Green begone.
Monster Hunter Wilds has been out for over four weeks now, but that doesn’t mean Capcom’s finished cooking. We already have a roadmap for future updates, like this week’s Title Update 1—introducing Mizutsune, a gathering hub, and arena quests—as well as more updates into May before a second major patch in the summer.
But wait, there’s more. To commemorate the fact the game’s sold over 10 million copies, director Yuya Tokuda has done a big ol’ blog post. There’s some stuff we already knew about, but there’s also, finally, some much-needed recognition around the PC version’s performance issues as well as some extra details on what we can expect to come in the following months.
Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the things Tokuda goes over:
- 8* tempered monsters, coming at end the of May
- Adjustments to Hammer and other weapons
- Corrupted Mantle is being nerfed, while other mantles are being buffed
- UI/UX improvements
- Improvement to game stability on Steam
- Game balance adjustments
- Layered weapons
The rampant videogame fashionista in me couldn’t help but immediately get giddy at the mention of layered weapons, which feels like the biggest aesthetic oversight right now. That’s especially true when you consider the existence of Artian weapons—giant green hunks of metal that, while they’re pretty strong, they’re also quite ugly and samey looking.
I’d much rather swing around a slightly weaker weapon that’s been carefully smithed out of a monster’s hide than whatever rusted copper concoctions Artian weapons are, a criticism that I share alongside quite a large section of the community. After all, layered weapons were a thing in Monster Hunter World and Rise, though they didn’t come in until both game’s respective expansions.
Unfortunately, Tokuda hasn’t given a timeframe on when we can expect them, though from his wording it feels like we won’t have to wait for the inevitable DLC this time. “In addition, layered weapons will be coming in a future update,” the blog post reads. “As more information on layered weapons, we’ll be sure to share it with you!”
My copium tells me that “future update” is a base game dealio, rather than a paid expansion coming next year or whatever. Will that actually be the case? Who knows, but either way it’s nice to know that it’s actually happening. My meticulously curated hunting outfits deserve a matching weapon. It’s the most important accessory, after all.
More importantly (I suppose) is the fact that Tokuda has addressed the performance issues that’ve been plaguing PC players, driving the game’s Steam rating down to Mixed as a result. He doesn’t actually say too much about the issues or the myriad of complaints attached to them, but called optimisation “an ongoing process, where we’ll aim to make continual steps forward in this area and respond to critical issues.”
One of those steps is “a reduction in VRAM usage and an upgrade to the DirectStorage version of the Steam version in Free Title Update 1. These should result in an overall improvement in stability for our PC players.” As someone who’s still rocking with an 8GB VRAM card, thank you Capcom.
Hopefully things will start smoothing out in the following months—those who were around for World’s launch will remember the horrors, but eventually its PC version ran pretty dang well. For me, as long as I stop dipping into the low 20s every time Nu Udra dares to set itself on fire, I’ll be a much happier hunter for it.
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