Monster Hunter Wilds is Capcom’s most sucessful PC launch ever

By Patrick Hearn Published February 28, 2025

Monster Hunter Wilds hasn’t even been available for a full 24 hours, and it has already reached the number-six spot for the most-played games of all time on Steam. It has also firmly secured its position as Capcom’s most successful PC launch by more than 500,000 players, and that number just keeps growing. Right now, as of roughly 9:40 AM ET, the game currently has more than 1.3 million concurrent players.

That’s a lot of players at one time — more than Elden Ring or Baldur’s Gate 3 ever achieved. It’s also an astronomical increase from Monster Hunter World, which peaked at just over 330,000 players. Wilds is a runaway success, especially when you consider that neither PlayStation nor Xbox players are included in this count.

However, the number of players and its obvious popularity stands in stark contrast to its review score. With a Mixed score and only 47% positive reviews, Monster Hunter Wilds is criticized for its poor PC optimization. Even the positive reviews poke fun at how badly it runs, with one reviewer saying it was immersive because the heat from your GPU makes you feel like you’re actually in the desert.

Another joked that the game was “a solid 10…frames per second.” Fans suggest everything from using a DLSS swapper to simply waiting for a more stable release. That isn’t to say the game is unplayable; many PC gamers still enjoy Monster Hunter Wilds, but warn that it takes a disproportionately powerful PC to achieve a decent experience.

Besides, it can’t be all that bad when so many hunters are online in search of their next prey. Capcop’s lackluster optimization can hopefully be repaired with a patch or two, and doing so could make the game playable on lower-end hardware. Until a fix comes in, brush up on how to most efficiently bring down your prey — since it seemed Capcom might have brushed up on how to bring down GPUs.