5 Things That Are Coming in Monster Hunter Wilds’ Next Update (And 5 We’d Still Like to See)

Monster Hunter Wilds finds itself in a bit of a precarious position going into the last quarter of 2025. After initially wowing audiences with the first genuine open world the series had ever seen, Monster Hunter Wilds has experienced one of the sharpest post-launch drops in both sales and player counts, owed largely to the persistent performance issues that plague the game. Capcom has been steadily rolling out content updates and performance patches, but to see the title drop from well over a million players at its peak to just above 10,000 over the last 24 hours is alarming. But the latest update for Monster Hunter Wilds, arriving today as part of the 1.021 update, brings some fixes that could help turn things around.

Most of the changes being introduced in this latest update pertain to Monster Hunter Wilds‘ endgame and item economy. And while the changes are, on the whole, positive, they’re far from a comprehensive overhaul of key systems, mechanics, and performance issues that most players would like to see addressed. So let’s take a look at 5 things that are arriving in Monster Hunter Wilds as part of the 1.021 update, and 5 things that we’d still like to see arrive at a later date — whether that be through a future performance patch or a massive content drop scheduled for later in 2025.

One of the most important changes arriving as part of the latest Monster Hunter Wilds update is the introduction of the new 9-Star monster hunts. Once players reach Hunter Rank 100 and above, they’ll now have access to special 9-Star hunts for Monster Hunter Wilds‘ most challenging foes, which are reportedly a step up in both difficulty and length over the previous max 8-Star monster hunts. As far as which monsters players can expect to go toe-to-toe with in their new 9-Star variants, Capcom has promised the following 9-Star hunts right off the bat:

• Rey Dau
• Uth Duna
• Nu Udra
• Jin Dahaad
• Gore Magala
• Arkveld
• Mizutsune
• Lagiacrus
• Seregios

While new, harder versions of existing monster hunts are always nice (and par for the course for post-launch content for a Monster Hunter game), it would have been nicer to see some more new monsters arrive in Monster Hunter Wilds as part of the 1.021 update. As a reminder, the 1.021 update was moved up two weeks to address negative player feedback and help course-correct Wilds‘ trajectory, so it would’ve been a bit of an olive branch to the community to provide a new monster as further compensation. Still, Monster Hunter Wilds does have a massive update planned for September, which is already promising new monsters coming to the game. We’ll just need to wait a bit longer for them.

As anyone who’s spent considerable time with Monster Hunter Wilds can attest, its open world setting and design philosophy create a lot of freedom that sometimes makes higher-level hunts tedious, as you have to wander around a map waiting for these foes to spawn in. One of the more exciting tweaks coming as part of the 1.021 update is an adjustment to the spawn rates for more challenging monsters, which should see higher-level threats and apex predators of certain biomes appearing more often than they did previously. Anyone who needs rare materials from high-rank hunts has reason to be excited about this adjustment.

One thing that would have been great to see arrive in the 1.021 update is new items and armor sets for players to chase down as part of Monster Hunter Wilds‘ endgame. Unfortunately, there’s no such luck, as most of the in-game tweaks arriving as part of the update have to do with the game’s balance and difficulty more than the in-game progression loop. Monster Hunter Wilds‘ endgame is one of the best the series has had in years because it shortens the necessary grind for the best armor and weapons, but as a result, you’ll run out of things to chase fairly quickly. A quick solution to that problem (and to improve player retention) would have been adding in some new items.

Along with the new 9-Star monster hunts arriving in update 1.021, players are now going to have access to a new endgame item called Bright Stones. Bright Stones are potential drops for clearing 9-Star monster hunts that can be turned into newer and more powerful Talismans geared toward endgame play. Talismans were already a great way to enhance an already strong build, so hopefully the new ones craftable from Bright Stones are even more game-changing.

One balance tweak that’s unfortunately not part of update 1.021 is an adjustment to how many items are needed for crafting or upgrading high-rank armor. Again, Monster Hunter Wilds has one of the least-grindy endgames of the entire series, but there are still some items that require hunting the same high-rank monster multiple times just for the chance of getting a particular part or material. Rather than padding out the length of the endgame by requiring players to get two or three of a particular rare drop, it would be nice to see Capcom adjust some of those requirements so that players only need one of the rarest materials for crafting the best endgame gear.

The ranged weapons in Wilds were already some of the best-feeling versions of those armaments that the series had ever seen, and the 1.012 update is bringing a further handling adjustment to them with the new recoil aim assist feature. Best of all, it’s an option that players can toggle on or off, meaning players who have gotten used to how ranged weapons handle and have adjusted internally don’t have to bother with re-learning how a weapon behaves in combat. More accessibility options like this are always a good thing.

So we’re getting better high-rank hunts that will push the limits of the most experienced hunters, but what about a tweak to Wilds‘ overall difficulty balance? One of the main complaints lodged at Monster Hunter Wilds is that its streamlining of systems sometimes has the tendency to make the game almost too easy, and nowhere is that more obvious than in multiplayer. Even in high-rank, teams of three or four skilled hunters can easily take out some of the beginning hunts before eventually butting up against a true ultimate challenge in 8-Star (or the new 9-Star) monster hunts, so it would be nice to see a more even balance throughout the whole curve.

Since launch, longtime players of Monster Hunter have noted how quickly the effects of meals wear off in Monster Hunter Wilds, and they’re finally getting an extension as part of the 1.021 update. This small tweak will likely prove essential as more players continue to climb up in the higher tiers of Hunter Rank and take on 8 or 9-Star monster hunts, where the bonuses provided by eating meals become a key component of your strategy and victory.

It’s nice to see that Capcom is putting in an effort to get performance improvements pushed out to Monster Hunter Wilds as soon as possible, but those improvements feel more like a band-aid than a surgical addressing of bugs. What we’d like to see happen in a future update (and what would have been very welcome in today’s update) are targeted fixes that address the hard game crashes that plenty of players have been experiencing, most of which render Monster Hunter Wilds unplayable. Monster Hunter Wilds has every chance to earn the long tail that Monster Hunter World had, but it won’t ever get there if the lingering PC performance issues aren’t addressed.