Capcom Remains The King Of Scummy Microtransactions

I refuse to have a favourite developer or publisher in the video game industry, since it seems silly to play favourites with corporations whose primary reason for existence is making as much money as possible. They might make games I love to play, but that don’t matter to me.

But, when looking back at the past decade, it’s hard not to pour one out for Capcom. Devil May Cry, Resident Evil, Ace Attorney, and Monster Hunter are just a few of the properties it has rebooted, reimagined, and made into bastions of quality in the triple-A space. You could point out a few rare stinkers, but for the most part, Capcom has developed a reputation that promises quality, innovation, and perhaps most importantly, fun.

It understands how to make games that look, play, and run wonderfully (most of the time at least), so when it falls short, you can’t help but stand up and take notice.

For years now, Capcom has taken a distinctly old school and unusually scummy approach to microtransactions, which makes the majority of its games less fun to play. Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition is when I first remember encountering them. It offered currency that could be used to upgrade weapons and purchase items, meaning that if you decided to spend enough, you could break the game by buying out all the items and upgrades. It was a way to make the game easier, and carried over to Devil May Cry 5 several years later alongside a bunch of cosmetic DLC.

Additional costumes and accessories are perfectly fine, and have long been a part of deluxe editions, or available separately from the main game, because all they do is make the characters look cool. There is little to no mechanical involvement, but if you are selling items that can be obtained in-game and are also key to progression, it just feels like a gross way to take weird advantage of players who don’t have enough time to see a game through its end by normal means, but do have enough funds to circumvent it. It’s money for old rope.

This continued in Dragon’s Dogma 2. There was misguided outrage upon release that items required to Fast Travel were only attainable via microtransactions. This isn’t true. Portcrystals are hard to obtain and often expensive, but you can purchase them from a number of different places, while Oxcarts can be used to travel between key locations.

But it is still contentious that Capcom then decided to sell limited Portcrystals as microtransactions anyway, knowing that players would appreciate the convenience of fast travel and also pay for the privilege. Claiming that a lack of fast travel is key to enjoying Dragon’s Dogma 2 at its purest and then selling the items that make that possible, even in limited quantities, is hypocritical.

Monster Hunter Wilds Customisation Vouchers Are Daylight Robbery

This brings me to Monster Hunter Wilds, which continues the Capcom tradition of awkward microtransactions that feel a decade out of date. Like every other game in the series, you’ll start by creating a Hunter. The character creator has been praised as one of the best in the business, and for good reason, allowing you to make original characters, celebrities, and video game characters with absurd levels of accuracy.

However, once you start the game, there is no option to change your appearance or alter it in any way unless you happen to have a Character Customisation Voucher. You get one free voucher in the deluxe version of the game, but if you want to change your character or Palico appearance again, you need to cough up the dough. You can pick up a three-pack of vouchers for $6.99, or a bundle pack with three hunter/three Palico vouchers for $9.99. Some of you are probably moaning that when I create my character I’d benefit from being definitive about what I want to look like, but not all games work like that.

Monster Hunter Wilds is all about defeating monsters, gathering materials from corpses, and using those to make fabulous outfits and accessories. There is a huge amount of freedom in how you can make your avatar dress and present themselves, but if you want to change your physical appearance, that comes at a price. It feels like it has been ripped from the game and turned into a product we need to pay for with nothing but the pursuit of profits in mind.

At least when it comes to costumes, emotes, and all of that jazz that Wilds also happens to sell, you’re paying for extras you could otherwise live without. But charging you to alter how your character looks in a game with a creator that encourages you to be experimental again and again is crass and unnecessary.

But it clearly works, otherwise Capcom wouldn’t keep on doing it. In the modern landscape, we have seen microtransactions becoming the norm. For the most part, I’ve come to terms with this, but Capcom is an outlier that I can’t help turning my nose up at.

Released

February 28, 2025

ESRB

T For Teen // Violence, Blood, Crude Humor