With performance problems still hurting the experience for many Monster Hunter Wilds players on PC, the game's biggest platform by sales volume, Capcom has finally seen Monster Hunter Rise overtake Wilds in its current sales rankings.
Wilds was barely ahead of Rise on Capcom's list of the 10 best-selling titles as of the previous quarter, which saw Wilds sales crater from 10 million in a month to under 500,000 in three months. Wilds (9th place) had sold 477,000 copies, while Rise (10th place) had sold 389,000.
- Devil May Cry - 2.134 million
- Resident Evil Village - 1.566 million
- Resident Evil 4 - 1.266 million
- Resident Evil 7 - 1.147 million
- Street Fighter 6 - 1.085 million
- Resident Evil 2 - 932k
- Devil May Cry HD Collection - 754k
- Resident Evil 3 - 697k
- Monster Hunter Rise - 643k
- Monster Hunter Wilds - 637k
There's an incredibly small difference between Rise and Wilds, but the gap has narrowed considerably since Capcom's previous report. There are other factors at play here, but the fact that Wilds is neck-and-neck with an older title like Rise, which has a much more mature install base, speaks to how sales of Wilds have slowed amid protracted issues with the game.
Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto attributed part of Wilds' slowdown to the console audience struggling with the hefty costs of the PS5, the game's second-biggest platform by sales. That may be one factor, but there's no doubt that Wilds' negative Steam reviews and poor PC technical performance have also played a role in its sales decline.
Just this month, a new update gave Wilds a lavish and genuinely fun Final Fantasy 14 collaboration with a fiendish new boss fight, but as is so often the case, Steam reviews for the game actually dropped afterward because worsened and/or unresolved performance issues soured the experience for many. Like clockwork, fans who may genuinely like the game reluctantly agree with the negative word of mouth around it whenever news like this breaks.
Wilds still bears the feared red text, "Mostly Negative," on Steam for recent reviews, and its overall reviews are "Mixed" at 48% positive. These optics have a real impact on Steam user (and algorithm) interest, and with every passing month, the state of Wilds on PC becomes uglier and more unacceptable.
Meanwhile, Capcom is still working toward CPU and GPU optimizations meant to right the long-struggling Wilds this winter, some nine months and counting after launch. There's no doubt that a lot of hardworking people at Capcom are working hard to resolve these issues, but there's also no arguing with the state of the game.
Rise, which was originally a Nintendo Switch exclusive and ran much more smoothly when it came to PC, never had this problem to begin with, hence its markedly more positive Steam reviews.
I would actually rate the core combat of Wilds above Rise – and said as much in our Monster Hunter Wilds review – but it's only becoming clearer that there are real barriers to enjoying that combat. Many people are demonstrably opting to buy Rise, even if Wilds is still significantly more active on Steam according to SteamDB. I can't help but fantasize about a world where Wilds was a good game and had a good PC port. Capcom's list would surely look different.
If those winter optimizations can't work some real magic, Wilds may forever join Dragon's Dogma 2 in the bucket of good games held back by technical issues on PC. That could be a problem as Capcom prepares the inevitable, premium Master Rank expansion for Wilds, and it would definitely be a problem for any future ambitions to reach more PC gamers who are only, with good reason, losing trust in Capcom ports.
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