Monster Hunter Wilds has some major fundamental problems, and dropping the price this far after launch isn't going to fix them. As the game approached its February 2025 release, it was one of my most anticipated titles in a long time. I've been a huge fan of the series ever since Monster Hunter Tri, one of many beloved Wii classics, and the idea of an open world (semi-open world might be more accurate) entry got me so excited. Despite its successful launch, however, it went sour in a pretty big way for Monster Hunter Wildsmuch to the disappointment of many fans.
In July 2026, a post from the official Monster Hunter X account explained that “the Monster Hunter Wilds the base game will receive a permanent price reduction starting August 4, 2026.” This is just the latest of the actions Capcom has taken to try and right the ship, but for me it's already sailed. Here is the story of the dizzying highs and sad lows Wildernessand how the company has responded to the whole emotional roller coaster.
Monster Hunter Wilds had a great launch, but fell flat
As a result of the pre-launch hype (and bolstered by the steadily increasing popularity of the series in the West since my beloved Monster Hunter Tri), gamers threw their money at Capcom in droves. In fact, a March 2025 press release from the Japanese giant declared it Wilderness sales had “surpassed 8 million units in 3 days, which is the fastest a title has reached this milestone in the company's history.” It was the kind of debut that so many developers around the world could only wish for.
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However, it's important to remember that a hugely popular launch isn't the only measure of success, and certainly isn't a guaranteed long-term one. It's one thing to encourage a large number of players on board a game, but if they're not happy with the game's performance, for example, or don't find any endgame content they consider worthwhile, they're unlikely to stick around for very long. As a not-so-random deal, here are two of the great bugbear fans have had with this Monster Hunter excursion. With the hot streak Capcom has been on, it's not surprising that it's trying to fix it.
Despite its successful launch, however, it went sour in a pretty big way for Monster Hunter Wildsmuch to the disappointment of many fans.
Some titles, like the original launch of Street Fighter 5boasts super solid gameplay, but just not enough of it. That game was notoriously devoid of even a single-player arcade mode at first. It just wasn't good enough from one of Capcom's best-selling series ever, no matter how convinced I was that the core combat mechanics were the series' best yet. Wildernessmeanwhile, was sorely missed after the end of the story.
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Game Rant | Source images: Capcom -
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Image via Capcom
It's a series that's all about developing new gear to challenge stronger and stronger monsters, and the limited endgame content it launched with put a big damper on that for me. I have always seen Monster Hunter as a series where the credits only mark the actual start of the action, but this part just didn't keep me engaged in the same way after I had done it. My core group of hunting buddies (with whom I had sunk hundreds of hours Monster Hunter World experimenting with all the different weapons) also soon moved on from the game, which was a real shame.
Performance issues for PC players compounded this problem. By June 2025, PCGamesN reported, the game's recent reviews section on Steam had fallen to overwhelmingly negative. This was a very bad look for such a high-profile title, and I certainly don't think my friend group was alone in rekindling our enthusiasm for Monster Hunter World instead.
Still, modern DLC, patches, and expansions may give developers excuses to release “unfinished” titles, but they also provide other chances to revive them. Capcom has included such possibilities Wildernessnotably by introducing performance updates that have dramatically smoothed out the experience for PC gamers in particular. A series of title updates introduced additional monsters (the unlockable behemoth Gogmazios, for example), the hub, higher ranks, and new gear like Charms to aim at.
I have always seen Monster Hunter as a series where the credits only mark the actual start of the action, but this part just didn't keep me engaged in the same way after I had done it.
These things are all crucial to the series' endgame loop, and welcome as they undoubtedly were, the slow and steady rollout has made the game difficult to get into for the player base at large. As evidence of this, Tracker.gg reports that the game's All-time Peak was 1,369,780 players, while its 24-hour peak (at the time of writing) stands at 25,499.
As we saw with the game's monstrous launch, it wasn't getting players in that was its problem, but keeping them. Many, like myself, found it quite barebones outside of the main story at first, or even struggled to get very far in it due to its unstable performance. There's also been a feeling that it's a little too simple, a little too newcomer-friendly in terms of its mechanics than some previous entries. Some in Monster Hunter community may be guilty of holding too tightly to the series' “hardcore” reputation (a concept so important to some that there are even hardcore alternatives to Animal Crossing: New Horizons), after all.
When all is said and done, Wilderness' performance and its range of missions has increased dramatically since its initial launch. The scale of its world is also closer to something I was hoping for from the first trailers. But players can be fickle. There have been so many great releases since the start of 2025 that the competition for our attention has been fierce. The massive Ascendance expansion, due in 2027, will add The Skybound Eyrie, a brand new area, to the proceedings, but how many players will return to enjoy it remains to be seen.
The announced price drop for Monster Hunter Wilds will certainly invite some new players to jump in. In February 2026, it made a move out of “Mostly Negative” territory, indicating positivity to the changes. With player retention front of mind though, it's just hard to get around the fact that those who have already bought the game, and therefore won't benefit at all from a base price drop, may be the biggest problem here.
- Released
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February 28, 2025
- ESRB
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T for Teens // Violence, blood, crude humor
