Since its debut in 2004, the Monster Hunter series of games has gradually grown into a world-class Ip due to its outstanding quality, with its selling point being the action interactions between players and various large monsters. With a large fan base, many players have developed the habit of constantly keeping an eye on the new works of the Monster Hunter series. Against this dual backdrop of history and reputation, Monster Hunter Wilds was released in 2025. The game immediately fell into a public opinion crisis upon its release, with social media and media reviews unanimously criticizing it as a “disappointing work”. The speed and scale of this reputation collapse can be regarded as the lowest point in the series’ history.
Since its release, the Monster Hunter series has received a continuous stream of negative reviews. The charm of the Monster Hunter series lies in the “interaction between players and monsters”, allowing players to experience the sense of achievement from defeating monsters. However, many players couldn’t help but raise the same question after experiencing the wilderness. The game, which costs 70 US dollars, has come to an end after 30 hours of play. The monster interaction design in the wilderness is too simple and lacks a sense of challenge. The task design also lacks variation, and even the plot is full of puzzling developments.
In the past, players could experience more expansion content after completing the main storyline of the game. In contrast, “Monster Hunter Rise” offered players as many as 37 types of large monsters to experience right after its release, while “Monster Hunter Wilds” only had 29 types of monsters. Many of these monsters are hardly interacted with players after they completed their tasks. This approach has seriously weakened the game’s playability and players’ sense of engagement. As a result, many players have questioned Capcom for violating the core concepts that the series has always maintained.
The number of monsters in “Monster Hunter Wilds” as recorded in the official encyclopaedia
The number of monsters in “Monster Hunter Rise” as recorded in the official encyclopaedia
Although Capcom has proposed that this situation will be resolved with several updates and they will add more monsters to enrich the players’ experience, in the several updates since its release, Capcom has only added a total of three monsters, all of which have returned from previous works. Capcom claims that this is to repay the emotional support of old players. However, in order to solve the problem of “insufficient playtime” mentioned by players, Capcom chose the extreme method of meaninglessly “increasing values”, deliberately increasing the difficulty by multiplying the health points of monsters and changing the attack frequency and range of monsters, which made it difficult for many players to complete the hunt alone.
In addition, the classic weapon designs in some games have encountered serious imbalances, which have restricted players’ choices and seriously disrupted the combat experience. Players who love to use these weapons cannot have the same experience during gameplay as those who use powerful weapons.
However, any large-scale game will face criticism, but the developers’ responses often determine the direction of public opinion. What truly disappoints players is Capcom’s attitude. The failure of “Wilds” lies in the fact that Capcom not only failed to listen to the players’ voices actively but also demonstrated an unprecedented indifference and hostility.
After Capcom promised to fix the problems encountered by players, players generally believed that performance issues still existed. Capcom not only failed to keep its promise to optimize game performance but also experienced issues, including but not limited to game crashes and save data destruction. Even some players’ computers suffered actual damage. Many players can’t help but wonder: Is Capcom really paying attention to players’ feedback, or is it just coping with public opinion pressure? Is this a “half-finished product” that was forcibly pushed to the market without any polishing?
What’s more serious is that thousands of players have put forward suggestions for optimization and content improvement, but what they have received is not fixes but silence, or even bans. Capcom cancelled the public meeting on game optimization originally scheduled for CEDEC 2025 in Japan and openly pointed out on social media that players’ feedback was a threat and harassment to the company, and made public accusations and warnings.
A folk mod that helps players fix shader errors in the game
While Capcom is suppressing critical voices, another issue that cannot be ignored is that although the MOD community has long played a crucial role in improving game quality and player experience, Capcom regards all appearance mods as threats and prohibits players from modifying game content. Monster Hunter, as an action game with “single-player” as its main selling point, However, it restricts players from using self-made mods on the grounds of affecting paid skins in the game. Players purchase the game to experience the traditional core of Monster Hunter, rather than spending money on paid expansion skins.
It can be said that the release of “Monster Hunter Wilds” was a costly failure. Capcom, due to its arrogance and disrespect to fans, introduced gameplay lacking depth and severely reduced content. Despite being full of loopholes, it still managed to shirk responsibility. This not only destroyed players’ trust in the series but also shook Capcom’s reputation in the global gaming industry.
Adam Morolla 
Jessie Goates 
Layla