Monster Hunter Wilds Patch Promises Key Fixes As Game Gets Slammed On Steam
The patch is called Title Update 2 and the version number is 1.0020.00.00. On the game-centric front, Capcom has added two new bosses, a handful of missions, and improved base mechanics. Those come along with a handful of UI and quality-of-life changes to make the Wilds a little easier to manage. Keyboard-and-mouse players will be happy to know that are new customizable keybinds for the game, too.
On the PC performance front, the big change is that shader compilation takes place after the first game run, or when it's updated. This is in stark contrast to previous version, where players got heavy stuttering every time the game needed to calculate shaders in specific areas. Capcom notes that this change also means that theres's no more need to delete the shader cache as a troubleshooting step. By the way, before you go and blame Unreal Engine 5, Monster Hunter Wilds run on Capcom's on RE_Engine.
The programmers also added DLSS4 and FSR4 support for the latest crop of upscalers and frame generators, and they did so with a novel trick -- you can select your upscaler and your frame generation backends separately, so you're free to mix-and-match them so long as your hardware support it. Additionally, Capcom claims the game's texture streaming has been tweaked to lower VRAM usage, and that the game should be better at estimating peak VRAM usage in the graphics settings.
This patch was sorely needed, as Monster Hunter Wilds got a mixed reception for its PC release mainly due to the performance problems, and its daily player numbers reflected as such. Likewise, the Steam reviews slowly turned from Mixed to Overwhelmingly Negative as time went on. The new version brought a much-needed influx of players both new and old, and the player graphs reflect that.
Not everything is rosy, though, as we browsed a handful of recent reviews and saw reports of game crash loops and continued performance hitches. We hope that Capcom will continue to address PC gamers' concern and maintain a steady player base.
