Just before we all check out of 2024 and prepare for the new year, Capcom hosted one final community update to address pretty much all the major topics the recent beta of Monster Hunter Wilds generated.
The livestream touched on a number of key topics, including some that have caused some controversies amongst the Monster Hunter community. It was full of good news, and even the promise of another chance with the beta.
Anyone who played the recent Monster Hunter Wilds beta, or even got to watch others play, will very clearly tell you that the game just didn’t run very well on any system. Even high-end PCs struggled with constant framerate drops and lower than expected performance. The beta was clearly heavily CPU-bound, meaning even those lucky enough to own the most expensive GPUs couldn’t brute-force their way into a smoother experience. Things were even worse on consoles, too.
This was one of the first things game director Yuya Tokuda addressed on the livestream. We got to see a gameplay video from an updated build, which certainly looked smoother than the beta. According to Tokuda, the team fixed a rendering bug in the PS5’s Prioritize Framerate mode that was responsible for some of the performance woes, and generally improved it elsewhere.
The team also shared target framerates and resolutions for all console versions. Unsurprisingly, Prioritize Graphics modes run at a higher resolution but limit the framerate to 30fps, whereas Prioritize Framerate can go as high as 60fps by rendering at a lower resolution.
All of this is good news for everyone. The even better news for PC players is that Capcom is considering releasing a benchmarking tool to help players understand how the game is going to run on their systems. The game’s minimum specs will also be lowered.
One of the more heavily discussed issues with the open beta was the lack of a hitstop/impact of weapon attacks. The hitstop effect will return in the final version, and you can expect weapons to generally feel more weighty as a result. Sound effects have been improved there, too.
Another controversial topic has been the degree of friendly fire, particularly when using upswing attacks of the hammer. That has been adjusted, and so has the gunlance’s fire. Friendly fire will always be an element of combat in Monster Hunter, of course, but as Tokuda explained, it’s all about the balance.
As for whether we’re going to get a chance to go hands-on with Wilds one last time prior to launch, Tokuda teased that we may potentially get a second open beta, but couldn’t outright confirm it. Though it may have more content the first beta, don’t expect many of the improvements discussed on the livestream to make it into that.
Monster Hunter Wilds is out February 28 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.
