10 Ways Monster Hunter Wilds Can Turn Around Its “Overwhelmingly Negative” Steam Reviews

July 18, 2025

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Monster Hunter Wilds is in dire straits. Released in February to largely positive critical reviews, its public perception has rapidly declined in the months since. Performance issues, a lack of content, and frustrating events – it’s yet to live up to previous entries in the series, and without a lot of change (and soon) it’ll likely continue lagging behind.

MH Wilds has now officially dropped to an Overwhelmingly Negative consensus amid recent reviews on Steam. Players are deeply frustrated with it on multiple fronts, and it doesn’t show signs of improving – but that doesn’t mean it’s too late. Addressing these ten common areas of criticism would help Monster Hunter Wilds start to recoup its negative perception, but it’ll have to show some real growth soon to improve its rating.

1

Monster Hunter Wilds Needs Better Optimization On All Platforms

But Especially On PC

If you scroll through the Steam reviews for Monster Hunter Wilds, one of the most common complaints you’ll notice is that the game runs poorly. Frame rate dips are a near-constant struggle, strange glitches turn NPCs into low-poly nightmares, and many players report having lowered their settings or upgraded their GPUs only to see no marked improvement.

Monster Hunter Wilds Gemma and Suja blacksmith forging a weapon together

Monster Hunter Wilds has reintroduced a monster mechanic from older games, which has an equal chance to alienate new players and satisfy veterans.

This issue has existed since the game launched, and has only gotten worse with each successive update. Monster Hunter Wilds looks great, but it’s not the most graphically impressive game to have come out in the last few years – if it’s going to keep up, it needs a sweeping performance update. Ideally, this should encompass all platforms, but PC is especially in need of a fix.

2

Monster Hunter Wilds Needs To Stop Crashing

A PC-Exclusive Issue

Monster Hunter Wilds Seregios attacking a hunter

Crashes may be somewhat less common for Monster Hunter Wilds players, but they’re still an ever-present issue. Many players report the game crashing almost constantly, every few minutes with only a little bit of exaggeration. It also has a tendency to crash at pivotal moments, like after accepting a new quest or crafting a new weapon. This can obviously be frustrating, especially if you’re playing with friends and have to go through the motions of reconnecting to the server after your game goes down.

This has yet to be addressed in any of Wilds‘ updates thus far – at least one player suggested the issue was unfixable, likely because of some inherent issue in the RE Engine. Either way, Capcom needs to continue its efforts to prevent crashes and improve performance.

3

Monster Hunter Wilds Needs To Let The FOMO Go

Arch-Tempered Monsters Need To Be Permanent

Monster Hunter Wilds Arch-Tempered Uth Duna banner

Some players have expressed frustration with Monster Hunter Wilds‘ event structure, accusing it of stoking FOMO (“fear of missing out“) by adding certain creatures to the game for limited amounts of time. These complaints are generally focused on Arch-tempered monsters, special variants that reward extra streamstones and vouchers for gamma gear. They’re an important part of the endgame, but that doesn’t work when you have limited time to hunt them.

Capcom has begun to address this complaint, making two Arch-tempered monsters permanent (Uth Duna and Rey Dau, so far). It’s also considering making future Arch-tempered monsters permanent fixtures in the game after special event quests. That’s a great start, but this trend needs to continue in order to sustain Monster Hunter Wilds‘ endgame in the long term.

4

Monster Hunter Wilds Needs Bigger Non-FOMO Events

The Funnel Effect

Don’t get me wrong – Monster Hunter Wilds has events pretty much constantly. But these are mostly limited to a few quests, which refresh every couple of weeks. These are perfectly fine – some of them are fun enough, and they often grant interesting rewards with plenty of time to earn them.

But I’d encourage MH Wilds to get, well, wilder with its event quests. Big, unique concepts that materially change the game for all players as long as they stick around would be a great way to sustain interest in the game, potentially helping bolster its currently lacking endgame. Just as long as they don’t rely on FOMO to get players in the door, they can go in almost any creative direction.

5

Monster Hunter Wilds Needs More Large Monsters

Expand The Roster

Monster Hunter Wilds has 29 large monsters. That’s by no means a small number, but when we consider just how much biodiversity the previous entry incorporated, it starts to pale in comparison. There are 46 different large monster species in Monster Hunter Rise, and 71 in World (including the Iceborne DLC).

