Based on Capcom's spotty patch history, you might want to back up your Monster Hunter Wilds save before Title Update 1 hits

Novacrystal location guide for Monster Hunter Wilds

(Image credit: Capcom)

At time of writing, we're roughly seven hours out from the arrival of the first title update for Monster Hunter Wilds, which brings returning leviathan Mizutsune, repeatable Zoh Shia hunts, and a brand new Grand Hub for hunters to call home. A new title update is an exciting time for any hunter, but unfortunately it's also a time for some amount of caution.

Capcom doesn't have a flawless record when it comes to patching PC releases of Monster Hunter games, and player save files have occasionally been unexpected casualties on update day. Monster Hunter: World and Monster Hunter: Rise each received updates at some point in their lifespans that left unfortunate hunters with corrupted save data. In both cases, players found workarounds before Capcom eventually made the necessary fixes, but nobody likes to see their saves suddenly go up in smoke.

There's no way to know whether that'll also be the case with Wilds, but a bit of extra caution never hurts. Even with Steam cloud saves, it's worth making a manual backup of your Monster Hunter Wilds save, just to spare yourself a worse case scenario.

Here's how to do it:

First, in your Steam directory in Program Files, go to Steam\userdata\[Your User ID]\2246340\remote\ and make a copy of the win64_save folder
Then, go to Steam\steamapps\common\MonsterHunterWilds\ and make a copy of the config.ini file so you don't have to reconfigure all your settings

I'd recommend setting up whatever folder you copy the backups into with subfolders that match the paths above, so you can quickly drag the contents into your actual Steam directory to replace the appropriate files without needing to retrace your steps.

Alternatively, there's a portable Save Backup Utility on Nexus Mods that'll handle the backing up and restoring for you. It's not automatic, so you'll need to run it whenever you want to make a backup, but it's an option if you're not comfortable digging around in your Steam files yourself.

Ideally, none of this will be necessary and you can hop right into Mizutsune hunts without issue and start hitting that big beautiful fox snake with hammers like I intend to. But it's better to waste a minute or two of effort than find yourself wishing you'd spent it.

Lincoln has been writing about games for 11 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.