You know those people who put 100 hours into Monster Hunter Wilds and then complain that there isn’t enough content? Sorry, I’m one of them. I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous. It’s not that I haven’t gotten my money’s worth or that I didn’t have a great time playing it, it’s just that I’ve had better, more fulfilling endgame experiences than this before. I kept playing long past the credits because I was expecting the game to open up more, but it never really does.
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It’s unfair that Wilds has to live in the shadow of Monster Hunter: World, which was such a massive evolution for the series that rode the line between Monster Hunter’s signature obtuseness and approachability flawlessly, but anyone who has played this series for a long time can’t help but compare them. I don’t think Wilds’ endgame lives up to World’s, even when comparing just the launch version, but I had hoped that through years of post-launch support, Wilds would eventually get there. After a recent tweet from the official Monster Hunter account, I’m not sure what to expect anymore.
Monster Hunter Games Keep Growing After Launch
When Capcom announced Wilds had sold eight million copies in the first three days after launch, it promised that this was “just the start for the next generation of Monster Hunter”.
Historically, Monster Hunter generations have been kind of like Pokemon generations. You get one ‘main’ game with a remake or spin-off afterward, as well as frequent updates, events, and a big DLC expansion for the main game to tie it all up with a bow.
With Capcom’s “just the start” message, I suspected we’d be getting something similar for Wilds. This is the first multiplatform ‘main’ Monster Hunter game built in RE Engine, so I was willing to forgive it for having fewer monsters and a shorter tail than both World and Rise, because I assumed there was a lot more on the way. But now I have some doubts.
How Many Updates Is “Several”?
The first free content update for Monster Hunter Wilds is coming in early April, a little over a month past the initial launch. Capcom announced the update in mid-February by revealing fan-favorite monster Mizutsune would be coming to the Forbidden Lands as part of the update, which will also feature a new, higher-difficulty monster category above tempered. A month feels like a long wait for the first update, but I still had faith that there was an impressive long-term plan for Wilds.
On Thursday, the Monster Hunter account tweeted a promo for Mizutsune’s arrival, saying that Wilds will have “several free title updates.” Several? Just Several? Don’t you mean dozens? I was expecting a lot more than several. I know several isn’t a specific number, but I thought there would be a lot more updates than several.
I don’t want to get too hung up on one word in a tweet. This could be a translation error, or Capcom might just want to downplay its plans, but “several” is not a very reassuring word to hear after having a rather threadbare launch. A month after World launched we got the Horizon Zero Dawn crossover, which was followed by five major content updates just in the first year. Those updates included the incredible Witcher 3 campaign mission, the Final Fantasy 14 raid battle against Behemoth, the whole Kulve Taroth siege in El Dorado, and archtempered monsters. It would have been strange to refer to a content roadmap like that as “several” updates.
Before support for World ended, it received 14 new monsters and 11 updates. Rise received comparatively fewer updates in the first year, and those updates sort of felt like things that should have been in the base game anyway, but Rise also had a more fully formed end-game than Wilds currently has.
Maybe, hopefully, there’s nothing to worry about, and Capcom is going to blow our minds with crossovers and events that extend the life of Wilds until the inevitable expansion is ready. I hope that’s the case, but deep down I have a feeling that we’re going to get less Monster Hunter than we’re used to, and that little word “several” isn’t helping that feeling go away.
- Released
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February 28, 2025
- ESRB
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T For Teen // Violence, Blood, Crude Humor