Despite a history spanning over 20 years, it wasn’t until the release of Monster Hunter World that the series finally reached the mainstream. The success of the series has only continued with the release of the following entries, and the latest Monster Hunter Wilds is already primed to become the most popular yet.
After months of anticipation and successful betas, Monster Hunter Wilds finally released to finish off February and it became an instant hit, showing that Capcom is showing no sign of slowing down when it comes to releasing smash-hit titles.
Despite its mixed reviews, which largely criticize the poor optimization of the game at launch, it hasn’t stopped players from flocking to Capcom’s latest offering. On launch day, Monster Hunter Wilds has shot up to the fifth most-played game on Steam, peaking at 1,384,608 concurrent players.
This has put Monster Hunter Wilds above some of the most beloved games of modern times, including the likes of Elden Ring, Cyberpunk 2077, Baldur’s Gate 3, and even Banana (there are still over 116,000 players currently trying to unlock bananas at the time of writing…)
With the day one hype over, it is unclear whether the game will see another boost to push it beyond 1.38 million concurrent players, but to rise further in the ranks, it would need to see another 500,000 concurrent players to beat Counter-Strike 2, followed by Palworld, Black Myth: WuKong, and PUBG if it can surpass three million concurrent players.
It is worth noting that this only includes the PC release of the game. As Sony and Microsoft don’t publicly display peak player counts, it is unlikely that we will see the true figure of just how successful Monster Hunter Wild‘s launch has been, unless Capcom announces the figure publicly. Judging by the success on Steam alone, the Japanese publisher may be eager to share this information to help promote the game further.
Monster Hunter Wilds is the successor to 2018’s Monster Hunter World, which helped push the series into the mainstream, going on to sell over 23 million copies, making it the best-selling Capcom game of all time, with the next entry, Monster Hunter Rise, becoming the second-best selling title at over 16.70 million copies. Despite the strong brand presence of the series, Resident Evil has never reached this level of success, with Resident Evil 2 Remake coming in third place with 15 million copies sold.
Despite the previous entry, Rise, initially released on the Nintendo Switch, Monster Hunter Wilds has bypassed Nintendo’s handheld hybrid. Capcom has yet to announce whether the game will see a release on the Switch 2 when it launches later this year. But, if it is powerful enough to handle it, then it could be a great way to boost sales by putting the game in the hands of millions of players who grabbed the previous entry in the series.
Kenzo Tsujimoto, the founder of Capcom, has announced that DLC is planned for Monster Hunter Wilds, thankfully this will just be cosmetic items such as layered armor gear, and will not feature any pay-to-win content. Like its predecessors, Monster Hunter Wilds will see a series of free Title Updates, with the set to come in Spring 2025, so players won’t have long to wait before new content is available.
