After a year of bad reviews, Monster Hunter Wilds claws its way to 50% positive on Steam after a big performance patch finally moves the needle

Somebody had better check the thermostat in Hell because Monster Hunter Wilds is on the up on Steam. After a year of notoriously bad performance that led to equally dire user reviews, Monster Hunter Wilds has finally reached the promised land: 50% positive lifetime Steam reviews.

Will Capcom be celebrating a "Mixed" Steam score of 50%? Possibly not. I don't think anybody truly aims for a 50. But with 188,162 reviews logged, it's hard to effect any kind of statistical change, yet the game's latest PC performance patch has had a meaningful impact.

Almost immediately, the long-awaited performance bump led to an improvement in the game's recent Steam reviews. At last, this thing would run at a decent frame rate on modern processors that aren't the very top of the line. That positive momentum has now bumped the game's average into the coveted realm of not awful.

It goes without saying that not every single technical snag in Monster Hunter Wilds has been fixed. Negative reviews continue to tumble in, many of them still anchored firmly in performance and crashes, and with several complaining about Wilds falling prey to the out-of-control storage bloat afflicting PC games nowadays.

That said, this is a real sign of a comeback. It's doubly important coming from Capcom since it sets Wilds apart from the terrible PC port of Dragon's Dogma 2, which was basically just left to wither away.

Monster Hunter Wilds started exactly where it belonged: deep in the dumpster of Steam reviews marred by the dreaded, blood-red "Overwhelmingly Negative" text, with performance issues blocking any light that might reach it in the depths. After a year almost to the day, the game's in a decidedly better spot – almost like it probably needed more development time to begin with.

This turnaround couldn't have come at a better time – except, of course, immediately after launch, that would have been better – with Capcom recently confirming a "large scale" expansion in the works for Wilds, on par with Iceborne for Monster Hunter World and Sunbreak for Monster Hunter Rise.

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