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Let us investigate why Monster Hunter Wilds’ overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam, and seek the primary reasons behind it.
Monster Hunter Wilds, upon its release, was mostly praised by critics and players alike. Although fans of the series mentioned some onboarding and difficulty-related issues, those were sidelined by the sheer quality and “fun” the game had to offer, at least in its opening few hours. However, once the game’s “honeymoon phase” wore off, players started looking at Wilds with a more critical lens.
Moreover, as it stands now, MH Wilds has “overwhelmingly negative” reviews on Steam, with 16% being positive. For a mainline Monster Hunter game, this is surprising and unprecedented. Surprisingly, there are some valid reasons for the game’s negative reception.
Here’s everything you need to know about Monster Hunter Wilds and its recent overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam.
Primary Reasons for Monster Hunter Wilds’ Overwhelmingly Negative Reviews on Steam
Technical Issues Plaguing the PC Port
The primary reason behind Monster Hunter Wilds’ poor reception on PC mostly boils down to the lack of optimization. Despite Capcom promising a technically sound port for PC, Wilds was far from the ideal. The game had frame rate issues, shader-related crashes, stuttering, and a plethora of other technical problems plaguing it.
Although the game did receive multiple updates trying to address the PC performance, it’s still far from the ideal Monster Hunter experience. Moreover, the last two major updates have added new issues to the game. Following the recent updates, players on PC reported increased loading times and general instability during gameplay.
These are on top of the existing issues that the game already has on PC. Surprisingly enough, with the new update(s), the game no longer goes through a fresh shader rebuilding process. And that is what causes the stuttering and crashes. Capcom even posted steps for players to rebuild the game’s shaders, ultimately resolving these issues.
While rebuilding shaders fixed the additional stuttering introduced with the new updates, it doesn’t address the poor frame-pacing and stability-related issues plaguing the title. Another major reason behind the game’s negative reviews is the endgame or lack thereof.
Lack of An Endgame
Although Monster Hunter Wilds has a robust endgame loop, via the Investigations system, it’s not “rewarding” enough to keep players engaged. The endgame in Wilds revolves around Investigation quests, which are randomly generated and can be saved to tackle at any time. These quests help with gathering the necessary resources to craft armor and weapons during the initial endgame loop.
However, once you obtain the best armor and weapons in the game, there’s barely any incentive to replay these quests. This issue is further compounded by the fact that Wilds is arguably the “easiest” Monster Hunter game till now.
Although Capcom did add new 8-star Tempered Monsters to the game, they don’t come with any additional incentive for you to actively hunt them. You can essentially get the same rewards for hunting the 5-star variant of the same Tempered Monster.
Outside of the event-exclusive Arch-Tempered Monsters, none of the 8-star quests give you anything new to incentivize the grind. Unless you’re actively looking for more challenge, there’s barely any reason to hunt the 8-star Tempered Gore Magala over the regular variant.
Hopefully, it’s something Capcom can address with the upcoming title update 2 (TU2) for MH Wilds.
Can Title Update 2 (TU2) Make a Difference for Monster Hunter Wilds?
With title update 2, Capcom plans to make significant changes to the game. As usual, the update comes with a new monster to hunt (Lagiacrus). On top of that, TU2 will also introduce new 8-star Tempered Monsters, with a new rewards economy for these more challenging hunts. Additionally, Capcom plans to introduce balance changes to the game, which should bring Wilds closer to its predecessors, while also keeping with its more “accessible” nature.
You can check out our dedicated article discussing the new additions for TU2 for more details. At the end of the day, Capcom is listening to player feedback.
Hopefully, with TU2, we will get a more robust endgame experience for MH Wilds.
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