I remember a time when the only place I saw Monster Hunter games was the 3DS eShop. Those days are well and truly over, because the eShop is fully defunct and Monster Hunter Wilds is effortlessly pulling in over 400,000 players a day on Steam alone, according to Steam Charts and SteamDB.
To give you a sense of scale, Circana’s executive director Mat Piscatella took to socials and reported that Monster Hunter Wilds—February’s best selling game across each platform it’s on—got more than half its total sales from Steam. These launch numbers are double what Monster Hunter Rise pulled off back when it was a Switch exclusive, according to the same report, which called Monster Hunter Wilds the best-selling game of 2025 so far.
It signifies an impressive metamorphosis for the Monster Hunter series, which slowly but surely went from a niche hardcore RPG to a global phenom, but also one for Capcom, which promised to redouble its efforts to captivate PC audiences nearly four years ago. Around that time, Capcom’s COO said half of its sales ought to be on PC by 2023 or so, and it’s not just Monster Hunter players who were eager to take them up on that.
- Monster Hunter Wilds sells 8 million copies in 3 days, 'the fastest any game has done so in Capcom’s history'
- Monster Hunter producer says 'There are more players than ever playing on PC, including in Japan,' and that the series' handheld wilderness years prepared them for Wilds' day 1 PC launch and crossplay
In fact, Capcom’s 2024 integrated report specifically called out their PC-minded efforts, saying that they had indeed hit that benchmark: "the PC version accounts for nearly 50% of our software sales, but our analysis shows that there is still room for growth." With this multiplatform-oriented strategy and Capcom circling back to port games like the original Monster Hunter Stories, I can’t help but wonder if Monster Hunter’s on-and-off history of console exclusivity is completely behind it. More than merely expanding its reach, Monster Hunter has become one of Capcom’s flagships, and of the biggest games on PC.
This is all despite the fact that Wilds’ numerous performance hitches, bugs, and crashes have dragged the game down to a mixed user rating on Steam, though it being fantastic might have something to with that; Lincoln Carpenter called it "an action game in a class without contenders." As patches continue to roll in, drivers update, and hardware improves, whatever critiques you can levy at Monster Hunter Wilds aren’t likely to slow it down.
If you’re keen to add yourself to the hundreds of thousands of hunters already out there, check out PC Gamer’s guide to multiplayer hunts. Monster Hunter Wilds is available on Steam.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
