There’s a bizarre explanation for why Monster Hunter Wilds’ PC performance is so bad but it’s hoped Capcom can now issue a proper fix.
When it launched last February, Monster Hunters Wilds seemed like an unqualified hit for Capcom, especially when it became the company’s fastest selling game ever, at eight million units in three days.
As the months went by, though, sales sharply declined to the point where it was being outsold by old Devil May Cry and Resident Evil games. It also made little impact during awards season, with barely any nominations and zero wins at both the Golden Joystick Awards and The Game Awards.
While complaints about the lack of endgame content have been addressed with post-launch updates, the criticisms about its woeful PC performance continue to haunt Monster Hunter Wilds… and it’s apparently all the fault of the DLC.
A Monster Hunter Wilds modder by the name of de_Tylmarande recently shared a lengthy explanation for why the game has such poor performance on PC and what it has to do with DLC.
The long and short of it is that they ran some tests and, through modding, managed to trick the game into thinking they had all the DLC installed (there’s so much of it all, few people would have all of it). This didn’t give them the content but it did reveal something very surprising.
‘The only thing is that I skipped the [DLC presence check] itself,’ wrote de_Tlymarande, ‘it didn’t give me any DLC items or bonuses, it just prevented the game from going deeper into that heavy routine (the one it would normally run if DLC was actually installed).’
And the result? According to de_Tylmarande, ‘Performance went through the roof. Yes, without any CPU boost, in Balance mode. On any settings. The game literally flies.’ So, the more DLC you own, the better the performance.
‘Capcom focused so hard on microtransactions that they implemented an insanely crooked and aggressive DLC ownership check function. And no, it is not about protection or anti-cheat or whatever – it is just a DLC presence check,’ said de_Tylmarande.
Monster Hunter Wilds has a lot of cosmetic DLC available for purchase. According to the game’s Steam page, buying everything on offer (including the official soundtrack) would set you back £461.53.
So, essentially, what’s going on is that the game is constantly checking to see what DLC you’ve got and the less you have the worse the game runs – because it’s constantly re-checking to see if it’s there again now.
If you’re wondering how you can get this mod for yourself, you can’t, as de_Tylmarande has not shared exactly how they pulled it off, saying they ‘do not recommend testing in practice’ and ‘I absolutely do not promote using mods of this type in Monster Hunter Wilds.’
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In fact, they’ve already sent this information to Capcom, in the hopes that the publisher can fix the issue, adding that they think this is just a weird bug and Capcom hasn’t deliberately tied the PC performance to the DLC.
Not that that’s stopped a few people leaving negative Steam reviews accusing Capcom of exactly that. ‘You probably should explain about the rumour that you worsen the game performance because people did not buy your DLC,’ reads one, while another calls the game ‘Literally pay to win.’
Should Capcom not address this, though, de_Tylmarande has promised to finish their mod and make it public, but only as a last resort.
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