Monster Hunter Wilds’fall from grace has been spectacular, if not a little sad. Ahead of its launch, the game’s first betapulled in staggering numbers, and, despite somepretty hefty performance issues, that momentum continued into Wilds' launch day, with the gamebreaking Steam’s top ten in under an hour, and seeingwell over one million concurrent players on the platform, becoming one of the most-played games of all time.
However, as the game’s player count continued to grow from the beta, so did its performance issues. Wilds launched to “Mixed” reviews on Steam due to what players called “atrocious performance,” and it hasn’t managed to recover since. Just this past week, we reported that it hadlost over 98 percent of its players since launch, falling to “Overwhelmingly Negative” reviews in the process.
Last night, Capcom hosted a livestream to inform players about its upcoming titles. Alongside the likes ofPragmataand Resident Evil 9, the company shared information on Monster Hunter World’ssecond major title update, which included two returning monsters and what appeared to be a hint at a feature not seen since Monster Hunter Tri.
Monster Hunter Wilds Players Think Underwater Combat Is Returning Alongside Lagiacrus
Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update 2content leaked a week ahead of launch, but yesterday, Capcom confirmed that Lagiacrus and Seregios would be making their way to the game.TheLagiacrus’return has been no secret; it wasdatamined three months before Wilds' launch, but both this and Seregios' inclusion are welcome.However, the return of these two monsters isn’t what had players talking most from the Capcom Showcase, as players are sure the company is teasing the return of underwater combat.
Underwater combat was last seen in Monster Hunter Tri, the game in which Lagiacrus debuted. Tri introduced theWater Arena, in which players could fight aquatic monsters in their own territories. Unlike most underwater levels in games, this one was typically received pretty well, and it could be returning to the series soon.
In theofficial revealof Title Update 2, Capcom shared a brief clip of a hunter swimming underwater alongside a Lagiacrus. While no outright combat could be seen taking place, fans feel this is Capcom’s way of reintroducing the feature.
On Reddit, comments flooded in speculating on the new addition. “I have a suspicion that it’s possible that Lagiacrus was withheld from the base game so that they could work on this, which while it’s not the underwater combat 2.0 people were maybe hoping for, could serve as a prototype for MH7,“said DerpinTurtle.Conradian added, “Or the groundwork for an underwater-combat themed expansion.” But while some got their hopes up that this could be coming soon, others were more aligned with the second half of DerpinTurtle’s theory, assuming it would be coming no earlier than Monster Hunter 7, and what Capcom showed was just a small, underwater segment.
Ahead of Wilds' launch, Monster Hunter Tri assistant producer, Shintaro Kojima,shared his thoughtsas to why underwater combat wouldn’t be returning, saying, “If the game already has ground-based battles, then [adding underwater combat] is like making a separate game. It’s difficult. It’s really, really hard.” It seems, though, that Capcom might be trying its best to make it happen.