The Monster Hunter game with the most large monster types is Generations Ultimate, with 93 different species to hunt.

Again, this is something Capcom’s been working on; it’s added a handful of new large monsters in updates since launch. That said, this will need to be a sustained effort in order to make Wilds‘ roster comparable to things like World and Rise – and it’d be nice if most of the new monsters were added for free instead of paid DLC.

6

Monster Hunter Wilds Needs To Be Harder Overall

Story Monsters Should Pose A Bigger Challenge

Monster Hunter Wilds needs a big balance fix in general, tipping the scales in the monsters’ favor. Monster Hunter as a series has historically been known for its difficulty; its combat was a major inspiration for From Software in the development of its crushingly difficult Dark Souls series. More recent games have curbed that characteristic difficulty a bit in order to rope in new players, and there’s value in that.

Monster Hunter Wilds is having a bad time right now, not just on PC: Wild Hearts S is an alternative that could scratch that same itch.

But Wilds is way too easy, right up until the moment it’s not. The story monsters go down too quickly, and you’re basically forced to blow right past them to enjoy the endgame challenge. I’d like to see a little more friction inserted into the main story, so that you’re not blindsided by the difficulty once you finish it.

7

Monster Hunter Wilds Needs More Out-Of-Combat Friction

A Survival Game Through & Through

Custom Image by Steven Garrard

But it goes beyond sheer combat difficulty: Wilds also oversimplifies way too many of Monster Hunter‘s core gameplay mechanics, which has a tendency to make it boring. Seikrets run you automatically towards your target, sharpening is fast enough that you can do it in combat, and item drop rates are generally way too high.

Ultimately, I’d like to see Monster Hunter Wilds embrace the survival aspects of the series a little more by making gameplay aspects like these slower and more difficult. As the title implies, we’re stuck in unfamiliar, wild terrain – it’d only make sense if it were occasionally a little harder to get by. This would make the actual exploration and hunting of it all a little more engaging, although I doubt it’ll be implemented any time soon.

8

Monster Hunter Wilds Needs A Skill Shake-Up

Limited Function & Weapon Integration

Monster Hunter Wilds represents a pretty massive change to how skills work in the series. Now, skills are more closely tied to weapons than to armor, and most weapons have intrinsic skills that can’t be changed or removed. In general, there’s less variety among skills, too, and you have fewer skill slots to work with as a result of the new system.

Unfortunately, this takes a lot of the customization out of Wilds. Your options for character builds are severely limited, leaving you locked into a single playstyle that depends entirely on your chosen weapon. Wilds needs a huge change to how skills work, perhaps changing how decoration slots work, or adding new options for customization to expand the number of viable builds for each weapon.

9

Monster Hunter Wilds Needs To De-Emphasize Focus Mode

Focus & Wounds Are Boring

Monster Hunter Wilds introduces Focus mode, a new combat function that allows you to target specific parts of a monster’s body. This has various effects: repeatedly strike the same part of the monster, and you’ll create a Wound, which, once destroyed, deals massive damage. This also makes it easier to target specific parts for destruction, or to exploit a weakness.

A Mizutsune from Monster Hunter roars while surrounded by bubbles.

There’s no doubt Monster Hunter Wilds is successful, but Capcom needs to bolster its update calendar if it wants the game to continue that way.

This is an interesting system, but it’s ultimately detrimental to Wilds‘ gameplay. It makes combat too simple, and weakens weapons that don’t specialize in accuracy. Certain iconic moves are locked behind it, too, which makes them annoying to relearn and frustrating to use. I’d like to see future monsters counter or complicate Focus mode in new and unique ways.

10

Monster Hunter Wilds Needs More Transparency

What’s Next?

Alma smiling at the player while on a boat in Monster Hunter Wilds.

Now, I’ve listed a whole host of different updates here. But I’m mostly just parroting what I, as a longtime Monster Hunter player, want to see in Wilds, and what I’ve heard from other players. Capcom has already started addressing many of these concerns, but not all of them – some of them, it’ll probably never take action on. And that’s okay. That said, I hope for continued transparency about what’s next for Wilds in the future.

Capcom is already heading down that path, having responded directly to the player request for permanent Arch-tempered monsters with an affirmation and a timeline. I hope to see more of that type of direct communication in the future – knowing when a fix is coming will make players more patient with the game’s flaws. As Monster Hunter Wilds gradually takes steps towards improvement, I hope Capcom keeps us posted on each and every one of them.