new slinger device that was added to the game. It is essentially a mini crossbow that can be used to throw throwables at monsters to stun or disorient them. We can also use it to grab items around the environment that can heal us or help us in some way back at base.
This Is A Beta After All
Although it features a full monster and players can use all 14 weapons, the player base since the beta launch have been finding the most bizarre images and low poly-renditions on NPCs, monsters and the general environment.
Others are sharing that even on beefy hardware such as a Ryzen 5800 and RTX 3080 lowering settings haven’t really affected the performance of the game, only gaining 10 or so FPS, indicating some optimizations are really required.
This performance issue is reminiscent of the issues that plagued Dragon’s Dogma 2 launch where players experienced stuttering, crashes and unusually high CPU usage when playing. Of Course Capcom surely won’t make the same mistake and overall it is a beta and not a full release unlike Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Monster Hunter Will Likely Dominate
Monster Hunter World was one of the most successful titles released by Capcom and had very iconic events featuring characters from other games, extremely iconic new monster hunts were added month after month and its DLC, Iceborne, was really well received everywhere.
It shows that Capcom have found a golden goose on their hands are doing all the right moves to generate hype as much as possible before release to get as many players to play it as they can. It worked with Monster Hunter World and it is likely to work with Monster Hunter Wilds, as players can just import their characters from World if they want to.
Monster Hunter Wilds will likely reach or surpass the height of success that Monster Hunter World garnered, the beta despite its bugs shows a beautiful world, new mechanics such as the slinger, some new weapons and a whole slew of new monsters to hunt and defeat. It’s clear this beta is merely a taste of what Capcom has planned for their Monster Hunter fans and those are interested in joining in.
