Is Monster Hunter Wilds Capcom's Biggest Game Ever?
Capcom is no stranger to having iconic IPs in its library of titles, with Monster Hunter Wildsbeing the latest game from the developer's many long-standing franchises. Compared to Street Fighter and Resident Evil, Monster Hunter may seem like the new kid on the block considering that it exploded onto the scene with MH World rather recently, despite being around since 2004. Everyone in the mainstream has at least heard of Street Fighter and Resident Evil, and while Monster Hunter might not be as recognizable to the average person, there is some evidence for Wilds being Capcom's biggest game yet.
Monster Hunter Wilds is yet to be released as of writing, but there have been a couple of beta testing periods to test out many of the major features. Wilds looks to be a big step forward for the franchise, which is admirable given that MH World was also a big step forward from a technical point of view. It features an open world, 100 person lobbies, the best visuals in the series, dynamic weather, and a heavier story focus, all of which have proved to be appealing to the masses, given the open beta's ludicrous concurrent players on PC.
MH Wilds' Beta Has Nearly 500K Players Ahead Of Launch
Expect That Number To Be Surpasses After Release
According to SteamDB's charts for MH Wilds, the open beta peaked at an incredible 463,798 players back in November, during the first test. Steam tends to be reasonably reliable with its player numbers, but other platforms, like Xbox and PlayStation, tend to be less forthcoming. Still, if other platforms are considered, Wilds' beta would have been at least north of 500k players despite many complaining about performance issues during the very first beta test. It seems many are interested enough to at least check the game out, despite it not being finished.
Monster Hunter Wilds will release on February 28, with open betas taking place in the two weekends beforehand.
Typically, games tend to have better numbers after release and this is likely to be the case with MH Wilds, despite its beta being free to anyone who can run the game. It is one of the most hotly anticipated titles of the year (likely only overshadowed by the goliath that is GTA 6), and Capcom clearly has faith in the title given how players can see the budget put into it everywhere they look. It's going to be bigger and better, and that seems to have made MH Wilds the most approachable title yet for the mainstream audience.
For context, Monster Hunter Wilds has already surpassed Helldivers 2's peak for Steam players despite still awaiting its launch. It cannot be overstated how much of a phenomenon Helldivers 2 was around its launch, and it was probably harder to find someone who hadn't played it on Steam.
Despite this, MH Wilds' peak during its first open beta surpassed Helldivers 2's (although only by about eight thousand players), according to SteamDB. With this trajectory, Wilds could eclipse other massive titles on release, although matching 400,000 plus players again would be a massive milestone already.
Only One Capcom Game Has A Higher Player Count
Monster Hunter Wilds Is Already The Biggest In The Series
When looking through SteamDB and comparing all of Capcom's titles, only one series trumps MH Wilds, Capcom Arcade Stadium, a collection of old arcade classics. Compared to Capcom's other iconic series, it seems that Monster Hunter is far ahead of its compatriots on PC. MH World leads Capcom's full, standalone releases in terms of player stats, and this shouldn't be surprising considering that World is the developer's best-selling game of all time (selling over 25 million copies according to Capcom financial reports).
Resident Evil is still Capcom's best-selling series at 167 million copies, with Monster Hunter sitting at 108 million sales.
Monster Hunter is king on PC, with MH Rise being the next title after World in terms of peak players, although this could look different elsewhere. Resident Evil probably performs better on the PlayStation due to the tight, single player nature of the title fitting in with that console's identity with its exclusives.
Monster Hunter also benefits from online play and a strong community and that tends to put it ahead with its player numbers compared to a purely single-player title. The massively successful Elden Ringand Baldur's Gate 3 have online play and both are famous for their communities.
MH Wilds has already beaten its predecessors by quite some margin with the numbers it pulled with its open beta, and by doing so it has already eclipsed Capcom's other big guns like Resident Evil 4, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Street Fighter 6. This is without taking console players into account, which MHWilds will further benefit from thanks to crossplay across all available platforms. Realistically, it can already been considered Capcom's biggest game ever, at least on PC, due to the nature of Capcom Arcade Stadium's immense player numbers on Steam.
Why Monster Hunter Wilds Could Still Be Considered Capcom's
Capcom Arcade Stadium's Stats Are Boosted By Bots
It was confirmed by the creator of SteamDB on X that Capcom Arcade Stadium's immense player numbers are the result of bots idling cards. This makes the suspicious player numbers make sense, since the peak of nearly 500k players doesn't correlate to the very low average player numbers (as of writing, Capcom Arcade Stadium had a 24-hour peak of 38). By comparison, MH Wilds somehow managed a 24-hour peak of 2191 players despite the beta not being open during that period, which shows Capcom Arcade Stadium's true player numbers are much lower than they seem.
This means that MH Wilds is technically Capcom's best performing game on Steam, or at least its open beta is. There is a chance that the full release won't reach the peak numbers of the open beta, since the beta was free, small enough to quickly download, and some players who have tried it out may have decided it isn't for them. Still, there may be many more players who don't want to play a beta on principle, or are waiting for the full release after hearing of the many performance issues attributed to an unfinished game.
As long as Monster Hunter Wildsoutperforms MH World, it will become Capcom's biggest ever game on PC, which it looks likely to do. Wilds has many advantages over its predecessor, like being on PC day-one, rather than having the players wait for the port later on. With crossplay, it means that everyone can play together regardless of platform, and its approachability means that this title will likely have more newcomers than prior games in the series. Capcom could be looking at its golden goose while the gaming industry could have a phenom to kick 2025 into gear.
Sources: SteamDB/Monster Hunter Wilds, SteamDB Publishers/Capcom, Capcom, thexpaw/X
OpenCritic Reviews- Franchise
- Monster Hunter
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
Your comment has not been saved